I am in the process of setting up and will be maintaining a 150 gallon heavily planted tank for a customer. It will house 8 Discus, 40 Cardinal Tetras, 15 Corys, 15 Ottos, and 15-20 Ghost Shrimp. I may add 1 betta. Anyways, It's going with a 50/50 mix of Flourite/Eco-Complete, which I will seed with mulm and a bit of peat in the lower levels. I will be waiting a little while to add the Discus and Cardinals. I am going to be using pressurized CO2 and a ph controller. I will have 4x96w AH Supply CF kits for about 2.5wpg. This tank is 7'x18"x24" (LxWxH). I've got a good bit of planted experience, but haven't been doing a higher lighting or pressurized system in almost a year. I have only had to do minimal ferts in my own personal tank for this duration.
Basically, I've become rusty on my fert dosing knowledge. Especially since I can't use the Tom Barr method of 50% changes 1/week. While I will be doing weekly changes for the first month or two (to get it established), I will eventually have to cut back to every 2 weeks maintenance. I have auto feeders that I'm going to set up for the fish, but what do I do for my dosing routine? Also, just so I start out on the right foot, I wouuld like to get exact measurments of ferts to start with (ballpark figures) to save me time and testing the water 10 times each visit for the first couple of months. I have read the fert sticky, but I believe those assume a much smaller aquarium for those dosing measurements. For instance, when I had my own 150 planted, I was dosing about 80 drops of Enema (not 3 or 4 drops) every week with a smaller refresh mid-week. Her water is well water with no Phosphates or Nitrates measured. pH is around 7.7, KH is 6.5, GH is 6. No ammo, nitrite, etc. She uses a water filtration unit for her whole house that keeps things looking pretty good. Although the water is a bit alkaline and hard, it is similar to what I have at my house, and this has been fine. With CO2 dosing, the pH will hover around 6.8 (30ppm CO2) with those figures.
Please give some ideas for a dosing regimen and the amounts of each fert for this large of a tank to get me into a good ballpark. Thanks.
Basically, I've become rusty on my fert dosing knowledge. Especially since I can't use the Tom Barr method of 50% changes 1/week. While I will be doing weekly changes for the first month or two (to get it established), I will eventually have to cut back to every 2 weeks maintenance. I have auto feeders that I'm going to set up for the fish, but what do I do for my dosing routine? Also, just so I start out on the right foot, I wouuld like to get exact measurments of ferts to start with (ballpark figures) to save me time and testing the water 10 times each visit for the first couple of months. I have read the fert sticky, but I believe those assume a much smaller aquarium for those dosing measurements. For instance, when I had my own 150 planted, I was dosing about 80 drops of Enema (not 3 or 4 drops) every week with a smaller refresh mid-week. Her water is well water with no Phosphates or Nitrates measured. pH is around 7.7, KH is 6.5, GH is 6. No ammo, nitrite, etc. She uses a water filtration unit for her whole house that keeps things looking pretty good. Although the water is a bit alkaline and hard, it is similar to what I have at my house, and this has been fine. With CO2 dosing, the pH will hover around 6.8 (30ppm CO2) with those figures.
Please give some ideas for a dosing regimen and the amounts of each fert for this large of a tank to get me into a good ballpark. Thanks.
