skids

Ed, I'm interested in experimenting with PPS and come from a EI point of view. I get Tropica Master Grow cheap from our plant club SFBAAPS (some times even free , Thanks to Plant Brain and the Monterey Aquarium)

So how would I modify the solutions to avoid using TE mix made from Gregg Watson and instead use TMG that also supplies a fair bit of K?

I live in the East Bay Area so have soft water: 125 max TDS, 1 kH, 0- 0.5 gH seen based on my kits and meter. EBMUD (our water co) Annually reports:
kH 1.1 - 3.6
gH 0.8 to 2.1
Ca++ 4-8 ppm
Mg 0.7-1.6 ppm
pH 9.1 - 9.5
K 0.5 - 0.8 ppm
Na 5.3 - 7.8 ppm
Si 7.7 - 13.2 ppm
TDS 55 ppm
Chloramines 2.8 ppm.


So as you can see, I will be kicking up Ca, Mg to get to 4-5kH and 7-9 gH. (used to use Equilibrium, but I now have lots of CaCl2 premixed 4:1 with Epsom salt from Plant Brain and Gregg)

Fish are discus and cardinals, substrate is TurfaceMVP (Schultz) but I am going to tear down and replace with 2" fluorite and 1" onyx sand as a cap. Tank is a 75g long so 55g actual.

Already have been injecting CO2 for 1 yr at 20-30ppm and have 4x55W CFs.

I'm thinking I should make up SS and PF per the usual , but be prepared to have some KFree on hand as well. I have a La Motte K test that shows I am running about 60-90ppm K with 30 ml of TMG weekly and extra K from the flake and feeding no doubt. I do 50% WC weekly.

I am open to buying more dry goods, but would like to use the CaCl2 and Epsom salt I have and I mixed up 250ml of SS and PF in the lab today.

So, I need to make a KF ? And something else?

plantbrain

I'd add about 5-6mls daily.
You can also try using Flourish which does not have the K+.

If you do 50% weekyl water changes, then I'd not bother with the K+ issue, if you plan on not doing water changes(or infrequent ones), then it might become an issue over time.

Given the fish load, and feeding, the Nitrogen will be high, the PO4/K should be low relative to N.

So plant uptake should be fairly high from that.

I'm not sure the SS, PF solutions will balance things the way you need, you will not want to have some much KNO3 beings added here, I'd suggest a Nitrate free solution also, NF.

If you have about 5-8 adult fish, then the NO3 will be about 1/2 from the food source. This assumes good normal Discus feeding.

PPS + Higher bioloading will need to consider something other than SS, PF, Mg/GH, TE in the mix.

But if you do the water changes routinely, you don't need to fret.
Then you are just doing EI with SS, PF, GH, TE instead of dry powders.
Both meet the plant's needs.


Regards,
Tom Barr

Edward

Is Mr.Amano doing EI with ADA line of fertilizers too?

Edward

Hi
If I had your water I would be following a different routine. Let’s see your tap levels:

KH 1 – 4
Very good with constant CO2 bubbles counter. No need adjusting neither KH nor CO2 regulator.

GH 1 – 2, Ca 4 – 8 ppm, Mg 1 - 2 ppm
Very good values no need dosing neither Ca nor Mg. Especially with Onyx leaking both.

Because of your discus fish and the Onyx substrate you will have to be doing periodic water changes to keep values steady. This will also replenish the Ca and Mg periodically. I can recommend dosing only 8 ml SS and 16 ml PF daily and using the TMG as recommended by the manufacturer. Try for 3 - 4 weeks and post your NO3 and PO4 before water changes.

Thank you
Edward

plantbrain

Well what do you think?
He does 50% or larger weekly water changes, and frequent dosing thereafter and no testing to speak of...........

Seems like the same thing except selling liquid ADA/name ferts instead of the base dry powders. I get similar plant health and growth results as his pictures and have for about a decade.

Regards,
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com

skids

Ed and Tom , thanks. This is the starter help I was looking for. 6ml / day TMG sounds about right, Chuck Gadd used to use 6ml daily in a heavily planted 75g. Said he had iron deficiency in frogbit showing at 4 and 5ml daily.

BTW for all you thinking of trying this, TMG is (K 0.79%, Mg 0.39%, S 1.01%, B 0.004%, Cu 0.006%, Fe 0.07%,
Mn 0.04%, Mo 0.002% Zn 0.002%. HEEDTA and DTPA as chelators)

I was initially concerned I would need to modify the SS and PF since TMG provides some K intentionally. Tropica recommends 2.5ml/ 50L weekly, in a soft water tank and work up from there. That's about 1.6 ml daily for 60g (actual) in soft water or 3.2ml in hard. So carrying through the math: 0.0126g K or 12.64 mg in 227 L which is 0.055 ppm K daily, would be added using the Tropica recommended start level. At 6ml daily that’s 0.2 ppm K daily.

Guess the K in TMG is so minimal there is no need for me to modify the amounts of K in the SS and PF solutions. 6ml should also give about 0.0185 ppm of Fe, and 0.1 ppm Mg daily.

From what I can tell TE made with CSB+B is about 3110ppm Fe in the stock solution so based on the 75g recommended PPS starter level, one would be adding about 18 dr daily to start or about 0.012ppm Fe daily.

Using TMG is then about 150% of the PPS recommended Fe starting daily dose provided by TE.

And yes, Tom I’m basically doing EI with premixed solutions, which is what I wanted to do. Due to my laziness , I need to stop using dry chemicals and measuring spoons and start using premixes and pipettes daily. Eventually I’ll get the addition numbers stable and switch to pump shampoo bottles so I can do 2 squirts of SS and 4 squirts of PF and 3 squirts of TMG system (or something), which with the 50% water changes, will be almost exactly what Amano does (from a daily & weekly labor standpoint) , just with different stock solutions.

So I’ll just need to get some shampoo bottles, that have a metered pump squirter at 2ml or so. My goal is to get my solutions in a hand carrier (like hotel maids use with cleaning chemicals) and be able to walk around my four tanks and do X number of squirts of bottle 1, 2, and 3 for each tank . My no CO2 tanks then would get an extra squirt or two of Excel from a 4th bottle with a very small squirter. I feed fish daily so I am okay with feeding the plants daily as well.

I’ve been using the PPS worksheet for several months and will start doing the testing (as a minimum) Ed suggested to keep tracking.