Should my plants be pearling like crazy all the time when the lights once the lights have been on a couple hours?
About a week ago I discovered Tom Barr's method. I have about 2.5 watts per gallon in a 50 gallon tank, with CO2 of around 20-30 ppm, though its tough for me to tell with the inaccurate ph testers. I pump CO2 into the water line after it comes out of the canister filter, but before it enters the aquarium. It then pumps out an outlet value near the top of the water line, hopefully creating adequate distribution of CO2. If I raise the CO2 any more, my fish tend to freak.
For about a week, I have been heavily dosing with phosphates (through liquid enema), NO3 (via Kent ProPlant), and trace elements (Kent Freshwater Plant Formula K,Fe, Miconutrient supp.), though it was kind of unscientific, because I was having trouble figuring out the right amount of everything to put in. Everything was great and the plants were pearling like crazy and seemed to be growing quickly.
Then I saw a small amount of cyano, so last night I decided to do a 50% water change. Prior to my water change, I had NO3 of about 12.5. I syphoned up as much mulm as I could and stirred up gravel in much of the tank to reduce the mulm further. I calculated that for EI, I want to dose about:
2375 mg of NO3; and
285 mg of PO4.
I decided to put in extra NO3 because the readings before the water change were low (12.5 ppm) and I wanted to make up for that deficiency. So, I added about 3100 mg of NO3. After the water change, my test showed I had about 25 ppm NO3.
Today, virtually no pearling. I'm not freaked out, but I'm very surprised. Btw, I have NO2 of about 0.3 ppm, so maybe that's the issue?
Any guesses people?
Glenn
About a week ago I discovered Tom Barr's method. I have about 2.5 watts per gallon in a 50 gallon tank, with CO2 of around 20-30 ppm, though its tough for me to tell with the inaccurate ph testers. I pump CO2 into the water line after it comes out of the canister filter, but before it enters the aquarium. It then pumps out an outlet value near the top of the water line, hopefully creating adequate distribution of CO2. If I raise the CO2 any more, my fish tend to freak.
For about a week, I have been heavily dosing with phosphates (through liquid enema), NO3 (via Kent ProPlant), and trace elements (Kent Freshwater Plant Formula K,Fe, Miconutrient supp.), though it was kind of unscientific, because I was having trouble figuring out the right amount of everything to put in. Everything was great and the plants were pearling like crazy and seemed to be growing quickly.
Then I saw a small amount of cyano, so last night I decided to do a 50% water change. Prior to my water change, I had NO3 of about 12.5. I syphoned up as much mulm as I could and stirred up gravel in much of the tank to reduce the mulm further. I calculated that for EI, I want to dose about:
2375 mg of NO3; and
285 mg of PO4.
I decided to put in extra NO3 because the readings before the water change were low (12.5 ppm) and I wanted to make up for that deficiency. So, I added about 3100 mg of NO3. After the water change, my test showed I had about 25 ppm NO3.
Today, virtually no pearling. I'm not freaked out, but I'm very surprised. Btw, I have NO2 of about 0.3 ppm, so maybe that's the issue?
Any guesses people?
Glenn
