Need some serious help with lighting and plants

[Kimlafeiet]

My PPS Pro is here. I found a dosing chart on thier website, but it only shows the mixing directions for 2 bottles.
How should I split this up into 3 bottles? will the grams to add be the same as it is with the 2 bottles, or do I need to change that as well?
Much thanks for your help

 

[Rivercats]

1 liter bottle:
59 grams K2SO4 (Potassium Sulfate)
6 grams KH2PO4 (Mono Potassium Phosphate)
Fill with distilled water and shake well. Let sit overnight.

1 liter bottle:
65 grams KNO3 (Potassium Nitrate)
Fill with distilled water and shake well. Let sit overnight.

Micro Solution

In 1 liter bottle:
80 grams of CSM+B
Fill with distilled water and shake well. Let sit overnight

Then add 5ml of Excel/Glut to every 250ml of solution in each bottle to keep mold/fungus from growing in the solutions.

If you have 500ml dosing bottles be sure to half the above amounts.

 

[Kimlafeiet]

Thanks. I have the 500ml bottles, so I will make sure to measure appropriately.

Big problem.......maybe.......not sure. So I fput the soil and capped it The other day, and tonight when I was doing a water change to help clear the water, I pulled the siphon a little too far up and lost the suction, causing the water to DUMP back into the tank, thus stirring up the cap and soil underneath, and I now have a huge mess on my hands. Super dirty water with tons of little wood chunks floating around, and a nice layer of potting dirt floating along the top. Ugh. I used a fish net to scoop as much of the dirt off the top as I could, but it is a big mess. I have not turned the filter back on for fear all this dirt and wood will just ruin it.

Am I doomed to start over at this point or can I salvage this? The front left quarter of the potting mix and floramax are totally mixed up, no more cap.

 

[Rivercats]

How thick of a layer of cap did you use? Did you save any? I've removed huge Amazon Swords from my dirted 220 before. Here's a couple thoughts.... first do as you have and net out what you can, next let it all settle, then recap to make it all look nice again. The soil you put in hasn't had time to really water log on the chunkies and that is why it made a bigger than normal mess. All is NOT lost... lol! I've made more dirt messes removing crypts and swords than I care to think about but even as bad as it looks at first it will be fine, really! Now you've learned how not to do WC's in a dirted... LOL!

 

[Kimlafeiet]

Hahaha. Yes I have
I was able to drain the waterpretty much completely (very carefully) and it wasnt as "mixed together" as I thought. I added more floramax to make a thicker cap, I think I had it a little thinner in the front, so it should be better with more cap. Its a good inch and a half solid packed cap.
I think my plants will be coming on Friday (according to thier shipping sched), I want to dip them before planting, so I am hoping to plant Saturday and have the water cleared up much nicer by then. It is already looking much better than last night and the filter is ack on running smoothly.
Thanks for the tips, and the PPS Pro instructions.
With this soil, will I need to dose the ferts right away, or should I wait so long after planting? I will b running the lights only 6 hours as suggested for the first couple months.......

 

[Rivercats]

I wouldn't dose the ferts for a week and before you start them take your nitrate and phosphate reading to see where your starting at. Remember your trying to shoot for 10-20ppm of nitrates and .5-1.5ppm of phosphates. Then each week take those readings right before your weekly WC to see if they are too high or low so you can adjust your dosing for the next week. It will take a few weeks to get the dosing zero'd in especially with a newly dirted tank. If you can't figure out if you need to change your dosing PM me and I'll walk you through it.