I've been testing my water pretty much daily, trying to get a feel for how often to fertilize my plants.
The trace elements fertilizer and the NPK fertilizer I have both say on the bottle to dose (1 cap/20g) 1-2 times per week, but I'm finding that I have to dose more often and I'm a bit concerned and wanted to ask if that's okay.
Here's an example: I tested NO3 and PO4 yesterday after I fertilized - NO3 ~10ppm, PO4 ~0.5ppm. Tonight I tested again and NO3 was down to ~5ppm, PO4 was at 0.25ppm. I added another dose of fertilizer to get the levels back where they were yesterday.
I added traces the day before yesterday, I'm wondering whether I should be dosing them more often than suggested as well. I can't test all the chemicals and I was wondering if dosing traces too often leads to some chemicals building up too fast and it's better to just do as the bottle says even if iron levels get low (Fe goes from 0.5 down to 0.25 in 72 hours).
Thanks for the help
[Edit] To give you an idea of how fast these guys are growing, the spadeleaf that was at least 1" from the surface ~36 hours ago in this picture
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36972
is breaking the surface today. A few days ago I thought the tank looked fantastic, today I looked at it and realized I'm going to have to do some pruning pretty soon or the fish won't have room to move! I don't mind this, it will give me a constant project to work on, but I do want to make sure that I keep them healthy. [/edit]
The trace elements fertilizer and the NPK fertilizer I have both say on the bottle to dose (1 cap/20g) 1-2 times per week, but I'm finding that I have to dose more often and I'm a bit concerned and wanted to ask if that's okay.
Here's an example: I tested NO3 and PO4 yesterday after I fertilized - NO3 ~10ppm, PO4 ~0.5ppm. Tonight I tested again and NO3 was down to ~5ppm, PO4 was at 0.25ppm. I added another dose of fertilizer to get the levels back where they were yesterday.
I added traces the day before yesterday, I'm wondering whether I should be dosing them more often than suggested as well. I can't test all the chemicals and I was wondering if dosing traces too often leads to some chemicals building up too fast and it's better to just do as the bottle says even if iron levels get low (Fe goes from 0.5 down to 0.25 in 72 hours).
Thanks for the help
[Edit] To give you an idea of how fast these guys are growing, the spadeleaf that was at least 1" from the surface ~36 hours ago in this picture
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36972
is breaking the surface today. A few days ago I thought the tank looked fantastic, today I looked at it and realized I'm going to have to do some pruning pretty soon or the fish won't have room to move! I don't mind this, it will give me a constant project to work on, but I do want to make sure that I keep them healthy. [/edit]
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