# "Green Reef" on AGA competition and NH4



## Freemann (Mar 19, 2004)

2006 AGA Aquascaping Contest
I love this tank as well it is so lush and super 53 gallon. Looking at it I noticed that the guy uses the following ferts:
Most of Plants growing on Lava rocks, daily Fertilization: 3 ml Easy-Life ProFito Plant fertilizer, 2x 0,25 mg/L (NH4) Ammonium, 0,05 mg/L (PO4) Phosphate, 0,5 mg/L (K) Potassium
Notice the detail on NH4 instead of NO3 is this a new trend I notice similar aproaches on this appearing on apc aswell? Ideas, opinions?

PS. I did send him an email concerning this lets see what is his reply.
Freemann


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

I noticed that also. Notice the levels he doses. 2 times a day- .25mg/l NH4 and .05mg/l day PO4. Also consider, NH4 is 77.8% N by weight while NO3 is 22.6% N by weight. His .5mg/l NH4 daily equals .3885mg/l N. By comparison, I run my tank very hard and dose 6.5mg/l daily NO3. That equals 1.47mg/l N daily.

He is growing plants with slightly lower N requirements than we often think of a tank having lots of stemplants, large Echinodorus sp., etc. His plant mass also seems low as it appears most of the height is filled with rock that the plants are then growing on. Plus, he is only using 70watt MH over the tank, around 1.4 watts per gallon. Compare that to a "high tech" tank that runs 2.5-4 wpg. Lastly, there is no mention of CO2, so growth rates will be driven that much less.

Personally I don't see why NH4 won't work fine as long as one remembers the higher % N in it and that dosing should be done in small amounts, a couple times a day.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

An NH4 regulator with dosing pump would be nice.


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Edward, what do you mean regulator? Like a CO2 controller? That would be neat.


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## gf225 (Mar 26, 2005)

FYI the Tropica Nutrition Plus liquid fert contains NH4NO3.


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## nerita14 (Oct 24, 2006)

*nh4*

nh4 isn´t bad for the fishes ???


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

> nh4 isn´t bad for the fishes ???


If one adds too much it will. I dosed 0.5 ppm NH4 for a few days in a row without any algae issues and fish health. I think we are afraid of NH4 too much as we were afraid of PO4 in the past. Small doses such as 0.1-0.3 ppm daily will not harm fish nor they cause algae issues. To induce algae by using NH4 we would have to add at least 1 ppm NH4 daily. 
I also add NH4 and it seems it doesn't cause tip stunting as NO3 does (provided not too much NH4 is added). Many commercial N ferts for planted tanks and aquatic plants contain NH4 form. To see the difference between NH4 and NO3 we must have 0 ppm NO3 and start to dose NH4 only. When using NH4, PO4 cannot be high (0.1 will be enough).


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## detlef (Dec 24, 2004)

kekon said:


> When using NH4, PO4 cannot be high (0.1 will be enough).


Why is that? Can you please give a little more background info?

Thank you,
Detlef


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## kekon (Aug 1, 2005)

I have to correct myself. When saying about NH4 i was thinking about nitrogen in general. Here is the link:

http://www.umass.edu/tei/mwwp/factsheets.html


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