Amount of traces...

1537 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by tsunami, Mar 11, 2004

Bert H

Discussion Starter · Mar 11, 2004

I am curious about the amount of traces people out there add to their tanks. I was looking at another thread in this forum where I see that Carlos adds 21ml of Flourish and 21ml of Flourish Iron weekly to his 20 gal tank! This seems like an awful lot to me. Carlos, is this a high light tank? I am curious how you came to these numbers? I assume you worked your way up to them and compared your growth rates, etc.

As a comparison, I am adding 5ml of Flourish (done 2.5 at water change and 2.5 midweek) and 3.5ml of iron (.5ml daily) to my 29 gal on a weekly basis, and thinking things are OK. Maybe I will start upping these slowly. I need to be careful with my iron due to precipitate formation from my hard water. Once upon a time I only dosed traces once a week (2-3ml of flourish), then I started doing it 2x a week. At that time, I had a massive crypt meltdown. About 4 months later, my crypts have finally returned to their glory, so I am really hesitant to do anything too quickly. But those numbers are so high, it makes me wonder what if...

I'd like to hear some feedback on this.

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IUnknown

· #2 · Mar 11, 2004

How much light do you have bert? I have 1x36 and 2x13 watts over a 18T. I dose 4 mL flourish after water change on sat, and then M and W. I dose 2 mL of Flourish Iron on W. Currently I only have the 36 and one 13 watt as the tank is getting established. I've been having fuzz algae problems, but other than that the tank looks good. The fuzz algae supposedly has nothing to do with my ferts and is going away with manual removal. So, I don't want to recommend anything until the tank is doing well, but that is what I am dosing. I am working on a database where people can enter personal dosing parameters for a given area, so people can compare. Trace dosing shouldn't be a big issue, and will vary from place to place. I use recon R/O water, so I am adding all the traces back.

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Bert H

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 11, 2004

The tank has 75W; a 55W AH bright kit and a 20W strip. I have to say, I don't have any algae issues

with my current protocol.

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tsunami

· #4 · Mar 11, 2004

I was looking at another thread in this forum where I see that Carlos adds 21ml of Flourish and 21ml of Flourish Iron weekly to his 20 gal tank! This seems like an awful lot to me. Carlos, is this a high light tank? I am curious how you came to these numbers? I assume you worked your way up to them and compared your growth rates, etc.

My 20g is my high light tank, with 2x20w NO bulbs w/reflectors and 3x13w power compacts. That gives me 3.95 wpg over this tank.

I gradually worked my way up to those levels through trial and error. For high light tanks, I believe that high iron/traces are crucial for plant health. I did very little comparison of growth rates, actually. I judged everything solely on plant health. The extra iron/traces doesn't make my plants grow faster, but it sure makes them look much, much healthier and greener! Growth is fuller and more robust to my eye.

To work my way up in dosing, I basically add a low amount in the beginning and gradually increase the amount every week until I no longer see any improvement. One week, I was dosing 30 mL of each weekly. I didn't see any new algae growth, but I didn't see any change in plant health so I dropped it back down.

My 55g (which has 2.55 wpg) doesn't need nearly as much iron/trace dosing. 12 mL weekly of Flourish and another 12mL of Flourish Iron seems plenty. It all depends on the tank, and the lighting levels.

Carlos

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