Well Scrupie, I don't know what to say other than that I hope that you were able to get something out of all of that reading. I've just been experimenting and reporting, but I don't claim to actually have been doing anything worthwhile :lol: . Of course, I certainly hope that all of this turns out in the end to have been educational and useful, but we'll just have to wait and see about that.
I hate to hear that your tank has experienced some problems. I've noticed in reading other posts here on APC that changes in municipal water systems seem to be fairly common. I'm glad that I have a well with decent water, and I try to stay on top of the water parameters of the tank pretty good so if anything does happen to the well (not sure what you mean by your last statement) I hope that I would discover the problem before my tank had major issues.
I used to use the Seachem Flourish line as well, but then switched to PPS Pro, which is totally based on using dry ferts and then mixing them yourself. This entire thread is actually about me changing the recipe based on water test results and plant growth.
Now for an update on what's happened since my last post.
As previously mentioned, I performed a water change and plant trim on July 6th. On July 9th, I mixed up a new macro solution using the same ratios that I have been using since March 16th, except I increased the KH2PO4 a little more. Compared to the original recipe for PPS pro, I now am dosing 23% of the K2SO4, 23% of the KNO3, 23% of the MgSO4, and 250% of the KH2PO4.
Between July 18th and 25th I went out of town for a conference, so I had my mother-in-law feed the fish for me. However, I only gave her two small containers of food for her to feed with on two different days, so the tank didn't get the amount of food that it would normally get. The tank was fine when I returned, but I just thought that I should mention this since I would imagine that the test results could be skewed.
On July 30th I cleaned one of the canister filters and also trimmed the plants. I still had to scrape a little GSA from the glass (about the same as it has been).
Between July 31st and August 8th I was out of town on vacation. Again, I had my mother-in-law feed the fish for me the same way as before. When I returned, I found that my air conditioning system for the house wasn't working and the temperature in the house was about 90 degrees F! Unfortunately, the water temp in the tank was also 90 degrees, when it is normally around 80-82 degrees in the summer. Fortunately, other than the fish seemed to be a bit more active than normal, I couldn't tell that anything else was out of the ordinary. I topped off the tank with some cooler water, fixed the air conditioning, and after a couple of days the temp of the tank dropped back to normal.
On August 13th I mixed up some more macro solution using the same ratios that I used on July 9th. This finally used up all of the remaining macro solution that I had mixed up using the original recipe back on 7-30-09. Once this batch is gone, I think that I will start tweaking the recipe some more. I am really interested to see what I can do now since I won't have my hands tied with having to use a previously mixed solution.
On August 17th I finally performed some more water testing. Keep in mind that these results might not be very good for comparing to the others since the tank has seen some very different circumstances than normal. These should at least give me some kind of idea as to how it has been affected by these changes.
K - 20-25 ppm
Fe - .2-.3 ppm
NO3 - 26.4 ppm; N - 6 ppm
PO4 - 3 ppm; P - .978 ppm
N
ratio - 6.1:1
KH - 8 degrees
Total Hardness/GH - 140 ppm (7.8 degrees)
Calcium hardness - 112 ppm; Ca - 44.8 ppm
Magnesium hardness - 28 ppm; Mg - 6.72 ppm
Ca:Mg ratio - 6.7:1
I'm not sure whether I can use these measurements very much in order to determine changes to the recipe because of how much differently the tank has been treated since the last water tests were done. I'm a little puzzled at the higher NO3 reading, especially since the tank had two weeks of limited feeding and a very high plant mass because of a lack of trimming. I would have thought that the NO3 would have been lower. It had been six weeks since the last water change, so that might explain it. I also find it interesting that the Mg has now started to go down. I originally dropped the amount of Mg dosed back on January 20th, but the test results really didn't show much of a change until now. I don't think that I will make any changes based on this test right now. What I find most interesting is that the PO4 didn't change, even though it had been over five weeks since the dosed amount had been increased by 25% over what it had been. I think that I will test again before I decide what to do about recipe changes.
On August 20th I cleaned the other canister filter and also trimmed the plants. Just like before, I still had to scrape a little GSA from the glass, but I think that it might have been a little less (I'm not sure though).
As far as the plants go, I have noticed over the last couple of months that the Echinodorus cordifolius is now growing larger leaves than it had been lately. Before I started using PPS pro, it was growing enormous leaves (probably 7-8" long, if my memory serves me correct), and the majority of them were breaking the water surface and ending up emersed. I didn't like this growth pattern, so when they started growing smaller after the switch to PPS pro, I was pleased. They have been growing about 3" long for quite awhile, and much slower than before PPS pro. Now the growth seems to have picked up, and the new leaves are about 5-6" long. Some of them are getting closer to the surface though, so I hope that it doesn't start trying to grow emersed ones again. The Echinodorus hormani hasn't really been affected during this entire transition. It still grows leaves very quickly and their size hasn't changed. However, I haven't had a flower stalk produced from either sword since February. I don't know if it is normal for these plants to rest for awhile between flower stalk production or not. I'm not sure when it started, but my Crinum calimastratum has really started to do well over the last few months. It hadn't really done too much since it was planted back on 11-16-08, but I had read that they don't like to be moved and that you have to wait awhile for them to get established. I just didn't realize that I'd have to wait about a year and a half! I'm not sure if the increased growth that I'm getting now is because it took that long for it to get used to it's new environment, or if it is because I've done something that it likes. I just dug up a Cryptocoryne balansae that had come up right next to it that I didn't want there, so I hope that me disturbing the roots of the Crinum won't upset it. Speaking of the Crypt. balansae; they are also doing really well now. For the longest time they just were kind of there. Now they are spreading all over the tank. I'm going to have to stay on top of them to make sure they don't take over. All of the rest of the plants seem to be doing fine, but unchanged. I just added a couple of pieces of Hygrophila corymbosa on August 22nd, and I am extremely curious to see how they do. This is one of the plants that I used to have grow like a weed before I switched to PPS pro, but once I made the switch, it slowly started growing poorly until it completely died off. I hope that I can figure out what caused that and keep it alive. The Black Brush Algae (BBA) that had really taken over before the switch to PPS pro is slowly disappearing. Between me scraping it off occasionally, adding fish that are supposed to eat it, and trying to keep the CO2 at 30 ppm continuously, I think that I will eventually get rid of it (at least I can hope, right).
Hopefully I can find the time to test again in the next couple of weeks and then determine whether I should make any more tweaks to the recipe.
Andy