Dosing Ferts: Schedule And Amounts

[ranjohns]

I'm new to ferts and would like to feedback on my plan to use Seachem ferts for a 29 gal, well planted in Seachem Flourite, 1 55W CF lamp (AHSupply) HOB 300 g/hr filter, pH 7.2, nearing end of fishless cycle:

Every 2 weeks using Seachem products

~ ¼ teaspoon of Flourish
~ 1/8 teaspoon of Potassium (K2O)
~ 1/8 teaspoon of Nitrogen that contains K20. If this, should I not use the more more potent Potassium?
a dash of Phosphate P2O5 which, also, contains a small % of K20
15 ml (3 tsp) of Excel initially; 4ml (.8 tsp) thereafter (every 2 weeks)

Does this sound about right?

Thanks,

Ranjohns

 

[kcharley]

Hi RJ,

My light/tank size setip isn't too far from yours. I've got a 36 w AH Supply CF on a 22 gal.

How long have you had the light on it? I quickly ran into an algae problem that I attribute to the high quality of the AH Supply light without CO2. If you run into that problem, a cheap fix is white electrical tape on the glass between the light and the aquarium. I had to use three strips to get the amount of light down to beat back the algae problem. (I've removed the tape now that I've added pressurized CO2.) Even with the tape I was dosing the liquid Seachem Excel, NPK and Flourish three times a week at the dosages Seachem called for. With that setup, I didn't have any algae problems.

I'm impressed that you don't have an algae problem. Perhaps that Flourite substrate is making up the difference. (I just had inert gravel.)

What type of plants do you have? My hornwort and watersprite grew reasonably well, the crypts, sword and java fern just sat there.

Long run you might look at dry ferts. They are cheaper than the Seachem liquids. I was intimidated at first by talk of making solutions before adding it to the tank. I just added the dry ferts straight to the water before I added fish back into the tank. Now with fish I just scoop some water from the tank in a plastic cup, dissolve the ferts in that and pour it back into the tank.

HTH.

Greg

 

[waterdrop]

Hi ranjohns,

Are you planning to do this in a sort of "reduced EI" manner? That's sort of what I'm trying to do, doing a significant water change on the weekend to clear out the excess ferts and recharge the excel and other things in a slightly larger amount after the water change.

My situation is almost identical: 28g, med-to-low light,lowtech and for the moment I'm using exactly the same stuff, flourite and the same seachem liquids as you. I've been dosing nearly a capful a day of excel, although I miss days occasionally. I put a half capful of traces (the plain flourish) maybe twice a week and then do a small amt of the plain nitrogen (1 thread in cap), a few drops of P and larger amts of K (up to a whole capful, except I don't have enough currently, so I do less, argh!) Anyway, all this came about after I started out like you with careful measurements but found the plants were not responding. Slowly I realized that my tank was just too clean and devoid of nutrition for the plants and they needed more. Now the plants are responding well. I used the charts at seachem to work out the relationships between how much of a given nutrient were in what amt of liquid and then how that would relate to EI recommendations in pinned articles in our planted section here on TFF. But I've ended up doing what seems to be more, but trying to make it be in a somewhat careful way.

Hope this might help a little, but note that DS, AC and Aaron and the others over in the planted section would of course be better guides than me. I just wanted to say that I now think you can play a little more loosely than I previously thought and I think its ok.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ranjohns]

Hi RJ,

My light/tank size setip isn't too far from yours. I've got a 36 w AH Supply CF on a 22 gal.

How long have you had the light on it? I quickly ran into an algae problem that I attribute to the high quality of the AH Supply light without CO2. If you run into that problem, a cheap fix is white electrical tape on the glass between the light and the aquarium. I had to use three strips to get the amount of light down to beat back the algae problem. (I've removed the tape now that I've added pressurized CO2.) Even with the tape I was dosing the liquid Seachem Excel, NPK and Flourish three times a week at the dosages Seachem called for. With that setup, I didn't have any algae problems.

I'm impressed that you don't have an algae problem. Perhaps that Flourite substrate is making up the difference. (I just had inert gravel.)

What type of plants do you have? My hornwort and watersprite grew reasonably well, the crypts, sword and java fern just sat there.

Long run you might look at dry ferts. They are cheaper than the Seachem liquids. I was intimidated at first by talk of making solutions before adding it to the tank. I just added the dry ferts straight to the water before I added fish back into the tank. Now with fish I just scoop some water from the tank in a plastic cup, dissolve the ferts in that and pour it back into the tank.

HTH.

Greg

Hi Greg, thanks for your reply. I've had my light for 2 weeks. According to a response to my post on http/www.barrreport.com/ my light may be bit too strong given the distance from the substrate. The reply suggested that I lift the light 4 inches. I will do that today.

I've recently had a diatom bloom - appears as a light brown dusting. From what I can gather - I'm new to this and am reading as much as I can - this algae typically appears in new tanks and usually disappears in 2 to 3 weeks. In fact, it remains in the tank but at low levels that are not visible.

I just yesterday started dosing with Seachem ferts. What do you think about my dosing schedule? I think it is a lite version of the EI method and I could probably get by with the levels you are using. With the EI approach water changes will take care of excess amounts. I just have to be patient and find the dosing levels that give me the growth I want, which is low growth. I'm not opposed to adding pressurized co2; but, would rather not. I have children who love to explore.

I have a variety of plants similar to you. I just 2 days ago added 4 bundles of dwarf baby tears, 10 dwarf sags and quite a few dwarf hairgrass. I, also, have several handfuls of floating plants. At the beginning of my fishless cycle (I'm 49 days into it) I had one T8 18 watt lamp and fewer plants. The only plants that grew were the stem plants. The diatom bloom has slowed things down a bit; but with more plants, better lights and Seachem ferts, including Excel (carbon) I expect and hope things will turn around.

I'll likely use dry ferts after I go through the Seachem ferts. Thanks for the tip about using tank water to dissolve the mix.

Best,

Randy

 

[ranjohns]

Hi ranjohns,

Are you planning to do this in a sort of "reduced EI" manner? That's sort of what I'm trying to do, doing a significant water change on the weekend to clear out the excess ferts and recharge the excel and other things in a slightly larger amount after the water change.

My situation is almost identical: 28g, med-to-low light,lowtech and for the moment I'm using exactly the same stuff, flourite and the same seachem liquids as you. I've been dosing nearly a capful a day of excel, although I miss days occasionally. I put a half capful of traces (the plain flourish) maybe twice a week and then do a small amt of the plain nitrogen (1 thread in cap), a few drops of P and larger amts of K (up to a whole capful, except I don't have enough currently, so I do less, argh!) Anyway, all this came about after I started out like you with careful measurements but found the plants were not responding. Slowly I realized that my tank was just too clean and devoid of nutrition for the plants and they needed more. Now the plants are responding well. I used the charts at seachem to work out the relationships between how much of a given nutrient were in what amt of liquid and then how that would relate to EI recommendations in pinned articles in our planted section here on TFF. But I've ended up doing what seems to be more, but trying to make it be in a somewhat careful way.

Hope this might help a little, but note that DS, AC and Aaron and the others over in the planted section would of course be better guides than me. I just wanted to say that I now think you can play a little more loosely than I previously thought and I think its ok.

~~waterdrop~~

Waterdrop, thanks for your reply. You're right. Keeping good records is essential to finding the right dosing levels. And, I am doing a I'll likely up my fert rate. My light just came on my tank. I added my first dose of ferts yesterday (actually, I dosed trace elements once last week). Everything looks noticeably better this morning; even a bit of growth!

My schedule is a modified EI approach. What do you think about the amounts? i think it is too light; but I'll read more - DS, AC and Aaron and the other - and watch my tank.

Thanks, Ranjohns

 

[kcharley]

Hi Greg, thanks for your reply. I've had my light for 2 weeks. According to a response to my post on [URL="http/www.barrreport.com/"]http/www.barrreport.com/[/URL] my light may be bit too strong given the distance from the substrate. The reply suggested that I lift the light 4 inches. I will do that today.

I've recently had a diatom bloom - appears as a light brown dusting. From what I can gather - I'm new to this and am reading as much as I can - this algae typically appears in new tanks and usually disappears in 2 to 3 weeks. In fact, it remains in the tank but at low levels that are not visible.

I just yesterday started dosing with Seachem ferts. What do you think about my dosing schedule? I think it is a lite version of the EI method and I could probably get by with the levels you are using. With the EI approach water changes will take care of excess amounts. I just have to be patient and find the dosing levels that give me the growth I want, which is low growth. I'm not opposed to adding pressurized co2; but, would rather not. I have children who love to explore.

I have a variety of plants similar to you. I just 2 days ago added 4 bundles of dwarf baby tears, 10 dwarf sags and quite a few dwarf hairgrass. I, also, have several handfuls of floating plants. At the beginning of my fishless cycle (I'm 49 days into it) I had one T8 18 watt lamp and fewer plants. The only plants that grew were the stem plants. The diatom bloom has slowed things down a bit; but with more plants, better lights and Seachem ferts, including Excel (carbon) I expect and hope things will turn around.

I'll likely use dry ferts after I go through the Seachem ferts. Thanks for the tip about using tank water to dissolve the mix.

Best,

Randy

Hi Randy,

Raising the light should work also. I don't remember exactly how soon after adding the light my algae problems started. I had several going at once, including BGA. I did a three day blackout to cure that and then added the tape.

I'm pretty new at this but so far my experience has been that dosing levels and frequencies are suggestions. Like WD, I started, or tried to at least, on the low side and increased dosages based on results. With the liquids, I would up dosing three times a week and using a dropper to measure. (I'm not good at estimating by using the threads in a cap.) If you can get by with once every two weeks, great. It didn't work for me though.

I went the CO2 route partly out of panic due to the algae. If I had it to do over again, I would have lived with the muted light and dosed liquid carbon and dry ferts. On Tom's site, there is a pinned thread on non-CO2 methods. I've got some other tanks that I will steer that direction once I'm comfortable I've got the CO2 sorted out. Plants do grow well with the CO2 but then the other nutrients need to be increased. I'm getting there.

The dward sags sound nice. I'm thinking about some also, but I would really like to find some dward val for the foreground. Right now I've got watersprite in the foreground and I have to routinely trim it because it grows so fast.

Greg

 

[ranjohns]

Hi Randy,

Raising the light should work also. I don't remember exactly how soon after adding the light my algae problems started. I had several going at once, including BGA. I did a three day blackout to cure that and then added the tape.

I'm pretty new at this but so far my experience has been that dosing levels and frequencies are suggestions. Like WD, I started, or tried to at least, on the low side and increased dosages based on results. With the liquids, I would up dosing three times a week and using a dropper to measure. (I'm not good at estimating by using the threads in a cap.) If you can get by with once every two weeks, great. It didn't work for me though.

I went the CO2 route partly out of panic due to the algae. If I had it to do over again, I would have lived with the muted light and dosed liquid carbon and dry ferts. On Tom's site, there is a pinned thread on non-CO2 methods. I've got some other tanks that I will steer that direction once I'm comfortable I've got the CO2 sorted out. Plants do grow well with the CO2 but then the other nutrients need to be increased. I'm getting there.

The dward sags sound nice. I'm thinking about some also, but I would really like to find some dward val for the foreground. Right now I've got watersprite in the foreground and I have to routinely trim it because it grows so fast.

Greg
[/quote]

Greg, I've already upped my fert dosage to 1/2 and 1 ml partly out of impatience and partly b/c anything less is more difficult to measure and just seems like any less wouldn't be effective. No sound rationale here. But, I'm convinced that co2 is the limiting factor. Too little and plants won't optimally uptake other ferts; too little and algae will bloom. I'm looking for balance between dosing, amount/duration of light and water changes. My goal was slow growth. Now, I'm considering fast growth to more quickly reach a higher bio mass; then slower growth to maintain mass. All without injected co2. I'll have to be disciplined in my approach. I'll be happy just to get through the fishless cycle!

Good luck with your foreground choices. I've planted dwarf baby tears. As long as we have good co2 and fert balance just about anything will have to be trimmed regularly. How often seems to depend on how much light and co2/ferts we give them.

Randy