Nitrogen Deficiency

dundadundun said:
now, that's good H^2O!

shooting for a kh of 5-7 degrees would usually be ideal.

you, my friend are about as far as you could be from needing that filter as far as i see.

side note... i want to see some N in that tank, since you know it's low. ;) 10ppm MINIMUM, buddy boy. :grinno:
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LOVE WaterBoy--- Girlfriend HATES it now that she'd had to watch it a million times.

7 kH is where I am sitting at. Tested last night

"you, my friend are about as far as you could be from needing that filter as far as i see." How can you tell from these reading?

I dosed a CAP full last night, bottle recommended 1/2 cap per 40 gallons. Nothing this morning on the test.
 
starting off... mg/l = ppm (milligrams per liter or parts per million)
.................. ug/l = ppb (micrograms per liter or parts per billion)

the numbers you're posting are all well within acceptable ranges and, in fact some of that may actually be necessary for good health since pure water can actually strip your body of essential minerals (which many of those are, especially ca and mg). lots of folks have much harder water with a lot more crud than you do and still, the recommended practice for planted tanks is to use tap water and treat it for chloramine and heavy metals where necessary. it's not to say that starting with pure water doesn't give you the advantage of REALLY KNOWING EVERYTHING that's in your water... BUT... to get EVERYTHING out you'd need several other processes... deionization, multiple stages of distillation, uvc wouldn't be a bad idea at that point... and there are several i have no idea about to boot... AND... all it takes for drinking water to be too low in essential minerals is reverse osmosis... the very basics... at that point you have the choice of re-mineralizing before the tap to keep the water drink-worthy or purchasing another tap and a "T" connector to have a tap that supplies "pure" water and one you can drink from. seems a bit much for clean water when you have pretty clean water to start with. adds up in price where you could spend that money elsewhere also.
 
also... your calcium and magnesium are uber low... that's what we refer to when we say gh... there are things that can affect any regent test anywhere from age, misuse, other minerals in the water, etc. ... if those are your actual ca and mg readings, you'd be best just to add it anyway, imo.
 
dundadundun said:
there are things that can affect any regent test anywhere from age, misuse, other minerals in the water, etc. ... if those are your actual ca and mg readings, you'd be best just to add it anyway, imo.
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This is why sometimes my gH and Kh is up to 10 sometimes. I do VERY VERY little W/c as possible.

So I need to breakdown and get that Python I guess....More W/C on the way and I should follow this formula

"~1/2 tsp baking soda per 5 gallons of w/c water at w/c (increase your dkh by 5) time would be a bare minimum... but you definitely don't want to take that kh up quickly, directly in the tank. doing frequent w/c's would be your best bet until the tank levels out. shooting for a kh of 5-7 degrees would usually be ideal."


THANKS so much for your time DunDad... I am wrapping my head around all these Ferts since I think NOW this is where my problems lie.
 
no problem. yeah, i'd have to agree from the looks of things.

what you'll probably want;

baking soda (kh)
gh booster (ca, mg and probably k)
kno3 (n with some k)
kh2po4 (p with some k)
plantex (micros)
doubt it's even necessary once you're done with everything else, but it's always on the list and never hurts... k2so4 (k)
 
Tested again when I got home from work, still yellow as can be. I shook that bottle just to ensure I was getting accurate readings. Tested two time, added another cap ful. Will test again in the morning. Now wondering if my liq test N kit is no longer any good, geez I ought to have some readings with the fish load I have.
 
Are you shaking the bottles vigorously for 30 seconds before adding the drops? Also you must shake the test tube for 1 minute after adding drops and then wait 5 minutes to get an accurate reading.

The solutions in the test bottles can separate and then you are not adding the proper ratios to get an accurate test, and if you have been testing this way for awhile then the test solution will be out of whack since you have been adding in just one chemical that is contained in the bottle.
 
methinks it's time to make a reference solution and test that.
 
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