libertybelle
Aquarium Advice Addict
I know there’s a lot of different guidelines on how much nitrate/ferts to dose but thought i’d ask the experts here if my plan sounds good.
My tank is fairly low maintenance right now, lighting right under the border of being considered medium light by the WPG estimation. Plants are mostly slow growers. Details about the tank are on my about me page if you want more info.
Lately I’ve gotten very slack with dosing any kind of nutrients mostly counting on root tabs and fish food to keep some nutrients in the system. Eventually as expected, I got a nice crop of spot algae on the glass/ older leaves. When I tested for phosphates unsurprisingly they had zeroed out. My nitrates always stay low, the tank is pretty understocked. When I tested I only had about 5 to less than 10 ppm of nitrates in the water even after slacking off on water changes for a while so I dosed phosphates to bring it to .5 to see how they’d do. A day later phosphates were zero again. I kept the nitrate to phosphate ratio at 10:1 for a few days and within a week both nitrates and phosphates were reading at basically 0. So clearly I have to start dosing macros again.
I’m using the seachem line, And yes, I know I’m paying for water but I already have them so I’m planning on using them until they’re gone.
Current plan is to get back in the habit of daily excel dosing, add new root tabs for the swords, flourish comprehensive and trace alternating once a week each and dose N and P to 10ppm and 1ppm respectively. I do also have K Sulphate if I see any signs of K deficiency and I usually dose that once a week as well.
Is 10ppm high enough for a relatively slow growth tank? Obviously I will keep testing for both nitrate and phosphate as I get used to the schedule and if they disappear too fast will increase dosing.
My tank is fairly low maintenance right now, lighting right under the border of being considered medium light by the WPG estimation. Plants are mostly slow growers. Details about the tank are on my about me page if you want more info.
Lately I’ve gotten very slack with dosing any kind of nutrients mostly counting on root tabs and fish food to keep some nutrients in the system. Eventually as expected, I got a nice crop of spot algae on the glass/ older leaves. When I tested for phosphates unsurprisingly they had zeroed out. My nitrates always stay low, the tank is pretty understocked. When I tested I only had about 5 to less than 10 ppm of nitrates in the water even after slacking off on water changes for a while so I dosed phosphates to bring it to .5 to see how they’d do. A day later phosphates were zero again. I kept the nitrate to phosphate ratio at 10:1 for a few days and within a week both nitrates and phosphates were reading at basically 0. So clearly I have to start dosing macros again.
I’m using the seachem line, And yes, I know I’m paying for water but I already have them so I’m planning on using them until they’re gone.
Current plan is to get back in the habit of daily excel dosing, add new root tabs for the swords, flourish comprehensive and trace alternating once a week each and dose N and P to 10ppm and 1ppm respectively. I do also have K Sulphate if I see any signs of K deficiency and I usually dose that once a week as well.
Is 10ppm high enough for a relatively slow growth tank? Obviously I will keep testing for both nitrate and phosphate as I get used to the schedule and if they disappear too fast will increase dosing.