To much fertilizer?

[B20turbo]

Hey all, I think i dose way to much for my 10 galllon. Check this out, it's got 36 watts of lighting going to it and about 40-50ppm of co2 controlled by sms. I mix 4 teaspoons of mono potassium phosphate to 500ml of water. I have been having trouble with Green Spot Algae for about 6 months and I know Tom always saids its c02 and phospate, but I feel like I have been dosing so much. So I keep going up anyway and finally Im at a point where I haven't scraped the glass in 3 weeks, (yay!) My point is, im at 10 cap fulls of P04 every other day to fight the gsa. I believe it's 5ml per cap so thats 50ml every other day in a 10 gallon! Same thing with the traces, 3 teaspoons of csm + B mixed in 500ml and i dose 4 caps. I see some of the recomended dosages and im more then double for such a small tank.
My other problem is I can't grow red ludwigia very well. when I first put it in the tank its start to turn red and looks awesome for about 5 days. Now the leaves are wrinkling and have holes in them, and look thinner. I dose k also, 7 caps at 3 teaspoons per 500ml. I tried dosing equilibrium, but to tell you the truth, this is when i started noticing all the holes, like it made it worse. Is it a K overdose? or do I need to add some epsom salts to add some mg? Sorry I cant tell you the gh, i ordered a kit but they never sent me it. I always wanted to post but was just to lazy to write everything that I wanted to ask, as you can see its quite a bit, sorry for such a long post. Thx

 

[Jay]

Re: To much fertilizer?

I always wanted to post but was just to lazy to write everything that I wanted to ask, as you can see its quite a bit, sorry for such a long post. Thx

I think you will get the help you need much faster if you would take the time to translate your "cap fulls", milliliters, teaspoons etc. into something consistent we can work with.

Example:

I dose 7 ppm of NO3 every other day.
7 ppm of PO4 every other day.
etc...

 

[aquabillpers]

Re: To much fertilizer?

You have a little GSA and your red ludwiga isn't doing well. How are your other plants doing?

If you are worried about nutrient levels, perhaps make your life easier and get a few test kits, like jardness, PO4, and NO3. I suspect after doing those tests you would answer your question.

Test kits are not inherently evil.

You might also try EI.

Bill

 

[B20turbo]

Re: To much fertilizer?

I have both Nitrate and Phosphate test kits from lamotte. I get a reading of around 40ppm of nitrate and as of lately the po4 is hard to tell in the kit. It was around 2ppm but now the color is is just different, wierd. Alot of people here dose dry ferts so it hard for me to tell how much in comparison. Anyone else dilute there ferts? My other plants seem fine just the ludwigia giving me problems.

 

[aquabillpers]

Re: To much fertilizer?

If your nitrates are 40 ppm, your phosphates should be around 4 ppm, plus or minus a bit. That by itself might be the reason for the algae problem.

I use the API kit. It is not in the same league as the Lamotte kit, but it is pretty good up to 1.5 or 2.0 ppm, and it easily distinguishes between 2.0 ppm and 4.0 ppm.

Bill

 

[B20turbo]

Re: To much fertilizer?

The problem in the tank isn't algae. For the first time I havn't had any for a while which is great. I am talking about the red ludwigia and how it has wrinkles leaves and holes in them. They dont look very good, and I could never get them to flourish, just wanted to get some help on that issue. I also wanted to see how much dosing other people were doing in there 10 gallon. It seems like I dose crazy amounts. I feel like i have to because of all the P04 I need to add to get no GSA.