# ADA AquaSoil How Low to keep PH / Add Ferts?



## alexperez (Oct 8, 2004)

I replaced my Eco/Regular Gravel to ADA Substrate. And I'm wondering how low should I let my PH Drop with the CO2 addition. 

Tap Water after 24 hrs.
ph 7.4 (SM122)
KH 3 (LaMotte)
GH 15 (LaMotte)

With Eco/Gravel I was Keeping it at (with CO2):
PH 6.1- 6.3
Kh 3
GH 15

After Replacing Substrate to ADA (Powersand Special & Amozonian)
With No CO2 added for 24 hrs.
Ph 6.0
kh < 1.0
GH 7

What I'm wondering is how low should I let the PH drop to keep a good amount of CO2 and not kill any fish. I can't use the chart so I just droped the PH with CO2 till I saw my Ricca Start Pearling. Fish do not seem to mind so far but I am scared that if I go lower the PH wil have an adverse effect on the fish (5.0 or so). Currently with CO2 addition things look like this: 
Ph 5.4 -5.6
KH < 1.0
GH 7 

Also I have read some threads about Fertilizing after moving to ADA and wondering if I should continue my past EI Routine. I am starting to see a lot more fuzz Alage growing on the Glass and on some of the Leaves.
NO3 3/4 tsb 3X
PO4 1/4 tsb 3X
K2SO4 1 tsb at Water Change
20 ml CSM+B 3X (1 TBS in 250 ml Water).

Thanks,
Alex


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

I was told not to fertilize an ADA tank for about the first 4 weeks. I would still do the water changes and make sure your GH and KH are on. Also, CO2 should also be added. I have also been told to watch for nitrate and Po4 spikes during the first few weeks. During this time its probably not so good to add a ton of fish, especially sensitive ones as the spikes may hurt them a bit.


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## turtlehead (Nov 27, 2004)

Some start ferts right after setup, to me it depends on the plant load and tank, If it was a high tech tank I would begin ferts right after setup, but if it was a low tech, I would start slow.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

I usually dose right away in a high tech tank also, but with my ADA tank I have found that to be a problem. When I did dose it in the beginning I got green dust algae on the glass and hair algae. Now that my tank is over a month old I am slowly getting back into my original regemine.


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

chiahead said:


> I usually dose right away in a high tech tank also, but with my ADA tank I have found that to be a problem. When I did dose it in the beginning I got green dust algae on the glass and hair algae. Now that my tank is over a month old I am slowly getting back into my original regemine.


 This implies that excess nutrients cause algae. I think it has been fairly well established by Tom Barr, et al, that excess is not an issue. I have no experience with ADA but I have 2 theories. First, I believe ADA substrates have lots of organics, hence lots of DOC and material to break down into ammonia/nitrate/PO4/etc. Second, I have noticed in my tanks that any substantial change will great a little algae bloom. City changes tap water and bam, algae. Change in light intensity or duration, algae. Signifigant change in fert routine or nutrient ratios, algae. Major prune or hack, algae.
Anything that negativly affects or slows the plants growth, algae.

You start redoing your substrate, changing the hardnesses, screwing with the fert routine, mucking with the plants, and fiddling with CO2, all at once, and you will definately stunt the plant's growth for a few days/week. Plants that are not actively uptaking nutrients are not out competing algae, thus in *seems* that nutrient excess is bad. Just my observations.

What does this mean.....In new setups or heavily altered setups on emight net need to dose heavily at first but you should still make sure nothing is limited. Either way 2 things will help, actually they are really a must; CO2, CO2, CO2 and as much healthy plant matter as possible. Flowating fast growers for a week or more migh tbe helpful but make sure your XO2 is in the 30pppm range.

As for your CO2, if the fish are fine and the plants are pearling youshould be OK. You can always do the comparision to your tap to see how much your peadings are affected by all the organics in the ADA. You can also basically guage your CO2 addition by the bubble rate in your old setup. If 2 bubbles a second gave you enough CO2, then that will give you a good starting point now. Just do what you have done. Keep adding it till you see unhappyness and back it off a bit


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

My mistake, I should of stated that if the ferts are added they may change the balance enough to spike an algae growth. Either way its excessive nutrients of some kind. Its very easy to over do it as far as dry ferts are concerned. I dont believe the ADA substrate would be limiting at first, and I belive that most plants can just pull it from there. I mean why would one buy and use an item like power sand to provide nutrients and then dose the water column right from the get go? Seems like excessive waste to me. Let me ask you all a question? If I have a tank with 50ppm No3 and 10 ppm Po4 would I have any algae? Probably so. That sounds like excessive nutrients to me. Now if those same numbers happened gradually over a long period of time then maybe not, but its still a waste. My point was that I have been told by many experienced ADA users that in the beginning ADA, especially power sand special will spike the No3 and Po4 levels higher than you want them already so why would one dose more? That sudden spike in my opinion will cause all sorts of algae. In other inert substrates then I dont see it as a problem. But with ADA I would recomend against it.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

Alex as far as the Co2, what I do is buffer the KH to 3 or 4 with baking soda and then set the PH to be around 6.2-6.4 or so. That should give you a decnt ppm of Co2 even with the ADA dropping the KH. Sounds like you have an 80 gallon like me. Same EI fert amount. Just an FYI, in 1 week my KH dropped from 4 to 2 degrees. With no adjusting or water changes. Something to keep an eye on when figuring the Co2. Good luck with your new set up and let all of us know how you like it.


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## alexperez (Oct 8, 2004)

Thanks to everyone for the replies so far.

Interesting thing I noticed Yesterday. I did a 60% water change on Tuesday
morning and saw very little pearling on Tuesday night. When I got home yesterday I again saw almost no pearling going on. So I added 1/2 tbs of NO3, 1tbs of K2SO4, 1/8 tbs of PO4, 1 tbs of MG and in about 2 hours pearling increased a great deal. Hmmm... 

This is my plan for the next few weeks: Please tell me what you think!
Dose at 1/2 tbs NO3, 1/8 PO4, 1tbs K2SO4, 1 tbs MG on day 1 and 15ml Traces on day 2 and do a 40% water change then repeat. Raise the KH to 4 and set the PH Controller at 6.0 to 6.2. I will also raised my Tek light Fixture a bit higher to reduce the light intensity a bit. 

Question How many teaspoons of baking soda would I need to add to raise the KH to 4 degrees (Considering my KH is testing at less that 1) in the 75G (probably 60-65 Gallon of water)? I got 4 teaspoons but not sure on this one.

I'm starting to see some Fuzz Algae, and some Diatom Algae on the plants and substrate where I planted a 3 different types of foreground plants (HC, Crassula helmsii, Blyxa japonica) to see how they will grow in the ADA Substrate in comparison to the eco I had before.

I hope switching to ADA will give me some good results once things settle down some. So far Its been lots of work and not exactly cheap.

Forgot to add: My fish do seem to be a lot more active and eating more since swithing to the ADA Substrate. Not sure if it has anything to do with the substrate, Its Probably all the water changes I made so far.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

chiahead said:


> I usually dose right away in a high tech tank also, but with my ADA tank I have found that to be a problem. When I did dose it in the beginning I got green dust algae on the glass and hair algae. Now that my tank is over a month old I am slowly getting back into my original regemine.


The question is why would that be a problem in an ADA substrate soil and not others?

Did you add mulm?

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Alex, disconnect that damn controller.

Anything that monkeys with your KH, is bad if you use a controller.
pH controllers do not control KH.

As the KH declines, so does the CO2.
This is bad.

So, if you add enough CO2 based on a pH/KH reading using just the needle valve+ no controller, even if the KH drops, the amount of CO2 being added to the tank is still the same.

So.....................you still add the same amount of CO2 to the tank this way independent of KH.

Plants still use the same amount of CO2 at a KH of 5 or a KH of 2...........
This is sort of an EI approach to CO2. 

If you add a little bit of NH4+ less CO2, you will get algae...............
Powersand has NH4, not just NO3, the NO3/PO4 spike is not an issue for the algae, the NH4 most definitely is............

Add less CO2...........

Now you can see where this is going.............

If the plants have plenty of CO2/light, and plant biomass from day one, the NH4 should be consumed rapidly enough to prevent any algae.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

Sounds like you are overdoing it on many fronts. Try not worrying so much about your KH and all these things. Keep the water column real lean- just micros, some iron and K and you are fine- let the substrate work for you- don't fight it. All this baking soda and whatnot...I just don't see the need. Try just cruising with it- 1/3 water change every 6-7 days- minimal liquids (let your plants show you what they need). I have had zero issues and nothing short of excellent healthy growth with this approach. Don't over-think it- unless you are into that sort of thing. I'll bet it works out for you in the end. 

It's just my advice/what I have been doing and achieving good results, that's all.


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## omega (Apr 1, 2004)

I hear Houston has really hard water. Is this true? What about people who live in other areas whose water is really soft. Does the ADA substrate provide the Ca/Mg? Anyone who doesn't live in hard-water Houston and have the same experience as Jeff does where you dose only micro and K? Did you get Ca/Mg deficiency?


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

I think the water in Japan is really soft, is it not?


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

The water is softer in Japan, but I am not so sure that people who live there and use the ADA setup dose at the beginning or not?????? Anyone know????


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Even if it's soft, they do 50% weekly water changes so if the GH is 1-3 degrees, that is often enough.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

So, whats the answer??? Do people who live with soft water who have used ADA fertilize from the beginning? Also, Omega question is a good one. If they do not fertilize will it cause a Ca/Mg deficiency?


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

I think the same rules apply- if the layout demands dosing sooner, than do so. I would utilize more observation and less adherence to a formulic protocol. Do you have Ca/Mg deficiency symptoms currently?


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

Actually I have twisting and curling of the leaves. Possibly a CA deficiency? I am also getting green water that I keep getting back. I have tried non dosing for a week and then dosing for a week, and the green water keeps coming back. I did try a 4 day blackout and that was a horible idea. My plants hated that. Since I have just been doing diatom filtering to clear the water with great results. The green water just comes back. I think the plants are still recovering from the blackout damage(2 weeks ago) and new growth is still coming in twisted, and my macrandra is brown instead of a nice deep red like before. This plant and the eriocaulons and toninas did not enjoy the blackout and almost died as a result. For the past week I have dosed like I dosed before.

80 gallon
even days-3/4 teasp Kno3, 1/8 teasp K2Po4
odd days-15 ml Flourish, 5 ml iron, 24 ml Excel
at weekly 50% wtr(100%R.O.) change-1 Tablespoon equilibrium, 1 Tbl calcium chloride, 30 drops green gain, 2 Tbl baking soda

my last test the specs were this:
pH-6.2 KH-2 GH-5 PO4-2.5 NO3-25 CA-20 MG-10 CO2-38
The tank has been set up for 6 weeks now. The first 3 weeks were awesome, with great growth. Since the following 3 weeks I have fought green water, a little hair algae, spot algae, and twisting curling growth. Browning of the stems(probably from the blackout), and leaf falloff. I think my Excel may be bad as everytime I add it green water comes back. Maybe I will not use it anymore.


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## jsenske (Mar 15, 2004)

Do you run carbon in your filter?


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

not usually but I did when I was getting the hazy look inmy tank and I still ran it through the green water. Totally I probably ran the carbon for 3-4 days.


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Chia,

I get the feeling that your tank just needs to settle in. Seems like it has been having problems since your first algae issue 3 weeks into the setup. My assumption would be that the nutrient spike common (or so I have read) that occures with ADA substrates caused the initial nutrient imbalance and algae outbreak. Constant fiddling, changing of water parameters, nutrient doses and black outs has lead to stressed plants. Stressed plants don't out compete algae so the cycle continues. This may be hard to do, but I would recommend selecting a nutrient dosing schedule that gives the plants enough/ excess while taking into account nurients gained from feeding and the substrate. Stick with that for 3 weeks. Switch from large wc to more frequent, smaller waterchanges and up the CO2 as much as possible.

I wonder also if a deficiency of traces is causing this issue. Logically the plants would have enough nutrients, especially traces, stored to survive for 1-3 weeks after the change to ADA substrates, after that something became deficient (or possibly blocked) and it all went down hill from there. 

I have noticed that my water supply changes drastically in hardness levels during the summer months. About a week after each change the plants slow/stunt a little and I get a larger amount of algae, usually thread and green dust. I attribute this to a sudden change and the plants response to this. I assume the plants respond to this change by slowing a little in growth as if there were declining natural conditions(ie, rainy/dry season in nature). These are all just guesses and fleeting ideas on my part though.....


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## alexperez (Oct 8, 2004)

*Update*

We'll its been 2 weeks and after following the advice of Tom and jsenske
Tom - get rid of the PH controller. (killed 3 fish doing it.)
jsenske - Keep the water column real lean- just micros, some iron and K and you are fine.

Most of the fuzz algae is gone. It no longer grows on the glass though some plants still have a little bit left on the older leaves. Plants are pearling good and growing nicely. HC is spreading, Tonia has nice new growth, and all other plants are doing better except some Bolbitis heteroclita which is going down hill.

All I have been adding is 15 ml Traces 3X weekly, 1/2 tsb K 2X weekly
30-50% WC 2X week
No NO3 or PO4.
Tested last night and reading where
13 ppm NO3
1 ppm PO4
KH-2
GH-8
PH is ~5.5

Thanks eveyone for their help!


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