You're right many things are taken for granted at times and when you're new at this "10ppm of NO3 using KNO3" really doesn't give you the whole picture 
You can dose either dry or diluted/pre-mixed. Those who dose dry usually go by teaspoon measures and those who dose diluted would use a calculator such as this one to figure out the mixture of ingredients and doses required to raise the concentration by a certain amount:
...where is it now? I'm a little lost in the new interface, we have a very nice calculator here at APC but I can't find it right now so I'll link to this one:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_dosage_calc.htm
As far as how quickly to raise levels to their target concentrations I've always done it immediately without any real "build-up" period, but then again my fish are used to that now, perhaps initially you may want to raise the levels over a 2-3 day period... not sure how important that is but if it's a concern there are no setbacks to doing it gradually.
Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio
You can dose either dry or diluted/pre-mixed. Those who dose dry usually go by teaspoon measures and those who dose diluted would use a calculator such as this one to figure out the mixture of ingredients and doses required to raise the concentration by a certain amount:
...where is it now? I'm a little lost in the new interface, we have a very nice calculator here at APC but I can't find it right now so I'll link to this one:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_dosage_calc.htm
As far as how quickly to raise levels to their target concentrations I've always done it immediately without any real "build-up" period, but then again my fish are used to that now, perhaps initially you may want to raise the levels over a 2-3 day period... not sure how important that is but if it's a concern there are no setbacks to doing it gradually.
Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio
