Fertilizing routine calculator + water change

acinonyx

Member
Aug 10, 2017
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Czech Republic
I know there are multiple online tools for calculation of fertilizing routines, but I have always been missing a more complex calculation involving multiple solutions, water change and mineralization of water. Because of that, I created my own excel calculator which can do multiple things. I decided to translate it to English, perhaps it will be useful to somebody.

The calculator will not tell you what fertilizer to use and how much of it, that’s all up to you. It will provide you with a neat overview of total macros and micros added to the tank on weekly basis (and daily). The calculator considers the volume of the tank, water change and its frequency, content of RO water in the changed water, one-time remineralization of the water, customizable concentrations and frequency of the fertilization using common and less common compounds. The table uses a weekly (7 day) cycle and maximum water change frequency of 14 days. Of course, it cannot cover the needs of every single person, but I dare to say it solves most of the issues.

Comments on functions

The green cells are the input; the red cells represent the results of fertilization.

1. Volume of the tank a calculated net volume (75% of the given volume) of the tank.

2. The volume and frequency of water change, proportion of RO water in the exchanged water volume. The calculations assume the RO water is absolutely pure and does not contain anything.

3. Remineralization of the exchanged water. Useful especially in the case your tap water does not contain enough calcium, magnesium (my case) or potassium.

4. The parameters of the tap water. In case of unknown values, use 0 or ?.

5. Fertilization using macro elements. The stock solution represents the weighted amount of the compound dissolved in the given volume of the water. Dosing per week represents the volume of one dose and frequency of the dosing per week (7 days).

6. Fertilization using micro elements. The stock solution represents the weighted amount of the compound dissolved in the given volume of the water. Dosing per week represents the volume of one dose and frequency of the dosing per week (7 days). The calculator contains the four most used commercial micro mixtures (Tenso Cocktail, CSM, CSM+B a MicroMix), several common iron chelates and salts of transition metals in case of chelate-free fertilization.

7. The results of the fertilizing routine given as the average daily and total weekly doses in mg/l. The increase of water hardness and alkalinity represents potential increase per week, however it does not consider water changes and the uptake by plants (can’t really estimate that).

Excel file for download (do not use GoogleDocs to edit): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HcncO55LCr8jNWyyZsliTzBQTGWaYnmv

P.S. The figure is from the original, Slovak version, but the components correspond to the English version.

1702_1.jpg
 
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burr740

Micros Spiller
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Feb 16, 2015
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Looks very useful. Thanks for sharing.

Im not very adept using Excel so these might be dumb questions -

How do you "choose the commercial mix of micros" ? Choose from where?

Also for Fe DTPA, is there a way to differentiate between 10% and 11%?
 

acinonyx

Member
Aug 10, 2017
24
42
13
Czech Republic
Looks very useful. Thanks for sharing.

Im not very adept using Excel so these might be dumb questions -

How do you "choose the commercial mix of micros" ? Choose from where?

Also for Fe DTPA, is there a way to differentiate between 10% and 11%?

You have to download the file first. Then when you click at the cell the arrow points to, there should be a dropdown menu where you can choose the mixes.

As far as DTPA goes, it should always be 11% because the 11% represents the amount of Fe in Fe-DTPA. So unless you have impure FeDTPA (or low quality), it should be 11%.
 

burr740

Micros Spiller
Moderator
Feb 16, 2015
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You have to download the file first. Then when you click at the cell the arrow points to, there should be a dropdown menu where you can choose the mixes.

OK got that

As far as DTPA goes, it should always be 11% because the 11% represents the amount of Fe in Fe-DTPA. So unless you have impure FeDTPA (or low quality), it should be 11%.

There's a 10% available over here that's pretty common. Maybe its not as pure as 11% but that's why I asked