Planted Tank upgrade and questions

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Alright. ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1406137492.661276.jpg
Is this all I need? I was kinda hoping there would be one kit that included the drop checker and the solution.


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Thats what you need yes. Will show...

Blue as too little co2
Green perfect co2
Yellow too much co2

The drop checker takes a long time to adjust to the co2 levels so dont react to the colour too fast.


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So what's the disadvantage of having too much co2? Just the fact that it's unnecessary and being wasted, or does it actually harm something? (Besides pH drop affecting fish of course).


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Fluval makes a drop checker with solution. I saw it on Amazon.
Too much CO2 can be harmful to your fish. Not sure if CO2 competes with O2, but it causes respiratory distress. The fish will be gasping at the surface. I had this happen once.
 
Khuligirl93 said:
Alright. View attachment 244160
Is this all I need? I was kinda hoping there would be one kit that included the drop checker and the solution.


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Click to expand...


You should message bud29, he sells basically the exact same stuff but much cheaper. He might have a thread up on the classifieds here, but just in case here's his TPT thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=679465&highlight=diffuser Always a good experience buying from him.
 
Ok thanks, I'll contact bud29 to buy it instead of amazon!
Wow this article is great. It explains so much. Even though it's about EI, it references PPS-pro concepts as well. Only thing that would make it better would be if the experiments had been done using PAR and not WPG.
http://www.ukaps.org/index.php?page=dosing-with-dry-salts



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Woohoo! Got my ferts! ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1406159159.082284.jpg
ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1406159174.027553.jpg
I did 3ml of macros (only K2SO4 and KH2PO4 because my water is really hard and I separated the nitrate)
3 ml of micros
And 1 ml of nitrate (I used an old Prime 500ml bottle)
I'm about to test nitrate and phosphate to see where that put me.
Did my 50% WC today with a new system I figured out how to water my moms flowers with my discharge water and fill up with fresh tap water all with NO BUCKETS (pythons don't work with my sink configuration and tank location)! :) my fish are happy, and I am happy. It's a good day.


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Nice! My girlfriend always saunters through the room when I'm measuring out all the ferts and comments that the kitchen now looks like a Columbian drug lab. Yeah, well, they may not be drugs but we are all pretty much addicted to our tanks...
 
Haha... hey hey, tampering with my quote! Naw, mine were just thrown together because they were better than nothing. But GLA's is looking clean and refined. This challenges me, however, to do a redesign soon. :)
 
Haha! Sometimes I do feel like I'm back in chem lab when I'm working with my tanks :)
Ok so test results!: (2 hours after dosing)
Nitrate: 5-20? I hate this test. 5, 10, and 20 all look the same to me.
And phosphate was very low, .25-.5 I think?
I guess I've exceeded my quota on pictures I can upload:( so sad.

So- Ricercats told me to get my reds to color up I want higher phosphates and lower nitrates, so to shoot for ~10ppm nitrates and ~3ppm phosphates.
I guess my nitrates are about on track, but since the 1ml/10g like the instructions say for the macro mix only got me to .5ish ppm phosphates, what should I do? It's mixed with the K2SO4, so I don't want to overdose on that trying to raise phosphates.. Why is there no potassium test?
Also, how do you get liquid into the little dosing chambers at the top of the bottles? No matter how I shake or tip mine, no liquid goes through.


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Just squeeze the middle of the bottle. Make sure the cap on the small chamber side is loose or off.
 
I ended up dosing 2mL/10g the macros (sans the Nitrates) to get the phosphate up to 3-5 ppm. I am not sure if the extra potassium is a problem. The next time you mix ferts you may want to increase the phosphate.
For image storage, you can try a photo hosting site such as Imgur. Create an account and upload images. When you want post images on AA, you first go to the Imgur site (there are a few mobile apps for accessing your images) and copy the link to the image you want to use. In your AA post you can click the 3 dots if using the mobile app and select BBCode and select IMG. You then paste the link within the IMG and /IMG tags. If using a PC then I believe the AA website has a place you can paste the image link. I use the mobile app and manually type the IMG tags.
Hope this was not too confusing.
 
Great, thanks for the info! I'll try making an account of an image uploading site. Then I can show you guys how my plants improve over time :)
Could I just add some more phosphate to the macro mix to raise the concentration?

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Yesterday I dosed towards the end of the photoperiod. This morning, without dosing the phosphate and nitrate tests are exactly the same as 2 hours after dosing yesterday. Why haven't the plants absorbed the nutrients? Should I still do a second dose today?
Edit: ok I went ahead and did the recommended dose of macros and micros (since I'm trying to raise phosphates anyway) but not nitrate.


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