Hi all, this is all new to me so please let me know if you see anything whacky.
I think I have an idea of how I want to dose but I'm sure that I could use some help.
I 'll post the labels I just printed for my two bottles that I want to dose from.
Chuck's calculator tells me that k2so4 is somewhat insoluble so I chose to mix with it, Kno3 and Kh2po4 at ratios that should dose what I'm shooting for. This means a fairly big dose of this somewhat weak solution.
I use "Prime" for dechlorination etc and I understand that it neutralizes No3 so I plan on starting the week off with a water change but no No3 until the next day.
I have 3 tanks that are co2 injected, heavily planted.
I live in the bay area ca.
if anyone would like to look at the target levels and let me know if it is common to dose the full amount 3x a week i's appreciate it.
Please let me know if you see anything glaringly wrong with what I plan.
Thanks


Day 1 Saturday;
50 % water change
Prime
Grumpy's Gh booster (5g in 10g raises GH 2 dGH)
Kh (Baking soda)

Day 1, 3, 5 Saturday, Monday, Wednesday;
Plantex CSM +B (Traces and Iron)
Iron Target; 0.5 - 1.0 ppm
15.85g in 250ml
20ml adds .56ppm in 40g
5ml adds .56ppm in 10g
1ml adds .56ppm in 2g

Day 2, 4, 6 Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday;
K2SO4 (Potassium)
22.5g in 250ml
Target; 20ppm
80ml adds 20ppm in 40g
20ml adds 20ppm in 10g
4ml adds 20ppm in 2g

KNO3 (Nitrate)
3.8g in 250ml
Target; 5 - 10ppm
80ml adds 5ppm in 40g
20ml adds 5ppm in 10g
4ml adds 5ppm in 2g

KH2PO4 (Phosphate) (Do not dose with Iron/Plantex/gh booster)
0.5g in 250ml
Target; 1ppm
80ml in 40g adds 0.9ppm
20ml in 10g adds 0.9ppm
4ml in 2g adds 0.9ppm

I`m interested in hearing if there is any fact to this thought

"I use "Prime" for dechlorination etc and I understand that it neutralizes No3 [/b]so I plan on starting the week off with a water change but no No3 until the next day."

From what I've read, Prime will "detoxify" nitrate to make it less toxic to fish, but won't make it unavailable to plants, much the same as it does to ammonia and nitrite. I can't seem to find information on exactly what it converts it to, but it makes sense to me that it cannot actually be removing it from the water. From this quote from Seachem's website, it sounds like they don't even know how it works.

"Q: How does Prime make a difference in reducing Nitrates?
A: The detoxification of nitrite and nitrate by Prime (when used at elevated levels) is not well understood from a mechanistic standpoint. The most likely explanation is that the nitrite and nitrate is removed in a manner similar to the way ammonia is removed; i.e. it is bound and held in a inert state until such time that bacteria in the biological filter are able to take a hold of it, break it apart and use it. Two other possible scenarios are reduction to nitrogen (N2) gas or conversion into a benign organic nitrogen compound.
I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that when they overdosed with Prime they were able to reduce or eliminate the high death rates they experienced when their nitrite and nitrate levels were high. We have received enough reports to date to ensure that this is no fluke and is in fact a verifiable function of the product."


Prime FAQ

Interesting stuff, so dosing kno3 on the same day as a w/c is probably fine?
Is it preferred for any reason?>
Since you guys popped in, do you mind looking over what I plan on dosing and telling me what you think. I already have discovered that I got the kno3 target and dose levels a little low.
I do need to add the weekly target level to my labels now I have a sense from one of Tom's posts.

I have another question too...
Some people dump all their ferts in once a week, correct?
I'm wondering about the issue with mixing Iron and kh2po4 is it more so in the bottle that it's an issue or always an issue? If it's an issue in the tank then how long apart do doses of Iron and kh2po4 need to be (to be safe)

No, folks do not add all their ferts just 1x a week, 2-x is a min for low light tanks, maybe 1x a week with a real low light tank.

The amount dosed is the same, just the frequency goes to about 3x a week under high light/CO2.

You can also do a daily EI type routine, much like the old days of PMDD.
See the thread here "Want a daily routine, PMDD + PO4" etc.

Instead of 3x a week, you do daily but instead of dividing the total weekly dose by 3, you divide by 7.

You are already doing liquid solution dosing, and you likely feed the fish daily, so you can do the same for the plant ferts.

This works pretty good and can tweak, finesses a tank.
But the trade off is daily dosing.
Some are good with that, some are not.

Mostly a question of your own habits, not the method itself.

You still do the weekly water changes.
If you dose say 20ppm of NO3 per week, you still have a max build up of 40ppm if you assume no uptake or export other than water changes.

Does not matter how frequently you dose.

Most just make a macro fert and micro fert liquid mix.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I appreciate the input.
I do get confused with the statement;
"You still do the weekly water changes.
If you dose say 20ppm of NO3 per week, you still have a max build up of 40ppm if you assume no uptake or export other than water changes."

If you assume no uptake or export then aren't you adding an additional 10 ppm per week?
I am assuming uptake so this is just for clarification.
What is considered a danger level of No3 for fish?

"Instead of 3x a week, you do daily but instead of dividing the total weekly dose by 3, you divide by 7."
"Does not matter how frequently you dose.
Most just make a macro fert and micro fert liquid mix."

Micro is traces (including iron) correct?
What I proposed I do ends up with 6 doses a week, iron (traces?) on alternate days to macros(?)
As long as I alternate micro days and macro days and shoot for at or below weekly max levels I'm going in the right direction?

"No, folks do not add all their ferts just 1x a week, 2-x is a min for low light tanks, maybe 1x a week with a real low light tank."

By 2x min, do you mean the full weekly dose of macros on one day and the full dose of traces on another?
It seems to me that you can put more ferts in a tank if you dose more frequently since the plants eat some up. This is a reason to do so?
I know I might be sounding redundant, I need to roll things around before they sink in.
thanks

Hey there. Check this thread out:
Simple formula to calculate maximum error term for EI

It explains how the maximum nutrient level will actually plateau out if you follow a weekly regimen of X% water changes. It might seem a little non-intuitive, but what you have to remember is that on the second 50% water change you actually remove half of the 30ppm that is now built up, so you remove 15ppm...the next WC you remove half of 35ppm...and so on, and it would reach a maximum of 40ppm over time. So it won;t ever build up to toxic levels if you stick to the weekly/every other week water change regimen.


Correct, you should shoot for your weekly levels...say if you shoot for 20ppm Nitrates, then make a mixture which would add 20ppm nitrate if fully dosed into the tank. Now if you want to do daily doses, divide it into 7 equal parts. If 3x a week, then divide it into 3 parts and dose it every other day. Same goes for traces (which includes Fe). From what I've read, you can dose traces and macros on the same day too, just pour them into opposite ends of the tank. That allows you to dose both macros and micros every day so that you don't have to keep track of which day is for macros and which for micros.

Also, you shouldn;t really overdose just because you are dosing more frequently. The idea behind dosing atleast 2x-3x a week if not more frequently is to keep the nutrient levels roughly uniform and not have weekly spikes which might lead to spikey trends in plant growth as opposed to a uniform trend in plant growth with a steady supply of nutrients. The former case might be a good environment for algae outbreaks.

I hope that clears things out for you.

Cheers

aha!
Thanks so much
I just received a needed lesson in mathematics
The point about not spiking the levels is well received also, good sense.
Talking of algae;
I have spyrogyra in my 2 gal
I had contaminated my 10 gal with it as well although it was never as successful in that tank. Recently we had a little heat spell and the tanks temps all raised to about 84 degrees. During that day or that night the syprogyra was completely gone from the 10 gal tank!
I have only received my dry ferts since this happened and had been sporadically dosing ADA "brighty k" and API "leaf zone" so I don't think I had much of a nutrient balance going on. Jim at Albany Aquarium suggested that the higher temp may have limited oxygen and killed off the algae. Higher temps would have also dropped my co2 saturation. It's never considered that high co2 contributes to algae right? So that is probably a non factor.
I've been seeking out info on spyrogyra for weeks and I can't find much other than to blackout and/or reduce light duration (which I've done)
It is still thriving in my 2 gal so I don't know why it disappeared in the 10 gal, not that I'm complaining about that.
Has anyone got any ideas about destroying this evil spaghetti?
I really appreciate the awesome help on the fert questions
thanks

Hey there, Glad to know that it helped you figure things out. As for Algae, I don't know much myself. Heck I don't even have much of a planted tank yet...I'm still in the process of setting up my very first planted tank . Anyways, regarding the algae, this is the info I found on Dusko Bojic's excellent algae article:

Aquarium Algae ID (updated)

"This non-branching green filamentous algae is called Spirogyra. This algae doesn't appear in polluted water systems but in ones that are eutrophic, rich in nutrients (liquid ferts, CO2 and light).
It grows very fast, forming long, entangled strands. I would personally call this one the "spaghetti algae" :-) , the way it look to me. I am not sure algae eaters will eat Spirogyra. This aquarium of mine has Otocinclus and Neritina Zebra snail, and they are not showing any interest in eating it.
I have removed this algae manually, very easy really.
None of my plants are showing deficiency symptoms. I wouldn't say that some of the nutrients were missing, but rather they were overdosed. In this case I didn't do water change in more that a month, but did continue dosing liquid carbon every week.

There is one problem I have caused (I assume). Since the beginning of this set-up I have used the Estimative Index fertilising regime, dosing 2/3 times a week N,P,K, traces and liquid Carbon (Easy Carbo).
But instead of performing 50% weekly water change, I did only 25% weekly (and sometimes every second week). After some time the system was so rich in nutrients favoring this sort of algae. Lesson learned. Reset the system with large (weekly) water changes, always."

Does that help? Do you think you could have been over dosing nutrients and not doing enough water changes? If not, I have no other ideas. Maybe some of the more experienced members who have had this problem might be able to give you their own experience with Spyrogira.

Cheers