Fertilizer Newbie

[jmottle]

Hi everyone,

I have a 90 gallon planted tank with CO2 injection and have been following the instruction in this article to a "T" and up until now everything has been going exactly as planned. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_newtank.htm

Right now I'm on week 4 with 4 ottos, 4 SAEs and 1 Farrowella. However I'm starting to notice that my drawf sag, Corkscrew val, and my cabomba are all starting to go yellow and my hygro is starting to get small holes in the leaves. The sag and val leaves are dying off really quickly so I'm assuming I'm severly defficient in some nutrient. According to the article I should not need to fertilize until week 8, but I guess this probably varies widely.

I don't know where to start with fertilization and what I am deficient in, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the rigth direction. I have a 10 gallon that I used to dose with the Flourish Comprehensive PLant supplement, but I ended up with a tank of BBE, so I am very leary to do this again without some more guidance.

I am lighting my 90G with 260W for 8 hours per day and have a 100% Fluorite substraight.

Thanks in advance for any help.

CHeers,
Jeff

[beviking]

Try this link...

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm

Hope it helps!

[jmottle]

Awesome thanks! I saw that once before, but could not find it again.

Cheers,
Jeff

[jmottle]

With these readings can anyone suggest some of what I may need to add

Ok I just meaured most of my tank chemistry and here is what I got:

pH 7.0
KH 8
GH 12
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
CO2 22.5 ppm


Cheers,
Jeff

[plantbrain]

KNO3 : 2/3 teaspoon 2x a week
K2SO4, after water change, 3/4 teaspoon
KH2PO4, 1/8 teaspoon 2x a week
Traces: dose 15mls 3x a week

Weekly 50% water change.

That should improve things.
I can see not dosing for a week to perhaps 3 weeks, but generally, I dose the first or second day lightly and thereafter for a couple of weeks with new tanks.

At about the third or 4th week, I generally go to full dosing.

It depends on one main thing: how much plant biomass you add at the start.

The more, the better. Unfortunately, folks skimp on this important point then have trouble for a few months in the beginning.
Use some cheapy plants, Hornwort etc to fill in till the rest of the plants grow in if you cannot afford the plants etc.

You can add 20-30 ottos.Big school looks nice too.
Move the lighting up to 10-11 hours a day.

You can get the above nutrients from www.litemanu.com
Also, traces= Tropica master grow, SeaChem Flourish, Sera etc are good for dosing or you can make your own with dry trace chemicals in a pre mixed powder, add 500ml of water to ttwo tablespoons of Plantex dry trace mix.

Regards,
Tom Barr