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Hi Andy, I read the entire post, and sure appreciate your dedication and willingness to test. I don't think I would have the patience to do it myself.

I have been reading article after article about fertilizing, and I want to set up the 180 gallon + 70 gallon sump with the dosing system that works best with less testing and with also minimizing water changes. Ei sounds good but i am not really interested in changing 125 gallon water change weekly.

So i started to read PMDD pros and cons and finally the pps-pro method. i think that with all methods one would actually have to adjust depending on other factors for their own tank (co2, light, local water quality, plants and fish stock).

anyways, if you don't mind me asking, what are your conclusions for your tank after all these months of testing? how have you modified the PPS-pro system and what are the quantities of ferts that you are mixing?

thanks for your help
Carlos
 
Well, it's been awhile since I've updated, so I have some catching up to do.

Thanks Left C for the info about the alkalinity test kit. I haven't gotten around to getting one, but I'll have to look into it.

And darkoon, I can certainly understand the concern about the cost. I don't think that I would want to have to buy all of my kits over again (and especially not all at once), but they sure are nice. The cool thing is that when the reagents run out, you can just buy a refill kit that is much more competitively priced.

Hello Carlos. I hope that all of this posting was at least slightly helpful. I understand where you are coming from on not wanting to do lots of major water changes. I find it difficult to make the time for all of that tank maintenance, so that's why I switched to PPS Pro. I absolutely agree that in order to have a fertilizing system that doesn't require lots of maintenance, that it must be tailored to your specific tank conditions. All of the fertilizing systems have their own characteristics that make them work out fine for the plants, but for the way that I like to maintain my aquarium, I really like what I've come up with.

I definitely don't mind you asking questions, so I'll see what I can do about getting them answered.

First of all, I need to update what's been going on since my last tests way back on 9-18-10.

Earlier I mentioned that I hadn't seen either of my Echinodorus species produce a flower stalk in a long time. On 10-3-10, I noticed that the Ech. cordifolius already had about an 8" long stalk!

On 10-11-10 I performed some tank trimming and a water change. I noticed that the Hygrophila polysperma seems to be growing thicker stronger stems than what it had been, and also appears to be branching more. I even think that all of the other stems are branching more than they used to.

The Ech. cordifolius had a second flower stalk reach the surface on 10-20-10, with the earlier one already reaching across the tank and producing plantlets.

On 11-9-10 I tested the water parameters again:

K - 30 ppm
Fe - .35 ppm
NO3 - 26.4 ppm; N - 6 ppm
PO4 - 3.3 ppm; P - 1.076 ppm
N:p ratio - 5.6:1
KH - 8 degrees
Total Hardness/GH - 128 ppm (7.2 degrees)
Calcium hardness - 84 ppm; Ca - 33.6 ppm
Magnesium hardness - 44 ppm; Mg - 10.56 ppm
Ca:Mg ratio - 3.2:1

On 11-16-10 I did more tank trimming and another water change. Still had to scrape a small amount of GSA.

From 11-20-10 to 11-27-10 I went on vacation and had someone come by and check on the tank. I left them two small containers of food to feed the tank just like before.

On 11-28-10 I needed to mix up some more macro solution, so I decided to tweak the recipe again. I ended up dropping the potassium a little more, and also increasing the phosphate some more, similar to what I had done the last time I changed the recipe back in September, as well as a slight decrease to the nitrate. The recipe that I ended up with is 17% of the K2SO4, 22% of the KNO3, 22% of the MgSO4, and 350% of the KH2PO4, as compared to the original recipe.

So Carlos, to put this in quantities instead of percentages, I'll actually list out the amounts of ingredients that I'm using currently.

First of all, the PPS Pro regular macro recipe calls for:

65 grams of KNO3
59 grams of K2SO4
6 grams of KH2PO4
41 grams of MgSO4

all to be added to 1 liter of distilled water

The PPS Pro regular micro recipe calls for:

80 grams of CSM+B or equivalent trace element mix per 1 liter distilled water

You then dose the tank with 1 ml of each solution per ten gallons of tank size.

However, I dose my tank 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using a medical infusion pump, so I have made a few changes just to take that into consideration. For my macros, I use twice as much water (in order to eliminate precipitates), but then dose about twice as much.

My most recent batch of macros had:

3.58 grams of KNO3
2.51 grams of K2SO4
5.25 grams of KH2PO4
2.26 grams of MgSO4

all added to 500 ml of water.

I then have this dosed at .6 ml per hour, for a total of 14.4 ml per day (going into a 75 gallon aquarium).

My micros are mixed at one fourth strength. I use 10 grams of CSM+B added to 500 ml of water. I then dose at .2 ml per hour, for a total of 4.8 ml per day. This calculates out to about 17% of the normal recipe.

As far as a conclusion, I haven't actually reached one yet. I'm still playing with the recipe little by little just to see what happens. However, I am at a point now that I feel that I could easily just leave everything as it is and the tank would do fine. In fact, overall, the tank is doing great, so it would be better than fine. Algae is almost non-existent (knocking on wood really quickly), the plant growth is manageable and healthy, and I don't feel that if I don't have time to do a water change that the tank is going to take a turn for the worse. I might eventually decide to quit playing with the recipe, but my guess is that as long as anything else that affects the aquarium is changed (lights, fish load, and even plant types), I will most likely always have to tweak at least a little.

As I said before, I strongly feel that there is no such thing as a "One Size Fits All" fertilizing regimen for a planted aquarium, unless you are okay with doing regular large water changes to reset the levels. That being said, it can also be argued that you can tailor your fertilizers without doing all of this testing by simply watching your plants. However, I feel that this is a reactionary approach, and I prefer a proactive one instead. To each his own.

Good luck with figuring out what to do with your 180, and I hope that I've helped.

Andy
 
Discussion starter · #63 · (Edited)
I then have this dosed at .6 ml per hour, for a total of 14.4 ml per day (going into a 75 gallon aquarium).

My micros are mixed at one fourth strength. I use 10 grams of CSM+B added to 500 ml of water. I then dose at .2 ml per hour, for a total of 4.8 ml per day. This calculates out to about 17% of the normal recipe.
Hey, Wow, this is a great idea. I'm still doing daily doses. What pumps do you use to dose at these rates?

This is so cool. You can adjust the pump rate, test the fert levels and maintain pretty much any fert level you want. Andy you are a genius!

On second thought, you can make up seperate K, P, and N solutions and dose seperately. By adjusting the rate of each you can custom your tank to whatever is growing in it! Damn that is fantastic! This has got to be the next generation of high tech tanks!
Ray
 
Well hello Ray!

I haven't heard from you in awhile.

I'm glad that you like the way that I dose my tank, and I really appreciate you referring to me as a genius, but I must admit that I am simply using someone else's idea. I did the research and picked out the pump off of eBay, but the concept was one that I saw a reef tank keeper using.

You are exactly right about how it works, though. I can adjust the rate of infusion down to .1 ml per hour, and I have been amazed at how accurate it can be. You are also correct in saying that you could technically dose every component of the recipe separately if you wanted. My unit has two pumps that can be controlled individually, but there is another model that has four individually controlled pumps. That would almost be enough to do every ingredient, but I imagine that you could mix a couple of the ingredients to keep from having another unit.

I could go into a long explanation here all about what I am using, but I've actually already done that here. I would suggest that you read that thread first before you ask any questions (wait until you have a good bit of time available - it's a pretty long one). I can't imagine that you could possibly come up with something else to ask that hasn't already been covered, but if so, I'll see what I can do to help.

By the way, you mention that this is the next generation of high tech tanks, but I must say that I can't compete with this one. Giancarlo Podio's tank is easily the most high tech tank that I've ever seen.

Thanks again,

Andy
 
Andy, first off, thank you so much for the detailed feedback.

Now, my question is - those percentages you list, are those based on the normal mixing with 1 liter water and dosing 1ml per 10g, or the actual percentages YOU are using for your specific dosing program?

(If I am doing a traditional once a day dosing of 1ml per 10g, do you I use the percentages you posted, if I wanted to mimic your tweaking of the program?)
 
See if this sounds right. Your tweaked version of PPS Pro would be:

14.3g KNO3
10.3g K2SO4
21g KH2PO4
9g MgSO4

mixed with 1 liter of distilled water, and:

13.6g CSM+B

mixed with 1 liter of distilled water

???
 
See if this sounds right. Your tweaked version of PPS Pro would be:

14.3g KNO3
10.3g K2SO4
21g KH2PO4
9g MgSO4

mixed with 1 liter of distilled water, and:

13.6g CSM+B

mixed with 1 liter of distilled water

???
You just about got it.

To answer your first question, the percentages listed are how much my recipe is of the original recipe. So simply take the original recipe and multiply it times my percentages and you will come up with how much of each ingredient to mix with 1 liter of water.

All of your math is right except for K2SO4, which would be 10.03 grams.

I need to do some more testing to see where the levels are now, but I've been really busy. The tank is doing great, though, so I haven't really been in too big of a hurry.

I'm glad that you found this thread useful.

Good luck with your set-up.

Andy
 
Yes, you are correct, and thank you. I will mix me up some based on your figures and go from there. Right now, I have a tank full of completely nutrient depleted plants. :(
 
Hehehe...so after I did your percentage calculations, I only had a 250ml bottle to use, so I had to divide by 4...more calculations! ;)

Thank you again. I was able to mix 3 of the ingredients. I am waiting on KH2PO4 which I had to order, and then also the CSM+B in it's own container.

Do you find that you have enough iron with what's in the CSM+B?
 
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