Starting with plants - How much How many times a week?

[bman]

I have a 20 long gallon tank, already cycled, and just added 5 Wisteria and a few dwarf sags. Boi load is from 4 Mickey Mouse, 1 mollie, and 1 -angel fish. Roughly 2 wpg. No CO2. HOB Pengiun 150 filter.

LFS hooked me up with the plants, and some ferts to start with.
SeaChem Flourish Iron, SeaChem Flourish Nitrogen, Seachem Flourish Poassium, and Seachem Flourish Excel.

Iron - added 2 ml
Nitrogen - added 1 ml
Potassium - added 1/2 capful
Excel - added 2 capfuls

How often do these fert need to be added? I don't want to have this tank run my life, I would prefer to add chemicals only once a week. Is this possible?

I also do not want to buy any more test kits, I already test for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and pH weekly. If I had to go the route of buying more testing stuff, what REALLY would I need?

PS: My wife thinks I made a celery tank with all the Wisteria growing in there. Guess it does look like a lot. Any tips on pruning these?

 

[hashbaz]

After you have a "well-established routine" for your aquarium maintenance you don't need to do that much testing. The only other test I would suggest getting is a Phosphate kit. But if you have no algae and your plants are growing well you probably won't need this test.

At 2wpg, you should be fine only dosing once a week - except excel should be added at least every other day. I bought a twin neck bottle to make this easier. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=67501

Here is a great link on dosing: http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/articles.htm
In this link, you can download a free program that will calculate how much fertilizers to add.

 

[czcz]

What does the NO3 test show before dosing? As hashbaz said a good method is dosing once you get an idea of your tank uptake. You should test for NO3, and if possible PO4, say every other day. Your targets are 10-15ppm NO3 and 1-2ppm PO4. A little more or a little less is okay if the plants are growing and algae is ignorable. Always trust the plants and algae. So say your tank needs 15ppm of NO3 (according to this, that is about 15mL of Seachem Nitrogen) to maintain your target: you can dose it in the beginning of the week. Better would be to split the dose in half and dose twice a week.

The method I suggest is EI. You would dose, say, 7.5mL of Seachem Nitrogen, 5mL of Phosphorus, and maybe 5mL of Potassium twice a week. On two other days of the week you would do your Iron and Excel dose, but if the plants show nutrient deficiency do it three times a week. Change 10gal a week to make sure nothing runs away from you. This probably reads much harder than it is: routine becomes easy and fast.

If you moved to CO2 you would need KH and pH test kits.

I just tossed or passed on the bottoms of Wisteria.

HTH. You picked great plants and afaik did not overstock. You will do great.

 

[bman]

First, thank you guys for responding with great info, even though the weekly routines are quite different.

LFS guy said we have plenty of phosphates in our water, so he felt I did not need to add that. Plus, overdosing phosphates can cause algae. (I know that pretty well as I work for a swimming pool service/retail company and deal with that all the time)

My Nitrate level to start (Before plants entered) was about 20
Two days later it is 0

WHOA! I guess I am going to add some more nitrogen along with the excel. Am I right? I the nitrogen is low, should I add more of the potassium as well?

I did forget to add that my substrate is just plain gravel.(If that matters)

CZCZ - Change 10 gallons a week! What is the purpose of a 50% WC ?
I religiously change 5 gallons every Sunday.

Also, what does "just tossed or passed on the bottoms of the wisteria" Mean? Research tells me that I can make cuttings of the upper branches and just stick them in the substrate and they will grow. Is this true? Can it be just so easy?

Unfortunately, my wife has hidden the camera, so I can not show you how stocked the tank is at the moment.

 

[humpty]

A 50% weekly water change is typically used to "reset" your tank parameters so you don't get any wild imbalances.
For most planted tanks a missing nutrient is more likely to cause algae than just an over dose. I can over dose my tank with no harm as long as everything stays in balance. Don't ask me how I know that!

 

[czcz]

humpty summed up the principles of EI very well. I did not think the tank would uptake NO3 so quickly. Suggest you keep up on testing it for a few weeks to get a feel of things as hasbaz said. Also suggest you pick up a PO4 kit because uptake may also be higher than expected. If the PO4 from tap is usable, the large weekly changes should help replenish the levels. Often this helps somewhat with traces as well. You can adapt EI anyway you want: some get their dosing fairly exact for uptake and limit water changes. Some test and do >50% changes every other week.

The dosing suggestions are not so different from each other since the targets are the same. I only pimp EI because it is so easy in smaller tanks, and before EI I grew lots of algae After upping your Seachem Nitrogen dose you will reach your potassium target as well, but keeping up on low-moderate Seachem Potassium dosing will not hurt things. If you want to keep things simple, do not up the Excel dosing from the recommended every other day dose. More carbon should drive up uptake, and you did well starting with ~2wpg.

As with most stem plants, you can replant the tops of Wisteria and it will grow. (I used to grow it in a tank without substrate.) When I had it in my small tanks I prefered to replant the tops and either throw away the bottom of the stem or give them to friends to grow. Wisteria can get real dense and imo looks better this way. If you want to fill out your tank, leave the bottom stems they will branch out, but as you probably know it grows fast regardless.

I do not mean to make things more complicated than you want them to be, but Wisteria is an excellent indicator of nutrient deficiency. As you get a feel for your tank, if it continues to grow fast and both new and old growth stay green, you are doing well with dosing.

 

[bman]

Not knowing what EI means, I am assuming that it means that since you do not know exactly what concentrations of chemicals you are putting into the water, the best thing to do is dilute the tank constantly with 50% WC?

Finally got the camera from my wife. Here is our "Celery" tank.

 

[czcz]

Sorry. The link for EI was imbedded in my first post. http://www.barrreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1

If you call once a week constantly, then yeah, along with dosing to ensure no nutrients bottom out. I understand what you mean about high maintenance hobbies, and in my experience large water changes really raise the margin of error. You do not have to do this or read about EI, of course. Malkore explains another excellent dosing method in the fertilization sticky, for example.

Nice tank.

 

[bman]

Sorry, I did not mean to say constantly as a bad thing. I am OK with weekly water changes, I just have double my siphon amount and double my fresh water return. Just two more 5 lb buckets.

Geez. How do you guys with big tanks do it? It must take up a great deal of time during weekly WC. Congrats and much admiration for you large and multiple tank owners!

As for the link on EI, Thank you very much. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do. (My wife will be so happy)

 

[czcz]

I do not have a big tank, but when I do I am getting one of these http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=34353;category_id=2281

 

[humpty]

^ Thats how I do it also! Although now I have a barrel that I prestage my fresh water in so that I don't have to use water that has been through the water softner.

humpty

 

[Crusis]

Oh God yeah..... the python is your BEST friend for frequent or large water changes. I use mine to change the water in 2 75G tanks, and 3 20's. You can attach a regular garden hose to it to make it longer if it won't reach your tank. Works great, and helps you clean your gravel.

Money WELL spent.