Need some advice

[ismenio]

hello

I have mounted a very little tank for five red crystal.

Can you check my dose routine ?

The tank have only 4 L
Only natural light
No filter
Only gravel with no substrate.

The plants:
Cuba, Parvula, Anubia

Dosing routine:

Month water change of 50 % or 2 L

Once a week:

0.5 mL Flourish Excel

0.6 mL from NPK made of (KNO3 180g + KH2PO4 38g on 1.5 L solution)

0.4 mL TPN (Tropica Plant Nutrition).

 

[dutchy]

If I'm not making any mistakes 0,6 ml of your solution will give you around 45 ppm of KNO3 and around 10 ppm of KH2PO4. That's a lot. I would make less concentrated stock solutions so it's easier to add the right dosage. 0,6 ml is very hard to do right.
Maybe it's better for you to to make a 10/500 KNO3 solution and a 1/500 KH2PO4 solution. Each ml of this KNO3 solution would give a raise of around 12 ppm's, and each ml of the KH2PO4 solution would give a raise of 1,4 ppm's.
Then you could add around 3 ml of KNO3 and 2 ml of KH2PO4 each week.

regards,
dutchy

 

[Tug]

If I were to say reduce your dose by half or even by five, a less concentrated stock would give you more flexibility.

Calculators can be wrong too, but I checked ismenio's solution with two different programs and came up with these numbers for KNO3 and PO4. Which would put them at about were dutchy suggests for NO3 w/twice the PO4
NO3 = 11.039ppm
PO4 = 2.652ppm
K = 8ppm

My math brain is online at;
http://calc.petalphile.com/
and
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

 

[ismenio]

Hello Dutchy and Tug

I have used http://www.theaquatools.com/fertilization-calculator and the Chucks calculator and they give me more or less the same as Tug said.

At this moment i only have this stock solution ! To measure a use a syringe.

I have made the calculations for the fertilization using the EI with CO2 and since with Flourish excel the things goes four times slower i have divide all by four more or less too, i could divide the fertilization of the week by four also but i think this is more difficult to do.

But if you see anything wrong or something that i can change to better plant grow please tell since i´m a rookie.

Regards

 

[Tug]

Here is Tom's dose for a non-CO2 tank using Excel. It looks fairly close to what you have going on. Less excel - fewer water changes and less PO4 then this example is a good idea, IMO. You might try dosing 0.3mL after a few weeks to see if you notice any change. I'm sorry if this doesn't help. Maybe someone with more cred can jump in.

So a 20 gal using excel would get:

2 w/gal light
Dose 1/8 teaspoon KNO3 1-2x a week
KH2PO4, 1/16th, 1-2x a week
Traces, 2mls 2x a week
SeaChem EQ 1/8th once a week
50% weekly water change
Dose 1.5-2x the rec dosing for Excel.
http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/2817-Non-CO2-methods/page4

 

[ismenio]

Thanks Tug

Since is near Tom have done i will try with my dose and wait, for now HC is fine, lets wait and see.

Regards

 

[ismenio]

Hi, now i have another problem!

In the image bellow you can see the HC that is mark with the red line.
The HC still growing but the leaves are smaller !

What i´m doing wrong ?

[attachment=702:name]

Dosing routine:

Month water change of 50 % or 2 L

Once a week:

0.5 mL Flourish Excel

0.6 mL from NPK made of (KNO3 180g + KH2PO4 38g on 1.5 L solution)

0.4 mL TPN (Tropica Plant Nutrition).

And about to weeks ago i have star to dose Flourish Iron 0.5 mL and gh Booster to.

Regards

 

[ismenio]

Hi,

Help please !

Regrads

 

[dutchy]

Hi,

Why do you dose Excel once per week? this product has a half-life of 12 hours and should be dosed per day, or not at all.

Did you change the light?
Why did you start to dose Iron and GH Booster that you didn't do before?

regards,
dutchy.

 

[ismenio]

Hi Duchy

I only dose excel once per week cause i thought was enough, i will start to dose every day, i didn´t no that the flourish excel life was one day.
I don´t have change the light since i don´t have any light at all, only day light.
I have started with gh booster and iron since i thought that wouldn't´t cause any harm, i think !

But the hc is shrinking, is the light ?

Regards

 

[dutchy]

Maybe you're just spoiling the plants with excel for one day. The rest of the week you have a deficiency, so basically, a C-deficiency. I'd see what happens with the excel first. GH Booster can be useful but do you really need it? If not, don't use it. Maybe your GH is through the roof.

Just handle it by way of elimination, one thing at a time.


regards,
dutchy

 

[dutchy]

About the dosing: your stock is 180/38, which is the same as roughly 5:1. This means that if you add 0,6 ml per week, around 0,5 ml is KNO3 and 0,1 ml is KH2PO4. 0,5 ml is 9 ppm of KNO3 but 0,1 ml of KH2PO4 is just 0,4 ppm. I wonder if this is enough. I'd double or triple the PO4 level. (which also means the same for the NO3 level.

(Please check my calculation)

regards,
dutchy