Starting Ferts On My Ten Gallon

The August FOTM Contest Poll is open!
FishForums.net Fish of the Month
🏆 Click to vote! 🏆

bordercollie05

Fishaholic
Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
468
Reaction score
0
Location
Texas, USA
I've got a ten gallon tank which started as low light. I'm working on understanding planted tanks and have upgraded the light and added CO2 since then. The next step is ferts.

My lighting info:
I have 2 spiral compact fluorescent lights each rated 6500K and 800 lumens (this gives 1600 lumens total) so this should be equivalent to about ~3 watts/gal with respect to a t12 light (with the information that it gives out 50 lumens/watt)

My CO2 info:
I just got my CO2 bottle to stop leaking this week and I think I'm getting about a bubble/second. I'm monitoring the pH, it's come down from the usual 7.8 from the faucet to 7.4...trying to keep a close eye on this. I'm also going to get a kH kit this week to try to measure my CO2 in ppm.

Ferts?:
My real questions are about EI. I'd like to give this a shot and have been reading up on it. It sounds like you don't really need K2SO4 unless you notice problems because you get enough K from the KNO3 and the KH2PO4. Is this right?

Also, I've read a lot of mixed reports about what trace minerals to use. I was thinking of using Seachem Flourish as I think it is locally available to me. Do I need to dose their Fe product too? or is just the regular product enough? Is there any reason to use another micro mix instead?


To sum it up:
1. Do you really need K2SO4? How do you know if you need it?
2. How do you know whether to supplement a micro mix with Fe?
3. How do you pick a micro mix, and will Seachem Flourish be okay for my needs?
 
1) No, but you can add a bit more if you want, it wont do any harm, pottasium deficiencies include -

Pinholes in leaves which slowly become larger over time. Leaves begin to curl, become yellow from edge inwards and also lose resistance to disease.

2) I know of no one who doses iron but defficiencies include -

Leaves become brittle, slightly glass like and normally look like they are rotting. They also look slightly less green and take on a more yellow appearance

3) Seachem flourish will be fine aswell as TPN (not the plus version as you are already dosing N&P) aslong as it's good quality, alternatively you could buy a trace mix in powder form.

places to buy form include Aqua Essentials and Garden Direct

K2SO4 is know as sulpahte of potash in Garden Direct, you get more for your money at Garden direct, i took this from Ulster Extile from UKAPS -

Aquaessentials
Potassium Nitrate (250g) - £4.99

Mono Potassium Phosphate (250g) £4.99

Trace elements Mix (250g) - £9.99

Postage = £3.95
Total = £23.92


Garden Direct
Potassium Nitrate (500g) - £5.25
Nitrogen (N) 13% Potassium Oxide (K2O) Soluble in water 46% (K38.2%)

Potassium Phosphate (500g) - £4.25
Phosphorus Pentoxide (P2O5) 52% (P 22.7%) Soluble in water Potassium Oxide (K2O) 34% (k28.2%)

Chelated Trace Elements Mix(500g) - £10.50
Contains Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Copper plus unchelated Boron and Molybdenum
Iron 3.35% Copper 1.7% Manganese 1.7% Boron 0.88% Zinc 0.88% Molybdenum 0.023%

Postage = £4.95
Total = £24.95



You may need to dose MgSO4

some good guides -

TFF - EI
UKAPS - EI
UKAPS - EI with Dry salts
 
Thanks so much for your help, that all sounds great, I'm really looking forward to starting this!

Laura
 
Magnesium is added in the form of magnesium sulphate if your water has low magnesium levels. GH is made up of calcium and magnesium and generally speaking your tap water has plenty of both. Sometimes though, tap water is nearly all calcium so you have to add extra magnesium. If your dosing is working fine then there is probably no nead to add any Mg. With low GH it's best to add some GH booster as this adds both Calcium and Magnesium in the correct ratio. Low magnesium syptoms are yellowing leaves with the veins staying green and the leaf edges of fast growing stem plants curling.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top