ray-the-pilot

I make a 3 month supply of micro and a six month supply of macro.

I weight the ingredients in clear glass stopper apothecary bottles and add distilled water to volume. To increase the solution rate and eliminate bacteria/fungi, I place the bottles in boiling water and heat the solutions to 80 C for about 10 min. I cool them down by placing the bottles in cold tap water. When cool I stopper and label the bottles.

These solutions are stable at room temperature and in the light until used. I am careful not to get any extraneous material into the bottles such as tank water that may contaminate the solutions.

Although some people claim that the solutions are not stable when heated to 80 C (in particular the micro solution) I do not find any deficiency problem associated with using the solutions maintained this way. If anything, I have the usual problem of my plants growing too fast. I believe that the usual chelating agents (EDTA and citrate) are stable under these conditions).

BTW, I have noticed that some chemicals I purchased on line contain unwanted insoluble materials (In particular K2SO4). These are apparent immediately after making the solutions. If you want to eliminate that problem, you need to buy better grades of chemicals.

Seattle_Aquarist

Hi ray-the-pilot,

Thank you for the helpful information. I am hoping that by saying they are stable that you mean that you have little or no precipitation of ingredients and no fungus growth?

Although I do not heat my PPS-Pro solutions, I do use distilled water. It did dramatically decrease, but not eliminate, problems with fungus growing in the solution. I will have to try the extra step of heating the mixtures. Thanks again!

ray-the-pilot

The Plantex solutions that I make are perfectly clear and there is no fungus or mold growth.

The macro solutions will form precipitates initially when I use technical grade chemicals but no mold or fungus growth.

My feeling is that the chemicals themselves are the source of the fungi/molds but I am careful not to introduce something from my tank or the environment.