# How to enlarge your leaves



## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Together with my friend we decided to dose plain urea in our tanks as a source of nitrogen. Personally i dosed about 0.5 ppm of N from urea. After a week new leaves were about 2 times bigger than normal ones. No algae appeared. Nitrates level stayed almost unchanged during the experiment (i didn't dose NO3 but only urea). It showed that plants preferred urea over NO3. No other parameters were changed (micros, PO4, Ca, Mg etc. weren't changed). We also added some nickel into water (NiCl2 * 6H2O) as it seemed plants needed nickel to produce urease to convert urea. I don't have any photos yet but i'll run the experiment once again to confirm my experiences and take some photos of my plants.


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## czado (May 26, 2005)

Thank you for this update. Do you believe only 0.5ppm N from Urea is maintable long-term? Why are the plants happy with such low ppm and not touching N from NO3?

Are you still experimenting with Guanidine Carbonate?


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Due to lack of possibility to measure how much urea maintains in the water i just dosed this value 0.5 ppm "at a rough guess" (it was daily dose). Also, i was afraid of algae bloom.
Anyway, i measured NO3 just before giving first urea dose at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week. At the beginning NO3 was about 10 ppm and at the end - about 7 ppm. When only NO3 is dosed in my tank it consumes about 15 ppm NO3 per week (about 3 ppm daily). I suppose NH2 form (urea is CO(NH2)2 ) is also preferred nitrogen form and in presence of urea NO3 is ignored or absorbed in much lower amounts - that's why NO3 dropped a little only.
The urea dose i added (0.5 ppm) will be increased in my next experiment. In order to get to know how much urea is really needed i will observe my plants: when they get rich red colors at the tops and lean sideways or get pale on their lower leaves - it means there is not enough nitrogen in any form. In case of high nitrogen levels they grow perfectly upwards and don't get rich colors at their tops. I also dosed NH4... and it also enlarged the leaves but i discontinued the idea because it was too dangerous in terms of algae issues.
Obviously there are chemical methods of measuring urea levels in the water but they are out of reach of my poor home laboratory...

The experiments with guanidine carbonate failed unfortunately... We were told by a chemist who dealt with guanidine salts that it was completely unsuitable for plants as the nitrogen atom in this salt was connected with carbon one making nitrogen very stable and thus unavailable to plants. Also, he told that plain guanidine - CH5N3 - didn't exist because it was extremely chemically active. Only salts are available comercially such as guanidine carbonate, guanidine nitrate etc. Besides, when guanidine carbonate was dosed, NO3 dropped from about 10 ppm to 1 ppm in the course of a few days 
which was another evidence that guanidine carbonate was ignored (because of its unavailability i've written about) and NO3 was utilized.
Urea is very cheap - i bought 5kg bag for only $3 (they didn't have smaller bags unfortunately)


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## lailastar (Aug 28, 2006)

Where do you buy nickel and urea? Also what are your other water parameters? Your light amount? Pictures please...I want bigger plants..yum.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

When we dose 5 ppm, for example of NO3, we are only dosing about 1 pm of N, so the .5 ppm of N is similar to a typical NO3 dosage. I'm really interested in seeing how this experiment proceeds. It is almost a article of faith that urea or ammonium are very bad to have in the water column, since they trigger algae blooms. If you can demonstrate that urea, at least, doesn't do that, that will jolt a lot of us!


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

When it comes to nickel i purchased it in internet chemical shop (i'm sure such shops are in your country as well). Urea was bought in a farming shop. 
If you use tap water or tap water mixed with RO one you don't have to add nickel at all as tap water already consists some nickel (usually 0.001..0.01 ppm which is enough). There are some people in my country (Poland) who are in a favour of using NH4 in their tanks and they have no issues with algae. One of them has never used NO3 in his tank but only NH4 ! (0.5 ppm NH4 daily). However, using NH4 has one more disadvantage apart from algae issues: some of it is converted to NO3 by the biological filter so some people removed one from their tank. Personally i would't do that and i'm not going to dose NH4 either but urea and NO3.
So, i'm beginning to dose urea tomorrow and report the results and take some photos at the end of the week. 

my water params:

200 liters
PO4: 0.5-1 ppm
NO3: 10..15 ppm
GH: 5..8 (i'm experimenting with Ca and Mg)
KH: 3..4
T: 24C
SO4: 70 ppm
Na: 12 ppm
K: 10 ppm


I've just changed the bulbs as well. 
My old configuration: 3 x 4000K + 2 x 6000K + 2 x 8W 6500K (about 150W)
My new configuration: 3 x 3000K + 2 x 4000K + 2 x 8W 2700K (about 150W) - it resulted in heavy pearling; water looks like it begins to boil !

Plese remind me if i forget to write about the results at the end of the week


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## lailastar (Aug 28, 2006)

*Where oh where can the pictures be?*

SHow us the money...


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

lailastar said:


> Where oh where can the pictures be?


 Be patient. I'll put them in this thread


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

We know how these forms of Nitrogen benefit plants, but fish is another story. For those with fish, please keep reading ...

*Urea is H2NCONH2*
I suspect it is not very toxic in itself, but it will be hydrolyzed in water to ammonia and carbon dioxide. The ammonia could easily be a problem! I would not go above about 0.25 ppm urea in the tank water for just this reason.Paul Sears, ( http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.9607/msg00023.html )

*Ammonia - the silent killer*
Ammonia is extremely toxic and even relatively low levels pose a threat to fish health. 
*The effects on fish health*
Raised levels affect fish health in several different ways. At low levels (<0.1 mg/litre NH3) it acts a strong irritant, especially to the gills. Prolonged exposure to sub-lethal levels can lead to skin and gill hyperplasia . Gill hyperplasia is a condition in which the secondary gill lamellae swell and thicken, restricting the water flow over the gill filaments. This can result in respiratory problems and stress and as well as creating conditions for opportunistic bacteria and parasites to proliferate. Elevated levels are a common precursor to bacterial gill disease.

At higher levels (>0.1 mg/litre NH3) even relatively short exposures can lead to skin, eye, and gills damage. Elevated levels can also lead to ammonia poisoning by suppressing normal ammonia excrement from the gills. If fish are unable to excrete this metabolic waste product there is a rise in blood-ammonia levels resulting in damage to internal organs.; ( for more details go to http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/water/ammonia.htm )


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## Elkmor (Mar 30, 2005)

Is it so dangerous?

We know that fish itself causes some ammonia, wich is eaten by bio-filter and/or plants.

So if we just add some (little amount of) urea, it will simple act like more heavy fish load.

Am I right?

P.S. Sears is not so big authority for me besause of PO4 myth.


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Urea is converted into NH3 and CO2 by means of urease enzyme. Without urease the process is so slow and feeble that it has no meaning at all. As far as i know, NH3 exists in alkaline environment when pH is above 7; when pH is below 7 - NH4 appears so i don't think there is any danger of appearing NH3 in our tanks where pH is usually below 7.0. I doses 0.5 ppm of urea daily and had no issues with fish health, algae etc. Of course i doesn't mean the dose is correct. If one dosed urease directly into the tank and urea was also present it would surely be dangerous in one's tank especially if pH was above 
7. 
I carried out an experiment with the urease enzyme:
I made urea solution in a bottle and added some crushed pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds (and also soya) contain urease enzyme. After about an hour i detected strong smell of NH3 coming out of the bottle. Then, i carried out the same experiment WITHOUT pumpkin seeds - even after many hour NO NH3 was detected.

Of course i agree with Edward the dose of urea i added into the tank might have been too high. 
Flourish Nitrogen also consists urea (maybe it's different form)


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Elkmor said:


> Is it so dangerous?
> 
> We know that fish itself causes some ammonia, wich is eaten by bio-filter and/or plants.
> 
> ...


Yes, you are right. 
We have to understand that perfect water parameters for plants are toxic to fish and vice versa. 
It's all about balance.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Elkmor said:


> P.S. Sears is not so big authority for me besause of PO4 myth.


Mr. Paul Sears with Mr. Collin have invented one of the most popular and accurate fertilizing systems for aquatic plants, the PMDD. 

The fact that they were wrong about the PO4 is not entirely true. We have to understand the conditions at that time. Lighting was very low, CO2 was rare and fish load was usually high. In such conditions PO4 was so high from fish waste that further increases by dosing did not make sense. If you think about it, the PMDD was so complete it included Mg and more K, in contrary EI does not. 

In my opinion, they have helped tremendously in evolution of this hobby. 

Thank you
Edward


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

I wonder why fertilizers consist Mg. After all it is already in tap water or it is added during reconstituting RO so adding it to fertlizers seems to be pointless.
As I remember Edward's experiment with Rotala Wallichi it was only 2ppm Mg and it was enough...


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

So, i took some photos after a week of dosing urea. Some thread-like algae appeared but not many. However, some plants didn't react to urea and they grew as if they were fertilized with NO3. They're as follows:

1. Rotala at urea
2. Rorala at NO3
3. Bacopa at urea
4. Bacopa at NO3.

The photos aren't good quality and some may complain they don't see the difference. However, the effects are best seen directly in the tank.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Hm, sounds interesting. I might start to fertilize with urea in my planted tank (no fish) and see what happens too.

Thanks for the heads up on the possiblity!


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

epicfish said:


> Hm, sounds interesting. I might start to fertilize with urea in my planted tank (no fish) and see what happens too.


Remember to wait at least a week to see the effects. It would be better to dose urea for 2 weeks. To control if urea is really consumed by plants is to measure NO3. If it it stops dropping some day it means NO3 is ignored and urea is used. However, not all the plants prefer urea. Some seem to grow normally, no matter what the nitrogen form is present in the tank. 
I dosed 0.5 ppm of NH2 from urea daily. If you see more algae growing after dosing urea stop dosing immediately (i didn't notice algae bloom, though)


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## Elkmor (Mar 30, 2005)

Sample: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=3922
KNO3, no urea, no algae


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

> KNO3, no urea, no algae.


I know. When i dose NO3 only i don't have any algae either  The bacopa in the photo looks exactly the same as mine when dosing NO3. I dosed urea only as an expriment.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

kekon said:


> Remember to wait at least a week to see the effects. It would be better to dose urea for 2 weeks. To control if urea is really consumed by plants is to measure NO3. If it it stops dropping some day it means NO3 is ignored and urea is used. However, not all the plants prefer urea. Some seem to grow normally, no matter what the nitrogen form is present in the tank.
> I dosed 0.5 ppm of NH2 from urea daily. If you see more algae growing after dosing urea stop dosing immediately (i didn't notice algae bloom, though)


A week? Hm...doesn't help that I'm pretty impatient, lol. I'll try it next week and see.


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Patience is the most important thing in a planted tank hobby


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## czado (May 26, 2005)

I am interested in more updates and pics as you continue this experiment. Maybe another week or two will make the diference more apparent in pics? Thank you for the updates and information.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

I've been following this closely too. At some point I hope you increase the urea dosage - like what would happen if we were to make a mistake and double dose it.


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## Svante (Feb 8, 2004)

Have I understood correctly in that you have not been dosing any NO3 or any other form of Nitrogen additive other then Urea during this experiment?

Allso, in the first post you state that plants need Ni to produce ureaze to convert the urea, ureaze you stated later turns urea into NH4 or NH3, depending on pH values, couldn't we therefore asume that the plants would be wasting some energy to to catalyze that reaction?

Thinking about it quickly, I can't see any reason why using urea would be good for much at all, but I'm not known to be right in all my statements either 

I'm not saying dosing Urea as a source of nitrogen is bad, but I'm not sure it's good either, because apparently, you have found that urea increase leaf size in your tanks, and I don't doubt that you are telling us the truth, I'm just not sure why Urea would have that effect ...


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## spcyamada (May 13, 2005)

*hah*

the title of this thread sounds like unwanted spam. haha


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

> Have I understood correctly in that you have not been dosing any NO3 or any other form of Nitrogen additive other then Urea during this experiment?


Yes, only urea was dosed. A friend of mine dosed urea together with NO3 and he got better results than i did.



> Allso, in the first post you state that plants need Ni to produce ureaze to convert the urea, ureaze you stated later turns urea into NH4 or NH3, depending on pH values, couldn't we therefore asume that the plants would be wasting some energy to to catalyze that reaction?


Yes, you're right. I also think some energy is wasted to convert the urea but it is maybe less energy than converting NO3 to NH4. However, we are not able to find out when less energy is wasted: when converting urea to NH4/NH3 or when converting NO3 to NH4/NH3 because growth rate remained the same at NO3 and urea.
In fact the experiment i ran wasn't about enlarging leaves at the beginning  My goal was to check if urea nitrogen form can alleviate calcium deficiency. Such a phenomenon exists in hydroponics. Unforunately it didn't work in my tank... So, the only effect i obtained was enlarged leaves. For that reason i could call the effect as "positive side effect". I expected that calcium deficiency on my umbrosum and Alternatera reinecki would disappear but it didn't - but i noticed enlarged levaes on other plants - Bacopa Caroliniana and Rotala Rotundifolia. Anyway, urea is not as dangerous as NH4 and can be considered to be as a "compromise between NO3 and NH4".



> you have found that urea increase leaf size in your tanks, and I don't doubt that you are telling us the truth, I'm just not sure why Urea would have that effect ...


I was told tha same effect can appear when only NO3 is dosed but its level must be high enough (at least 20..30 ppm). However, some plants don't like high NO3 (for example Rotala Macrandra) and they stunt at high NO3. My friend dosed NH4 in high amounts (1 ppm daily) and he also obtained bigger leaves but he also got green water very quickly.


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

> the title of this thread sounds like unwanted spam.


I suppose the spam title sounded like "How to enlarge your p...."  Anyway, i didn't think of any spam title when writing this thread


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## Svante (Feb 8, 2004)

kekon said:


> Yes, you're right. I also think some energy is wasted to convert the urea but it is maybe less energy than converting NO3 to NH4. However, we are not able to find out when less energy is wasted: when converting urea to NH4/NH3 or when converting NO3 to NH4/NH3 because growth rate remained the same at NO3 and urea.


Hmmm, so you mean that NO3 is not the source that plants use for Nitrogen, but rather, they can create NH4 from NO3, which they then use as a source of NO3?

If so, perhaps urea could be a very good source of nitrogen, provided however, that plants are more efficient then algae in converting urea to NH4, potentially depriving algae of nitrogen, whilst supplying plants at roughly the same levels as when using NO3 ...?

Just a thought, I might be 100% off on this, perhaps algae is better at utilizing urea then plants are, and my thesis will be utterly ruined ....


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Plants can absorb nitrogen in 4 forms: NO2, NO3, CO(NH2)2 (urea) and NH4.
All of these forms are converted in plant tissues into NH3. 
So, NO3 is also a source of nitrogen but it was proved that to convert it into NH3 plants require more energy than using NH4 and urea. Algae however, can't use NO3 as effectively as plants do and because of that we prefer NO3 in our tanks. When it comes to "energy level" used to convert any nitrogen form into NH3 it seems to me that urea is somewhere between NO3 and NH4.



> supplying plants at roughly the same levels as when using NO3 ...?


NO3 contains about 25% N (so, if we have 10 ppm NO3 for expample, it's about 2.5 ppm N). Urea contains 46% N, NH4 - 78%. Theoretically it seems that to have the same amount of N as it is at 10 ppm NO3 (2.5 ppm N) we would have to have:

3.2 ppm NH4 = 2.5 ppm N = 10 ppm NO3
5.5 ppm urea = 2.5 ppm N = 10 ppm NO3

So as you can see, 10 ppm of NO3 is not the same amount of nitrogen as 10 ppm NH4 or urea. Anyway, having 3.2 ppm of NH4 or 5.5 ppm of urea in a tank would be probably a disaster causing very intense algae bloom and killing your fish.
Some people i know, dose NH4 0.5 ppm daily without any issues. I also did so, but suspended the idea eventually (i was too afraid of algae)


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Well, some time has passed and i repeated the experiment. Some day i had 0 ppm NO3 in the morning and i added about 0,3 ppm N from urea. Six hours later i measured NO3 again. The test showed about 3 ppm NO3 (i don't rely upon the test but it was used just to examine if urea is converted to NO3 and it proved it is)


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Has anyone tried urine as a source of nitrogen? Just curious sound like it might work - obviously it would depend on how much you drink and what you eat. But, hey it's just like adding more fish pee


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

I don't think it would be a good idea to pee into your tank...  
Urine in fact consists urea but also many toxic substances. It also consists NaCl (5..15%). Animals wastes are used as a source of nitrogen in agriculture but they are completely unsuitable for planted tank purposes.


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## azfishguy (Jul 1, 2005)

This is getting absurd. C'mon guys!


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## Troy McClure (Aug 3, 2005)

azfishguy said:


> This is getting absurd. C'mon guys!


That is quite absurd, I'll agree, but I do recall some people back in the day using urine to cycle their tanks. I'm glad we have Bio-Spira now! 


kekon said:


> Plants can absorb nitrogen in 4 forms: NO2, NO3, CO(NH2)2 (urea) and NH4.
> All of these forms are converted in plant tissues into NH3.
> So, NO3 is also a source of nitrogen but it was proved that to convert it into NH3 plants require more energy than using NH4 and urea. Algae however, can't use NO3 as effectively as plants do and because of that we prefer NO3 in our tanks. When it comes to "energy level" used to convert any nitrogen form into NH3 it seems to me that urea is somewhere between NO3 and NH4.


OK, I understand that we're talking about efficiency, but most of us aren't adding straight NO3 to our tanks, so I'm curious - How is the NO3 in KNO3 broken apart? Is it done in the water, by the plant cells? If it's in the plant cells, how much extra energy does it take to separate the NO3 and K? Is this extra energy expenditure something that is beneficial to plants and detrimental to algae?


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

> How is the NO3 in KNO3 broken apart?


When potassium nitrate (KNO3) dissolves in water, you have a solution of potassium (K+) and nitrate (NO3-) ions which are then used by the plants.


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## Revan (Dec 26, 2005)

Hi Kekon, have you tried to dose more than 0,5ppm of urea daily? 
Have you got any issue with you plant or with your fish?

Best regards


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

Yes, I dosed even 1 ppm NH2 daily for a few days in a row but i didn't notice any issues with algae and fish. However such high amounts of urea were quickly converted to NO3 in a matter of hours.


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## Revan (Dec 26, 2005)

Thank you for your answer, I consider your experiments very interesting

1ppm NH2 = 0.466ppm N = 1.87ppm CO(NH2)2 = 2.06ppm NO3

Best Regards


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