# Bit of Newbie help pls?!



## Pondlife (Mar 8, 2005)

Hi, I'm after a bit of help after some initial success with my new planted tank. I've got a Juwel Rio 180 with diy CO2 which I consider to be fairly heavily planted (I expect some will disagree!). I've been fish keeping for about 4 yrs but only just got into live plants. Tank has been set up and running for just over 1 month and during that time I've seen some really excellent growth: vallis grown by nearly 12 inches, Cabomba pruned twice, Egeria densa doubled in size, dwarf sag putting out numerous runners etc etc and so far hardly anything algae-wise just a v small show of thread on the odd brightly lit plant but you'd really have to look for it. Specs are as follows (bear with me I'm a bit new to this!)

Ammonia 0
NO2 0
No3 0.3ppm
PO4 1ppm
KH 4.8 degrees
PH 6.4 - 6.8 (night and day levels respectively with continuous diy co2)
FE 0.3ppm
Temp 26 c
100% Flourite substrate
10hrs per day lighting @ 2WPG
Stocking: 1 Bosemani Rainbow, 3 dwarf neon rainbows, 1 Kribensis (refugee from previous tank), 1 Blue Gourami, 4 black neons, 4 otos - some snails! (but not too many!!)

So far I've been dosing JBL ferropol trace fertilizer (mostly iron - contains no NO3 or PO4) in the recommended daily dosage monitoring my iron levels but haven't done any macro ferts. The problem that I've now got is that my growth has slowed quite a bit in the last few days - still no algae thank goodness but I've got some yellowing of older leaves on my swords, hygro and thai stricta in particular. I've done a lot of reading over the last few days and I'm thinking possibly nitrate too low and maybe potassium too. I've only just got test kits for PO4 and NO3 so I've just obtained the above readings. Incidentally before anyone asks the levels from my tap are NO3 0.5ppm and PO4 5ppm. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have ordered some KNO3 but won't use it until I get some sound advice from you guys and girls!

Attached photo from about 3 weeks after setup - will get some new pics when camera's working ;-)


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## titan97 (Feb 14, 2005)

Nitrates look pretty low, and phosphates are a little high. Try some Stump Remover (KNO3) from your local BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant aka Home Depot). It should only cost a few dollars for quite a lot.


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## discus (Jul 20, 2004)

Hi Pondlife

Your nitrates are way low at 0.3 ppm and comparatively your phosphates appear to high for the amount of nitrates you have an ideal ratio would be 10 to 1. I would try to bring my nitrates up to between 5 and 10 and keep phosphates where they are. 
With respect to potassium i dose daily as from what i have heard test kits for these are not readily available for the hobbyist and come at a hefty price.

with respect to plant health diagnosis I found the following site to be useful

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm

good luck


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Welcome to APC  

Low N03 levels will cause lack of growth that you are experiencing now. Once you start adding your KN03 you will see a big deference in plant growth. Start off dosing slow and test every 3 days and see if levels have increased. If not then increase dosage until you reach your desired levels. 

You may want to start dosing Seachem micros/macros to add other nutrients that your plants are not getting.

It would not hurt to increase your daily lighting to 12 hours daily.


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## Pondlife (Mar 8, 2005)

discus said:


> With respect to potassium i dose daily as from what i have heard test kits for these are not readily available for the hobbyist and come at a hefty price.
> 
> with respect to plant health diagnosis I found the following site to be useful
> 
> ...


Thanks all for the quick resonses! :smile: I'll go with the KNO3 then. With reference to your comment Discus: do you think that the KNO3 will have sufficient K for my needs or would you recommend additional K in some other form? I have had a good look at Chuck Gadd's site - v useful info thanks.


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## discus (Jul 20, 2004)

Pondlife said:


> Thanks all for the quick resonses! :smile: I'll go with the KNO3 then. With reference to your comment Discus: do you think that the KNO3 will have sufficient K for my needs or would you recommend additional K in some other form? I have had a good look at Chuck Gadd's site - v useful info thanks.


Hi Pondlife 
I dose additiional K as I dont feel KNO3 contains sufficient amounts of K. I follow PPS you can read about it here and the articles provide recipes on how to mix dosing solutions.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/t4241-perpetual-preservation-system-v2005-new.html

Keep us updated on whats going on.


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

Pondlife said:


> Thanks all for the quick resonses! :smile: I'll go with the KNO3 then. With reference to your comment Discus: do you think that the KNO3 will have sufficient K for my needs or would you recommend additional K in some other form? I have had a good look at Chuck Gadd's site - v useful info thanks.


Welcome to APC Pondlife!

When dosing KNO3, remember that for every 1.14 ppm of N you dose you're also dosing 3.15 ppm of K. There's no need to dose extra K.


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## Pondlife (Mar 8, 2005)

Once again thanks for the prompt replies & welcome. Nice friendly community this!!  The info regarding PPS looks interesting Discus - looks like I've got some more reading to do!! I'll get on with planning dosings of and monitoring progress from this weekend so i'll let you know how things go along.....


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I dose Green light stump remover (potassium nitrate) and have found that there is no need to dose extra K.



Pondlife said:


> Thanks all for the quick resonses!  I'll go with the KNO3 then. With reference to your comment Discus: do you think that the KNO3 will have sufficient K for my needs or would you recommend additional K in some other form? I have had a good look at Chuck Gadd's site - v useful info thanks.


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## discus (Jul 20, 2004)

trenac said:


> I dose Green light stump remover (potassium nitrate) and have found that there is no need to dose extra K.


I suppose it all depends on how much KNO3 you are dosing. If you are overdosing your KNO3 then yes you will most likely have sufficient amounts of K as your tank is full of KNO3. However in my case I use PPS where I do not overdose any one element in excessive amounts. Accordingly, the supplemental addition of K helps with the plants consumption of NO3.
At the end i guess its about how you want to run your sytem whether you want to maintain appropriate amounts of nutrients or whether you want to overdose.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Discus... You cannot say that I overdose, I maintain proper levels for each of my tanks. Everyone's tanks are different, weather it be with lighting, the use of C02 or not, plant density or all of the above. So what is proper levels for my tanks my be overdosing for another's tank or vise versa. So you don't have to overdose KN03 to keep enough K in your tank.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

In your picture, the Eigeria densa looks a little yellow. It is a good indicator plant, and should green up and grow faster when you get the nitrates up. I would also add some magnesium sulphate---epsom salts--- for the sulfur as well as for the magnesium.


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## discus (Jul 20, 2004)

trenac said:


> Discus... You cannot say that I overdose, I maintain proper levels for each of my tanks. Everyone's tanks are different, weather it be with lighting, the use of C02 or not, plant density or all of the above. So what is proper levels for my tanks my be overdosing for another's tank or vise versa. So you don't have to overdose KN03 to keep enough K in your tank.


Trenac
I didnt mean to imply that YOU were overdosing my comment was a general one in that when one does overdose KNO3 of course there will be sufficient levels of K in the water. However, if one does not then the additional amounts of K being added helps with the uptake of NO3 by the plants. I hope that clarifies matters.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Hi

Do you do water changes WC™? There must be a reason.
In my world, don't change it if it's not broken.
Why does one do water changes if you haven't overdosed?

Thank you
Edward


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