Upgrading fertilizer dosage

[Jmenehan2]

My 29 gallon planted tank has been set up for six months. At first I didn't really know what I was doing and this showed when I had a massive algae outbreak because of the 4 T5ho's that I had running for 10 hours a day. I took steps toward recovering the tank by cutting the light to 2 T5hos and to 6 hours a day. The system has always had DIY CO2 in combination with daily doses of API CO2 Booster. The tank looks much better now, but has been suffering from lack of fertilizer. I started dosing macro and micro nutrients with the Flourish nitrogen at 1.8 ml a week, Flourish phosphorus at 3.6 ml a week, Flourish Potassium at 5 ml a week, and Flourish comprehensive supplement at 2.5 ml a week. I have since then started to raise the fertilizer according to the deficiencies displayed by my plants.

I now have dry fertilizer that will last me for quite a while: 1 pound Potassium Nitrate, 2 pounds Potassium Sulfate, 1 pound Calcium Nitrate, 1 pound Monopatassium Phosphate, and 1 pound Plantex CSM + Boron. I have done a lot of reading about where I should be at for dosing my tank daily. I have come up with 1/8 tsp KN03, 1/32 tsp KH2PO4, 1/32 Trace daily. I do not know how much Potassium Sulfate or K2SO4 to dose daily.

I received a shipment of dwarf baby tears today and was wondering if I should do a 50% water change, start this dosing method, and possibly put another T5ho back into my light fixture to create enough light for the dwarf baby tears.

I don't want this sudden change to put me back a square one.

Plant list: 3 large Cryptocorne, 1 anubias, 1 hygrophilia, 3 medium sized java fern, 3 vallisneria, 4 water sprite, 8 moneywart, 1 echinodorus, 6 rotala.

Fish list: 8 neon tetra, 3 Rh, 3 peppered corydora, and 3 Otto cats

Filter: Eheim Classic 250 canister filter (which I run CO2 through)

Substrate: Flourite

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Jmenehan2]

I put in the third T5ho. I split the baby tears in half and have them tied down to two rocks that are sitting on the substrate. With no responses as of yet I'm going to go through with the 50 percent water change and start the heavy dosing. I have the GH/KH tests and Phosphate test kits coming any day now. With the CO2 only DIY, how much CO2 booster should I be dosing? I really want these dwarf baby tears to take off!

 

[Mebbid]

4 t5ho over a 29g tank? Good lord, that's reef powered lighting. Two t5ho should give you high light in the tank and should be able to grow just about anything.

As for the CO2 booster, I would start out at 1ml / 10g and increase that weekly by another ml / 10g. You can safely go up to a 1ml / g dose with that before it starts to precipitate out and not have any effect.

Going with the high doses like that it might be a better plan to buy metricide 14 day solution and mix it 50/50 with distilled water. It will save you a TON of money down the road.

 

[Jkeating8]

4 t5ho over a 29g tank? Good lord, that's reef powered lighting. Two t5ho should give you high light in the tank and should be able to grow just about anything. As for the CO2 booster, I would start out at 1ml / 10g and increase that weekly by another ml / 10g. You can safely go up to a 1ml / g dose with that before it starts to precipitate out and not have any effect. Going with the high doses like that it might be a better plan to buy metricide 14 day solution and mix it 50/50 with distilled water. It will save you a TON of money down the road.

I wouldn't say that at all. A 29 is a relatively tall tank. My tank is 13.9 inches and I run a 2 bulb right on top with zero problems. I think you'll be ok as long as you dose liquid carbon, too. You may need to cut back to three bulbs or only run all 4 for a few hours out of the light cycle. I see little problem in doing it, but with out pressurized co2 it may be difficult to balance.

 

[Old Scales]

I have a 29g with an Aquaticlife Quad T5 HO. It gives me 3.8wpg on all four bulbs. I use the PPS-Pro method of ferts from GLA and use Glut for carbon at 20ml per day. With diy CO2 you could do glut at 10ml. I found glut helps keep algae down as well as having my PO4 at about 3ppm. Over the last many months I found the "no algae" point for me was this plus running 2 bulbs first hour, then four bulbs for six hours, then back to two bulbs for last hour. I haven't had any algae now for months. I have the tank very heavily planted with med and high light plants. Also I found that many plants don't like it too hot. Mine seem to do a little better at 76-77F than they did at 80F. Hope this will help you some. OS.

 

[Jmenehan2]

Thank you all for the responses. I would love to do the burst of lighting for X amount of hours a day. Unfortunately my fixture only has 1 switch oh well. When I started I had problems with algae but I can't say that my plants were growing slowly. Many of the plants were growing out of control.

Remember that my fixture is raised 10 inches above my tank. It also does not have a splash guard.

 

[Jmenehan2]

4 t5ho over a 29g tank? Good lord, that's reef powered lighting. Two t5ho should give you high light in the tank and should be able to grow just about anything.

As for the CO2 booster, I would start out at 1ml / 10g and increase that weekly by another ml / 10g. You can safely go up to a 1ml / g dose with that before it starts to precipitate out and not have any effect.

Going with the high doses like that it might be a better plan to buy metricide 14 day solution and mix it 50/50 with distilled water. It will save you a TON of money down the road.

I'm all for saving $$$. Thank you for the tip!

 

[Jmenehan2]

I also do not have a way to measure the CO2 in my tank. I heard I can measure CO2 by comparing two tests. Can anyone confirm which tests?
The Echinodorus is growing bright red.. That is my only positive sign of at least some CO2. As far as ppm, no clue

 

[Jmenehan2]

Sorry for the multiple posts. I read online that when dosing dry ferts you should always dose macros one day and dose micros the next day over the course of 3 times a week. (Ex: macros Mon,Wed,Fri & Micros Tue,Thur,Sat. With weekly 50% Water change on Sunday.)
The reason being that the phosphate could possibly have a reaction with the iron in the micro supplement rendering the iron useless.
Can anybody confirm this?

 

[Rivercats]

Iron and phosphate can precipitate when used together which is why you dose them on separate days in El dosing. In PPS-Pro dosing you dose phosphates at one end of the tank and micros at the other end for the same reason.