Nitrogen Deficiency

I dose these dry fertz and do it by mixing up 1/2 cup in 500ml in one of these. I add ~15 ml every day. My NO3 is in the ~10ppm range. I do a water change every week or every other week. My plants do fine. If you have a more planted tank, then increase the daily dosing. I worked up to this, and I know my plant can take more. Its a little trial and error, and if I miss a day or two, the plants are just fine.

why not just bump up another capful and see what happens. I would try this for two weeks and watch my plants closely and see if you have any improvement. I consider it great news if your plants are using up all that nitrogen because that means they are growing a lot.

If you want to do EI without the water changes then dose 1/4 to maybe half of the suggested dose and do a 10% weekly water change. Or if you do 1/2 of the suggested EI then do a 50% water change once every two weeks. You can also look into maybe the PMDD dosing strategy if you want to avoid excess water changes.

You do know what the rest is, haha. However, it makes sense - most people don't want the hassle of mixing and doing conversions to figure out the powerful dry ferts. Take a look at ANY product you use... medicine (ointments, liquid meds), shampoo, body gels, etc. Most of it is going to be carrier (water or alcohol) because otherwise you run the risk of over or underdosing severely. It's actually probably a good thing - if it were stronger, than you'd actually poison your tank if you used too full a capful, for instance.
Most meds are under 1% the actual med, and 99% carrier like petroleum jelly. Perscription ones of the same thing are often 2.5 or 5%, if that gives you an idea of how much stronger that is.

the other 97% is water. boy does it cost a lot to go from manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer plus shipping at every stop... before the final markup... for that extra water. :thumbsup:

don't want to do w/c's? your answer is to test and dose accordingly. find the ppm's of everything your tank likes and keep it there. folks have posted targets, but they're general guidelines, not rules.

replacement for;

• flourish... csm+b
• excel... pressurized co2... or metricide 14 day
• nitrogen... kno3 - potassium nitrate

best, easiest schedule for dry ferts... EI... eliminates the need for testing... but there's the w/c's... or you can slowly adjust each fert accordingly and only re-set the tank periodically... adjusted/altered EI...

best all in one... npk/csm+b package plus root medic tabs (alternatively you can use the recipe in the sticky or fertcicles)

if you're looking for a schedule, the one in the sticky isn't so bad... but like i said, you'll have to adjust it to your liking. understanding the mathematical principle, i think helps for me.

if your gh is low i'd suggest a gh booster or some epsom salts for mg. on a weekly basis during w/c's or maintenance.

other nutrients...
kno3 *potassium nitrate
kh2po4 *potassium phosphate
(optional if your heavily dosing the first two) k2so4 *potassium sulphate
(maybe) fe *chelated iron (usually csm+b covers this just fine)
micros *plantex csm+b

what i do in my 50...

• add barr's gh booster to ~6-7dgh to w/c water
• mix equal parts;

• dose my pmdd weekly or so... sometimes twice weekly

>>>>>this tank receives no carbon supplements what-so-ever and this routine should not work well with a tank that does<<<<<

now, she's not a show stopper... that's not the goal, either... not while chasing a house full of kids... but the plants don't stop growing and there's usually no speakable algae, either.

target ppm of nitrate should probably be below 30 for your tank. i'd definitely want to keep it above 10 as when even my low light tanks start dipping below 10 (usually 5) even they begin to get unruly with algae.

alternatively you can probably mix 4:1:1:1:1 where 4 is your nitrate and all the ones are your other nutrients by volume, measure nitrates and re-set the tank monthly or so with a large w/c.

potassium will be tougher to test afaik... but you can put a lot in without worry.

phosphates... there's one you'll want to test. not saying the tests will be perfect... but there are a lot of myths surrounding that one... and seeing 4+ppm and no algae... then almost no ppm and algae out the wazoo speaks for itself.

iron can be tested simply as well.

the red sea fresh lab deluxe test kit offers a lot of options other test kits don't for a very good price. i used that and referenced my api lab kit for the longest time. other than that, there's other regent kits that can be sold separately or you can get out of the hobby kits and into more serious hobby kits like lamotte kits or pick up spectrometers, ec testers and so on. going the latter routes would be a bit of overkill unless you're eccentric with a good amount of expendable cash flow... or you're testing water for a living, though.

remember... perfection is not the key... a nice ballpark will work just fine. we're gardening here... and feeding the plants isn't much different from feeding an animal... good in, good out... if you offer too much, they simply won't eat it.

if you want target ppms look into pmdd, pps, and pps pro dosing. there'll definitely be differing opinions... but your targets might be a little off from tank to tank as well. no 2 tanks act the same.

there are a lot of explanations and numbers on this site too... http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm don't be afraid to poke around... there's a lot of good info in a small area on that site.

oh, and mg... definitely has what you need.