Nice post Tom...I will have to agree, Rex's prices are higher and it did take me over 2 weeks to receive my ferts.
Dry Aquarium Fertilizer @ AquariumFertilizer.com
- Thread starter Exodus00FF
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I am actually inquiring about several tanks, but primarily about my 92 Gallon Corner Tank. Medium Light 2x96w Power Compact Bulbs. Just slightly over 2 watts per gallon.
I wouldn't say I'm freaking
. I'm just basically trying to do some fact finding and figuring out what everything is for. The labeling on the other Brand name commercial products is a bit better imo, and takes the guess work out of everything for me.For Example if I need a Potassium Supplement, it's obvious that I need to purchase Flourish Potassium. Whereas the Dry fertilizer I gotta do a little guessing because there are two things with Potassium in it. Potassium Nitrate and Potassium Sulfate.
Then the question for me becomes, if I use potassium Nitrate does it actually raise my potassium levels or does it just get absorbed by the plant as Nitrate.
When I used Seachem Flourish I didn't even have to think about these things, and I just had to follow the instructions. This stuff is a little bit more advanced.
Excel is really great for me, because I have a fair amount of turnover in my tank. Obviously the more turnover you have, the less dissolved CO2 you have in the water. Since dissolved organic carbons don't get released into the air I do not have to worry about lowering my tank turnover. Which is why Excel is perfect for me.
If I used CO2, I'd be loosing a lot of CO2 due to agitation.
So the CMS+B will cover the the Trace (Micro) Nutrients?
Iron Chellate is obviously for Iron
What do the other ones do?
What do you use the GH Booster for?
What do you use the Potassium Sulfate for and Potassium Nitrate?
Definitely one of the reasons why I want to start with the Dry Fertilizers
For tanks under say 20-30 gallon, making a stock solution might be easier than measuring 1/16th of teaspoon, but this is not rocket science either, if you are off 1-4ppm of NO3, it's not an issue, as long as you dose some(little more, little less)
All we are doing is not letting things become limiting.
The rest is having moderate to low light and then mostly...........and 95% of the issues, are CO2 gas. So later, that is where you should focus most of the energy and tweaking things.
Nutrients are easy once you do them a few times.
Easy to reset(water change) and you can avoid test kits if you wish using water changes(most do anyway and many hate testing, even if they lie and tell others they should do it:silly
Should I be testing for other nutrients, the only thing that I have been testing for in the past was for my Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates. Should I also be measuring my Iron and whatever else levels?
Thanks for the Reply Tom!
Very enlightening email
Keep in mind there are already suggested dosing schedules (ie the EI method) that layout all the measurements for each fert. They are great starting points and you can always tweak them to fit your needs.
Well, you need CO2 with that type of light.
Excel will get you by etc, but you really need CO2 with this amount of intense light.
Not really. You still need to follow instructions.:thm:
Adding potassium nitrate(KNO3) adds both K+ and NO3.
Adding KH2PO4(monobasic potassium phosphate), adds K+ + PO4
GH booster: Ca and Mg and K+
Traces: traces etc..........
Those are 4 simple things.
Teaspoons are simple easy to use things.
Water changes are simple(or should be).
That's it.
No, this is a myth:
I have 3000 gph in this tank(180 Gal)
90-95% of the CO2 is lost in all aquariums that you add.
It's cheap and easy to add more if needed.
You also get 5-15X more growth from CO2 vs Excel.
You might not want that.
I'd only use 1x96 and switch them so that one runs for 5 hours, then goes off and the other starts and runs for another 5 hours. This will help also.
Yes, yes and you can mix the Iron with the CMS.
The other questions are answered above.
You can if you want to test, but with 50% weekly water changes, it's not required. That's the whole point, it keeps things from running out and getting too high. Folks are really bad about testing and then they tend to be really terrible at calibrating their test kits on top of that, it takes more instructions and skills to use those, make a reference solution etc and then you still need to get them to test consistently and that's a lot to ask.
A water change is much simpler and easier to manage.
Water changes can be automated if desired, test kits cannot.
I'd not bother testing, and not Fe ever.
You can do it to say you did, and know that trade off if you want to I suppose. Few got into this hobby to test water.
This makes the routine much simpler than test kits.
And one reason why EI is popular.
Simple, easy to manage and effective.
But dosing is only a little bit of this, CO2/light is the lion's share, so EI nor any dosing method wills ave you from algae if poor CO2/too much light is used etc.
Regards,
Tom Barr
