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Hi guys,

I'm running out of my Flourish liquids (especially Fl. Nitrogen, Fl. Potassium & regular Flourish) and since they're so expensive here in AU ($25 for 500mL), I'm thinking of ordering from Greg Watson. I hope you guys can help with what to order and quantities I need since shipping cost is quite high. I have 3 low-light tanks (42g+23g+15g=80g total volume) with no CO2 added. My current dosing regimen:
- Excel 2-3x/week to the 2 smaller tanks (23g & 15g = 38g).
- Fl. Nitrogen daily to the 23g (understocked) & 2-3x/week to 15g
- Equilibrium 1x/week to all tanks
- Flourish 1x/week to all tanks
- Fl. Phosphorus 1x/week to 23g & 15g
- Fl. Potassium as needed (when holes start forming in polysperma)

I definitely need Excel, Flourish Nitrogen (can't buy KNO3 here in AU, hopefully I can get some from bensaf when I go home in Jan), and a trace mix. I still have quite a bit of Equilibrium left (300g bottle).
Questions:
1. Do you think I should still get some K2SO4 from GW or would Equilibrium be adequate as K source? I know K is the one macro that I need to dose most of.
2. Do you recommend sticking with Flourish (500mL should last me a year according to dosage on bottle) or going with Plantex CSM+B? Not sure how much 1lb of CSM+B would last.
3. How long would 1lb of KH2PO4 last? I'm afraid it will be way too much. I still have some Flourish Phosphorus left since I don't use very much of it.

BTW bensaf - any idea if Flourish liquids are available in Jakarta? If so, are they much more expensive than from GW (US$8 for 500mL)? Thanks a lot!!

Last edited by upikabu at 27-Sep-2005 06:36

-P

upikabu,

Although it is not my place to answer your question, I will try to do it anyway. I don’t like to go around with knowledge that I just gained from the great members here, namely Bensaf and Trystianity.

Anyway, here is what I would do:

From Greg Watson get 2 loads of the following:

Mono Potassium Phosphate 1 lb.
Potassium Sulfate 1 lb.
Potassium Nitrate 1 lb.

And one load of

Plantex CSM+B Plus Extra Iron

In addition, get more Seachem Equilibrium and a bigger container of Flourish Excel (as the carbon base).

I think this should be all you need.

Are you familiar with Tom’s (Barr) Estimative Index?

I assume your tanks are doing fine currently, otherwise you would have mentioned any deficiencies, I guess . When skimming over your “feeding” routine, it seems to me to be off a little (review the Est. Index). Can you help me out and break it down by tank, meaning list the ingredients and frequencies for one tank at a time.

Hope this helps.

I am sure that the others will jump in and try to help you as well,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

For the Flourish liquids I would try online sources. I get mine from http://www.petsolutions.com/. I buy them in 2L's. It is much cheaper than the little guys.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Thanks, Ingo. I'm currently doing sort of my modified version of non-CO2 EI on my tanks, basically I used the EI dosage & nitrate level as initial guidance and then look at how my plants respond and adjust accordingly.

My 43g, 1wpg, slightly overstocked tank is where I'm doing closest to non-CO2 EI. It was originally a plastic-plant-only tank, but a month ago I decided to replace all of them with weeds (lots of Elodea & Wisteria) and low-light plants (details in my profile). Basically I want this to be my low maintenance tank. No water change since I replaced with live plants, no Excel (I just make sure the canister spray bar is under the water level), no added Nitrogen or Phosphate (nitrate stays around 5ppm; it was >20ppm before the live plants even with weekly H2O change), just half a teaspoon of Equilibrium once a week and 3mL Flourish mid-week. The weeds are growing like weeds and I barely see any algae (no algae eater either).

My 15g, 1.3wpg, almost fully stocked tank is still hit-and-miss as far as plant growth is concerned. The low light plants (crypt, ferns, moss) are doing ok but the bacopas are suffering (lower leaf loss). H. polysperma is doing better now that I'm adding more ferts:
- 1/8 tsp Equilibrium 1x/week
- 1mL Flourish 1x/week
- 1mL Flourish Nitrogen 2-3x/week (to maintain 5-10ppm nitrate)
- 1mL Flourish Phosphorus 1x/week
- Excel 3x/week
I have some green spot algae and hair algae, but they're all exclusively on the leaves of the ludwigia inclinata. I do weekly 30% water change here.

The 23g, 1.8wpg, understocked tank has been my focus planted tank (as it's the newest). I had to tinker a bit with fertilizer dosages (mainly by watching the plant growth), but right now I'm adding:
- Excel 3x/week
- 1/4 tsp Equilibrium 1x/week
- 1.6mL Flourish 1x/week
- 2mL Flourish Nitrogen daily (just to maintain 5ppm nitrate)
- 2.5mL Flourish Phosphorus 1x/week
So far the plants are responding quite well to this and I do see quite a significant reduction in green spot and thread algae compared to before.

Unfortunately GW can't ship KNO3 internationally and I can't get them here either (classified as dangerous goods and not sold to the general public). I was hoping to get KH2PO4 as Fleet, but then my wife found out what "enema" means (damn internet!) and refused to get them for me. I also read somewhere that Flourish is better than CSM+B. 2L Flourish costs $90 here, and shipping it from the US would probably cost an arm and a leg (not that any site would do it).

BTW Ingo - what are doing answering people's posts? Aren't you supposed to be working hard on your 125g and keeping us updated on its every detail (in lists)? (j/k) I wish my wife would let me have a 125g tank someday. Fat chance.

Cheers!






-P

I think 1lb is the minimum you can order. Even with a Co2 injected tank that would last for a year, at least. On Non co2 tanks probably looking at 5 years. Luckily the stuff doesn't have an expiry date.

Paulus,
No Seachem products to be found in Jakarta ]
Singapore has the lot. If you're planning to stop off there on the way over or back I have the adresses of some great shops.

I've got 49lbs of Kno3 to spare

Never tried the CSM + B but by all accounts it's good.

Not sure if there's enough K in the equilibrium, but with that and KH2PO4, Kno3 you'd certainly have enough.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Thanks a lot, Bernard. When you have time, could you PM me the addresses of the Singapore shops you mentioned? I'm definitely stopping by Singapore on the way home, so I may be able to pick up some Excel and Flourish there.

I think I will hold off on the Flourish Nitrogen. I might have enough to last me another few months. I just hope Australian Customs won't catch me bringing KNO3 into Oz and throw my a** in jail!

-P

upikabu,

Thanks for listing (a style that I prefer, as you noticed ) your tanks individually, it made your fertilizing routine so much clearer (to me).

I see one thing that I would consider “off”:

Your proportion of phosphorous to nitrates. I don’t know by how much one tsp of each raises the ppm in the tank, but I thought that they should have about 1 / 10 as a phosphorus / nitrate ratio. Seems like your phosphorus is much higher, did you test for both?

In addition, you probably lose your low leaves because your light source is not strong enough (you knew that, right?).

About the fleet stuff -

“Aren't you supposed to be working hard on your 125g and keeping us updated on its every detail (in lists)?”

Sure, but:

- I am at work and can’t play with the tank from here (although I call the wife to make sure I have enough CO2 bubbles
- My fingers are still wrinkled up from 8 hours of constant water contact during planting
- I love lists way too much to just ignore posts that allow me to add one

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo,

The amount of Flourish Phosphorus I'm adding to the 2 smaller tanks should raise the Phosphate level by about 0.1ppm. The plants in the 23g seem to respond well to this (jury's still out on the 15g). I don't have a phosphate test kit, probably should invest in one at some point. I try to maintain my nitrate around the 5-10ppm level throughout the week.

Yes, I figured the bacopa lower leaf loss in the 15g is most probably due to the low light. They do better in the 23g (higher light).

Your wife is willing to monitor CO2 bubbles? She must be more patient than mine.

Cheers!

-P

Paulus ,
I'll PM you the address. Very easy to find. Great shop has everything. He also has all the dry ferts, in different sized containers, from very small to large, perfect for a non co2 tank.

He's a good scaper, great select of mosses and ferns for sale. Check out the shop next door too, not much equipment, but an incredible selection of plants, some very hard to find elsewhere.

I may have a shopping list for you

Ingo,
I think you are confused. The NP ratio refers to the ppm content in the tank.
Dosing one spoon of KNO3 will give a different ppm of say 1 tspn of KH2PO4. More so with the Seachem liquids. Dosing the same amount of the different liquids will have different effects for each nutrient, depends how they are diluted.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Awesome, thanks! Now you got me all excited. Are the prices pretty reasonable? Now I just to have to device a scheme where I can leave the wife and kid somewhere and go there alone for a few hours.

Go ahead and give me your shopping list. No live plants though! I don't even want to look at their live plant selection - I don't want to lust over something I can't have.

-P

Ingo,
I think you are confused.

Well, we established that fact quite a while ago

I have never used Flourish Phosphorus as for some reason it is the only one not available in my LFS. I did simply guess that the concentration in the bottle is roughly equal. Well, it is not. I went to their website and found the 2 following doing examples:

“For example to raise 20 gallons* by 0.20 mg/L nitrogen you would use: … 1 mL”
“For example to raise 20 gallons* to 0.1 mg/L phosphate you would use: .. 1.6 mL”

After a little math, I concluded that the proper Flourish Liquid (not tank ppm) ratio of N/P is 3.125/1

That means that upikabu is really close on the 15G (1ml N 2-3 / week and 1ml P once / week) but not on the 23G (2ml N 7 / week and 2.5ml P once a week). In this tank the phosphorus dosing is less than the 3.125/1.

But I guess one would actually have to measure the tank values to draw proper conclusions as we don’t know how much of the dosing is actually taken up by the plants.

Ingo

Last edited by LITTLE_FISH at 28-Sep-2005 04:54

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo - I think your N/P ratio of 3.125 for Flourish liquids will achieve 10:1 ratio of N/PO4. But the 10:1 ratio recommended by EI is for NO3/PO4.

If we use nitrate level of Flourish Nitrogen instead of total nitrogen to calculate the ratio (only half of Flourish Nitrogen comes from nitrate), then the Flourish Nitrogen/Phosphorus liquid ratio should actually be 0.625 (i.e. I should be adding more Flourish Phosphorus than Flourish Nitrogen). Which of course means my dosage is way off.

I'm getting more confused with all this fertilizer dosage stuff. All I know is my plants in the 20g consume at least 1-2ppm NO3 per day and they have responded well to a total of 10ppm NO3 addition per week.

Last edited by upikabu at 28-Sep-2005 07:52

Last edited by upikabu at 28-Sep-2005 08:00

-P

:%):%):%)

I think in the future I should restrain form writing anything to entries that concern Fertilizer Calculations .

I seriously doubt that any of my comments are suited to help; I always seem to confuse the posters even more than they have been before I added a comment. I am sorry about that. Maybe one day some really smart guy will create a nice calculation table for us where we can plug in various kinds of values and magically the right answers for our tanks will spit out (like Chuck’s calculator on steroids).

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Yeah, ITKWYM. I haven't done this much math in ages.
At least your intentions were good - and I thank you for that.

-P