[pineapple]

Bear in mind the following things:

- It's a new aquarium set up and has, as yet, a poorly developed substrate system until bacteria colonize it. Flourite is not a fertile off-the-shelf substrate unless you added mulm, peat etc during the set up.

- Check the PO4 test kit against the Flourish Phosphate to make sure the test kit is functioning as expected.

- If it was me, I would leave out the Fe / Trace for the next two weeks or so. There is some debate about how much fertilizer to provide during the set up time.

- During the next few weeks I would also reduce lighting time to 9-10 hours daily.

Where are you located?

Drive the system and you will possibly get algae, at least in the initial period as plants develop root systems and bacteria colonizes etc. Let it grow in a more natural way and you might well avoid problems.

Andrew Cribb

 

[pineapple]

Nice place Berkshire. Is that not where the new "Beckingham Palace" is located? Seems like you're having as cold a winter as we are in NYC.... hope it warms up soon.

So you seeded the substrate. That bodes well.

As for the K aspect, I have read that it promotes root growth. It's hard to verify that without plucking ones plants out now and again to check. I haven't done that so cannot say for sure. K does seem to promote growth though and seems to have no effect on promoting algae.

As you say, focus on the Macros and as you test now and again you will see how fast they are being used up. From that you can judge when it is time to start adding Micros. Reducing the lighting by an hour might help a little - cannot harm.

Andrew Cribb