help with fert dosing

[hubbard]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this forum and have gained a great deal of information.
I'm confused with fert dosing and fert schedule.
I have a 12 gal. Eclipse with 36 wats p/c and 100% fluorite base, plants seem healthy but are not growing much. The nitrate is between 5 and 10, phosphate is .5 to 1.
I have the following ferts, Seachem nitrogen, potassium, iron, flourish, phosphorus and trace. What would you suggest the weekly dosage be on this size tank?
Any help greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas To All…………

[djlen]

The only thing I see missing is Excel(carbon). That would be a good addition for faster plant growth. Since I don't use the Seachem line, for the most part, I can't comment on dosing, but I've read posts where people have suggested following the instructions on the bottles.
I do dose Flourish twice a week for traces. Once at water change and once at mid-week. Also, I dose the Fe(iron) daily at a lower dosage because one or two large doses a week wastes much of the Fe before it can be taken up by the plants. Dosing it this way has made a big difference in my Crypts. See what the bottle is calling for (mls.) for the week and spread it out on a daily basis. Example: If over the course of a week you are now dosing Fe at 14mls./wk., start dosing 2mls./day. I found this to be very effective with Fe. This is just an example. Your dosage, I'm sure would be less.
I would not continue buying Flourish Trace. If you compare it with 'Flourish' you'll find that Flourish is much more complete and IMO, all you need for traces.

Len

[Starry]

Originally posted by hubbard
The nitrate is between 5 and 10, phosphate is .5 to 1.
I have the following ferts, Seachem nitrogen, potassium, iron, flourish, phosphorus and trace. What would you suggest the weekly dosage be on this size tank?
Any help greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas To All…………

As Len pointed out, you're really missing carbon. You can try Excel, but I didn't like it. I'd go with DIY Jell-O yeast CO2. You'll see major improvements. If you have the Excel already, might as well try it and see what happens.

Your nitrates are good. I never saw a difference between 5 or 15 ppm, so I keep it at about 5. Phosphates are good as well for now. You can increase it a little later if you think it might help, bit it's good as it is now. You definitely want to dose traces (Flourish, as Len said), at the recommended level.

You're probably really low in potassium. You can't test for it, but it's usually lacking and hard to overdose anyway. Start dosing Flourish K, but many times what the directions say. If I remember correctly, the directions would give you about 1ppm. You want around 20. There's a handy equation on the bottle that you can use to figure out how much to dose to get 20 ppm. I dose only at water changes, but you can do it twice a week if you want. Unfortunately the bottle won't last long at this rate, so you might want to look into an alternate source. Most common are KCl or K2SO4. I use KCl, which is found as a salt substitute in the salt isle. It's potassium chloride, and sometimes goes by the name NuSalt or NoSalt. Other sources may be cheaper, do a search on past threads and you'll find it.

Good luck

[hubbard]

:shake:
len and starry
thats for your response,forgot to mention i am running a nutrfin c/o on this tank.as for as ferts go i already have the florish products want to us these up before going to bulk ferts.
starry:dont mean to be dumb sounding but how many mls of each
would i need to add .

florurish potassium,iron
plain flourish am dosing 1/4 ml 2x/week sound about right?
new to this.thanks for any and all advise.