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tropica specialised dosage

darren636

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5 Aug 2011
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dorset
After driving around the south west of England this morning, I finally found a shop that actually sells ferts that contain npk ( note to all other shops- NPK IS WHAT WE WANT, SORT IT OUT) . anyway... What dosage do people go with on a high tech setup. ?

PS. Thanks aquajardin for having plenty of goodies.
 
My 40 litre quarantine. So, 30 litres of water , the rest florabase and plants. No fish.
 
Just curious to see what people do , in terms of double dosing etc. I have no idea if its a strong fert or not.
 
Does it not give you a dosage guidence on the bottle? I would have thought it was in the order of 1ml per 10 litres, unless their mix is different from what I am used to seeing.
yep. Got guidance, but no indicators of % npk etc. I only used dry powders before
 
George uses this so perhaps he can advise on his dosage regime?

Their guideline is 1 pump (1.2ml) per 10 litres per week but for high-tec they advise to dose 2-3 times per week.
2-3 times dose per week? Interesting.
 
As usual, Darren, it depends on the other facts of the tank.
I have no problem doing double or triple dose of recommended - IF OTHER parameters are high too (plantmass, growthrate, light, waterchanges ...........etc.)
The recommended dose is on the conservative side, aimed at tanks quite less planted and "lower tech" than most here.....
Mick.
 
2-3 times dose per week? Interesting.

You may have seen it in my other thread but I asked them why they suggest dosing weekly. Here was the response:

'I have read the tread on ukaps and understand your confusion. You’re right, it is always better to dose frequently and in smaller quantities than to dose more rarely and in greater quantities. The plants prefer to be fed regularly – like humans J. When fertilizers are added more rarely, the plants might get hungry, adapt to the environment lacking fertilizers and need time to re-adapt when fertilizers are dosed again.

We recommend dosing weekly as many tanks have plants with a steady and slowly growth, and in that case, it’s okay to dose weekly. In addition, many aquatic hobbyists only spend time on their tank once a week, if not even rarer. However, in tanks with rapidly growing plants, the plants need a dosage several times a week to ensure the best possible growth conditions. In our test laboratory, we usually dose 2-3 times a week.'

I suppose the one omission is how much they dose in those 2-3 times. As Mick says I suspect the figure is conservative. Personally I would probably dose 1 pump per day. More won't hurt except on the wallet. :)
 
As usual, Darren, it depends on the other facts of the tank.
I have no problem doing double or triple dose of recommended - IF OTHER parameters are high too (plantmass, growthrate, light, waterchanges ...........etc.)
The recommended dose is on the conservative side, aimed at tanks quite less planted and "lower tech" than most here.....
Mick.
I guess it would be on the 'lean' side. With no livestock entering this system , I can experiment freely. Thanks all
 
Just to give advice : you can "downscale" the amount of NPK by exchanging a percentage of total amount, to premiun fertilizer, that contains no NPK. This way not reducing others.
Mick.
 
I dose Tropica specialized in my 24 litres planted tank. When there's lot of biomass I dose daily 1.5-2 ml, when there's less 1 ml, always with liquid carbon (again depending on biomass 2-3x). I can't remember the recommended dose but I think I'm dosing 2-3x.
Works well but obviously only for small tanks.
 
I dose Tropica specialized in my 24 litres planted tank. When there's lot of biomass I dose daily 1.5-2 ml, when there's less 1 ml, always with liquid carbon (again depending on biomass 2-3x). I can't remember the recommended dose but I think I'm dosing 2-3x..
That's precisely, what I ment - way to do it :thumbup:
Mick.
 
My local P@H stocks tropica specialised and tropica plant growth substrate,not sure if they all do

Cheers
Martin
 
OOOOps just realised that my P@H stocks Premium and not Specialised but i suppose its a step in the right direction. I might have a word next time i'm in there to see whether than can add the specialised to their delivery.Their plant selection looked the worst for ware though :thumbdown:

Cheers
Martin
 
Have been using Specialised the past 2 years in various size tanks with good results. At the very start I naively dumped the weekly recommended dosage in one or two days and got an algae bloom within a few days. This is a mistake many folk I understand make, as it's not explained carefully in the dosage instructions. From then on I divided the weekly recommended dosage over six days together with 40% weekly water changes and have never looked back. I have a heavy plant load in some tanks and have never felt it necessary to dose more apart from occasionally adding a little more KNO3 when I felt the plants needed it..

One other thing, there seems to be a slight discrepancy with the recommended dosing on the Tropica web site which suggests '5 mL per 50 L water' so 50ml for a 500L tank. However on their table on the bottle it recommends 50 pumps per week for 500L, as they put a value of 1.2ml per pump this works out at 60ml per week for a 500L tank and not 50ml !?
 
When I began to dose with Specialized I was also a bit confused with that... but algae rules, I had to adjust the dose to my particular needs, independently of the recommendations. In my case, I have a 'problem' with my LED light unit that seems to be over dimensioned for this tank. I am dosing 2-3x ferts and liquid C and I am still dimming the light. That means that there is still room for more!
 
I am using specialised since 2 months and never gonna come back to dry salts. My tank is only 68 L and I was always struggling with the plant growth. So far I am testing the dosing but at the moment 3 pumps per day. I only changed the dosing since 1 week from 2 pumps per day and I think plants looks a bit better but it might be just matter of time. I think I may try to dose 1 pump per day soon which is recommended dose and I will let you know if any problems.
 
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