Andy Ritter

New update time. Last night I did some more water testing and mixed up a new batch of Macro ferts.

The new reagents arrived for my LaMotte phosphate kit, and the water tested as having 3 ppm PO4 as "Orthophosphate". I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I need to look into it. It's too late and I'm too tired to do any more research tonight. I hope that it is the same thing that my Seachem kit was testing for. If so, I think that my levels are okay.

The nitrate is back up to 15 ppm, the potassium is still at around 30-35 ppm, and the iron is still at .2 ppm.

I noticed a little bit more BGA about three days after the last post, but haven't seen any since. I think that the increase in NO3 did the trick.

I looked into the subject of keeping ratios between certain elements correct and found that I was close, but that they are actually K, Na, Mg, and Ca. I located this, but then spent 3-4 more hours trying to find more information to back it up and further explain it, to no avail. I will see what else I can find later.

Since I am concerned about my Ca:Mg ratio, I decided when mixing up my new Macros to drop the MgSO4 to only 25% of the normal recipe in addition to having the KNO3 at only 25%. Since the nitrates and phosphates appear okay, my Macro mix now consists of K2SO4 at normal recipe amount, KNO3 at 25% of normal recipe amount, KH2PO4 at 200% of normal amount, and MGSO4 at 25% of normal amount.

Next I'll do a water change, wait a couple of weeks, and then check the Ca and Mg amounts again in addition to the other tests.

Andy

Andy Ritter

Did some more water testing last night. A water change was done on the tank on 1-24-10 of about 40-50% (using water straight out of the well).

NO3 - 18 ppm, K - 20 ppm, Fe - .15 ppm, PO4 - 2.5 ppm, Total hardness - 132 ppm (7.4 degrees), Calcium hardness - 80 ppm, Magnesium hardness - 52 ppm

I did some research and have determined that apparently "orthophosphate" is a fancy term for what most people refer to as simply phosphate, so hopefully both the Seachem kit and the LaMotte kit are testing for the same thing. I read about it here.

I mixed up a new batch of Macros using a little less nitrate and Epsom salt this time since the NO3 had risen since the last tests. I set the KNO3 and MgSO4 to 20% of normal, and left the rest the same as before (KH2PO4 200%, K2SO4 normal).

Andy

Andy Ritter

I'm overdue for an update (sorry, things have gotten really busy at work).

On February 21st I did some more water testing:
NO3 - 16 ppm
K - 40 ppm
Fe - .2 ppm
PO4 - 2 ppm
KH - 8 degrees
Total hardness - 152 ppm (8.5 degrees)
Calcium hardness - 80 ppm
Magnesium hardness - 72 ppm


On March 1st I did a waterchange (approximately 50%). I also inserted 10 Flourish tabs into the Flourite all around the tank. Filled the tank with water straight out of the well.

On March 3rd I mixed up some new Macro mix. I had a really difficult time determining which way I wanted to go this time. My first thought was since the Mg keeps going up, that maybe I should eliminate it altogether from the mix. However, I then read the "Method of controlled imbalances and gda..." thread by Christian rubilar, and he says that the 4:1 Ca to Mg ratio was derived from terrestrial plant studies, and that in his opinion the ratio should actually be reversed (1:4 Ca to Mg). He says that you'll end up with GDA (Green Dust Algae) if you aim for 4:1 and have too much PO4 in the water. I'm not having an algae problem currently (knock on wood), other than the rather persistent BBA, but at least it has gotten to the point of just holding steady. Therefore, I decided that since I don't really want to try and raise the Mg up as high as what he says, maybe I should just leave it alone for now.

Christian also has some suggestions about potassium, but they are difficult for me to understand. He specifically says that he doesn't recommend using "potassium sulfate (KHSO4)" (although I looked it up and found that KHSO4 should be referred to as Potassium hydrogen sulfate or Potassium bisulfate, so I'm not sure if he goofed up the name or the molecular formula). He says that "NO3 will be uptaken and as soon as you reach zero you will have algae issues", "it is better to do not add sulfur when we can avoid it", and something about Hygrophila polysperma and potassium which makes no sense. I guess that I should ask him what he meant about all of that, but the point is, I used his thread to make my decision about what to do next with my macro mix.

One of the main reasons that I am playing with the recipe at all is because my Hygro species are suffering. Before I started PPS pro, I grew Hygro polysperma and corymbosa so well they were almost annoying I was having to trim so much. Now the corymbosa only has a few stunted and twisted leaves, which according to the deficiency chart could be calcium deficiency or it could be potassium or magnesium overdose. I can't find any more of the regular polysperma. I still have the polysperma "sunset" that I added back in December, but it has been doing poorly. The stems get very brittle and will snap in two with just the slightest amount of handling. Plus, it keeps losing the lowest leaves on the stems. The chart leads me to think that it is phosphate deficiency, but I can't imagine how that could be with as much as I'm adding and with the levels that I'm testing.

So, since I only wanted to change one thing at a time in order to be able to tell what the problem might be, I decided to drop the potassium levels down and see what happens. My new macro mix ended up having 20% of the K2SO4, 20% of the KNO3, 20% of the MgSO4, and 200% of the KH2PO4, as compared to the original recipe. In case you're wondering why and how I came up with these ratios, it's because I'm trying to use up the remaining amount of macro mix that I have had since before I started experimenting. I've just been mixing up new batches without some of the ingredients and then mixing the two solutions together, and then adding more KH2PO4.

By the way, I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one that has had a hard time using PPS pro with the regular recipes. If anyone else has something that they would like to add, then please do.

Andy

plamski

I have problems too. There are no more red in plants. I tried to add seachem iron in 200% to 400% to requirements but it rice Iron from 0.1 to 0.3.in my tank.
Christian Rubilar doesn’t like to mix KH2PO4 and Iron in one day because they react together and plants can't use them.
I did tried different micro and macro % rate but result is always BBA or BGA especially when I go more than 20-30% of original PPS-PRO dosing.
I mention that after pruning I have to lower macros and micros by 30-40% in order to be algae clean.
I upgrade my WPG from 2.5 to 4WPG in order to stop high light plants from melting. Now I have 5 xT8 1x8000k,2x6700K,1x14000K,1x6500.
Morning 1h 3 tubes,2h 5 tubes, 1h 3 tubes. Evening 1.5h 3 tubes,3h 5 tubes,1h 3 tubes.
I’m mixing my ferts 10 times less stronger and now I’m adding 1ml per gal. Ferts solution stay clear for at least 10 days under aquarium.
Probably is good idea to have picture attached in order to compare how busy are our tanks, what plants we have, to compare how are doing different plants with different % ferts ratios. To post our light WPG,K rating and how long is our photo period. Probably there are people who like to hide their “sicrets” but in general we have to work together in order to solve the problems and to have more fun with our hobby.