# Help Please! Your advice on dosing strategy for this 29 Gal



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

We set up a 29 gallon office tank for a friend recovering from a cardiac stent operation to keep him company in the office and give him something nicer to look at than piles of documents. The tank has been thriving for months, but now it’s time to bring things to the next level and add some plants. We would like to go with low light very easy to grow and tough to kill plants, such as some Crypt Pontederiifoli, C. Willisii Lucens, C. Wendtii Green, Narrow Leaf Java Fern, Anubias B Nana small, A B Nana petite and perhaps some Flame Moss.

To ensure maximum success for our friend with minimal effort, we went with an Eclipse hood and modified it. The hood comes with a biowheel and a filter cartridge – we removed the carbon from the filter cartridge and replaced the carbon with crushed coral, to keep the GH up and help stabilize the pH. Water flows through this and over this cartridge to the biowheel. To boost filtration, we added an Aquaclear 50 hang-on filter to the side of the hood, which has a sponge and a bag of Chemi-pure charcoal, which is replaced monthly. The hood also comes with two 18 watt bulbs, which we replaced with higher quality bulbs, including a Phillips ADV850 Advantage 5000K bulb and a Phillips TLD89 Aquarelle 10000K bulb, both of which are excellent for plant growth. 

The tank houses1 Albino Bristlenose 3 in., 4 Lamprologus Multifasciatus, several small Zebra Danios which hang out at the surface, 1 Synodontis which has grown to a whopping 4 in., and a colony of Julidochromis Marlieri with a few adults and about a dozen small fish. The fish load is not small, but the dual filters handle it very well.

Water changes are done regularly, but are minimal as the water supply is located a great distance from our friend’s office. So water changes beyond 3 gal (about 1/8 or 12.5% of water actually in tank). During water changes, the following is added per 10 gallons water replaced: 1 tablespoon Tropic Marin Sea Salt, 1 teaspoon Baking Soda and 1 teaspoon Epsom Salts.

The tank can get bright diffuse sunlight, but no direct sunlight, which may mean that the plants may require more ferts. I’d like to start however with the assumption that the plants should get low light tank ferts and then work up from there, especially since water changes are minimal.

Soilmaster Select Charcoal was used for substrate. There are various river rocks to provide hiding places for the fish to minimize aggression.

Our friend will be using Seachem Flourish Excel for carbon, Flourish for micronutrients and dry Mono Potassium Phosphate and Potassium Nitrate for macro ferts. This dosing mix has worked beautifully for me for high light tanks (the Sea Salt, Epsom Salts, Baking Soda and Crushed Coral provide everything not provided by the Flourish Excel, Flourish and dry ferts), however, we do 50% weekly water changes.

Considering the high quality T8 18 Watt bulbs, the fish load, the very slow growing lower light plants and the amount of water changed weekly, what would be a good daily dosing regimen for our friend? I’d greatly appreciate your advice, because I’ve never used EI ferts on a low light tank with these conditions and I don’t want to overdo it considering the smaller water changes.


----------



## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

fishstein said:


> Water changes are done regularly, but are minimal as the water supply is located a great distance from our friend's office. So water changes beyond 3 gal (about 1/8 or 12.5% of water actually in tank). During water changes, the following is added per 10 gallons water replaced: 1 tablespoon Tropic Marin Sea Salt, 1 teaspoon Baking Soda and 1 teaspoon Epsom Salts.


You don't need to add sea salt to your tank. Tanganyikan fish don't live in brackish water, they live in hard fresh water and putting coral sand/gravel or even better Aragonite in the tank or filter will provide all the hardness the fish need as it dissolves. It will also save your friend having to add anything after water changes so make his life even easier! Regular, small water changes are, IME, the best way to keep Tangyikans happy and breeding.

As far as plants go, I've grown C.becketi and wendtii, Java ferns, mosses of all sorts and Anubias in Tankganyikan tanks and they did well. Just watch the N.multifasciatus. Size for size they are the greatest diggers I've ever kept! As I'm sure you've seen, the males dig a big pit for their shells. Anything planted nearby might get uprooted or buried!!!

BTW have you got some snail shells for the multifasciatus? In the wild they live in open areas where large amounts of Neothauma shells gather and each male secures a grunch of shells hopefully with a female in each!


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

Hi Ed,

Thanks for your thoughts. I have been keeping an amazingly robust 75 gallon Tanganyikan tank with fantastic results with plants and also with breeding, and use sea salt. Funny a bunch of people on cichlid forums said I couldn't keep Tanganyikans in a planted tank. I use the salt primarily to protect the fish from disease (salt helps any injuries heal fast) and also to provide plant macro and micronutrients of all sorts. I only add 1 tablespoon per 10 gallon, and this has been recommended to me by many experienced fish keepers and breeders. As mentioned above, I placed crushed coral for hardness in the Eclipse hood filter cartridge (and have it in the XP3 in my 75 gallon Tanganyikan tank). The multifasciatus do have shells and have bred in our friend's tank.

I sincerely appreciate your thoughts, but the question I asked remains unanswered - what do you recommend for a dosing regimen for macro and micro nutrients for the plants in this tank? With EI dosing, you typically need to do 50% water changes (we do that with our 75 gallon Tanganyikan tank and the fish do and plants do great with the changes). This is not practical for our friend, because his tank is located very very far from a water faucet and sink. So I'm looking for recommended adjusted EI amounts, which should be very small for our friend's 29 gallon tank with slow growing plants and with only 3 gallons out of 25 gallons changed once/week.


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

My guess is that our friend's tank may not need any extra Nitrates because the fish load is sufficient to provide the Nitrates that slow growing crypts, java fern, anubias and moss need in a lower light tank. Phosphates could also be sufficiently available from fish food and fish waste, and from Flourish in small doses. The question is how much Flourish how often and whether Nitrates and Phosphates should be added at all?


----------



## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Since you can't do big water changes weekly I don't think the EI dosing method is the best for this tank. Why not look at the PPS pro method, which uses lower doses, less likely to build up in the tank. In any case, with the low light level, Excel instead of CO2, and the choice of plants, it would probably work best to dose only once a week.


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

Hi Hoppy,

I shouldn't have said EI - of course I was referring to a significantly reduced dosing regimen. If once/week, how much? In addition to Flourish Excel, what to dose and how much of it and how often?


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

Also, forgot to mention, PPS won't work as our friend just can't be relied on to do the testing. This has to be simple and easy to follow.


----------



## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

I am far from an expert on PPS pro, but I don't think it requires testing. For your friend the advantage would be the easy routine, plus dosing liquids instead of solid fertilizers. Why not ask Edward on his PPS pro thread how much of what to dose?


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

This is what one Seachem rep recommended to begin with (can always increase later as needed):

Seachem Flourish - 2.5 ml every day
Seachem Flourish - 2.5 ml every other day
Seachem Iron - 2 ml every other day with the Flourish
Seachem Nitrogen - 1 ml every other days not dosing Flourish and Iron
Seachem Phosphate - 2.5 ml every other day on days not dosing Flourish and Iron

I should mention that I use dry ferts for Nitrogen and Phosphate, and was going to recommend that our friend do the same. I'd have to convert the above liquid Seachem Nitrogen and Phosphate to their equivalent in dry ferts - does anyone know what these would be? I remember a fert dosing calculator out there somewhere.

I should mention that we'll be giving our friend plant tabs to push into the substrate and help feed the various Cryptocorynes planted, which should help keep them in good shape. I find Crypts do much better with root ferts in addition to ferts in the water column.


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

I'll also check PPS Pro


----------



## IbnOzn (Mar 16, 2007)

I currently keep 6 Neolamprologus Stappersi in a planted 20 gal. with a Flagfish, 2 Otos, a SAE and some Nerites. I use PPS Pro and am getting very good growth from my Crypts, Ludwigia, Anubias, Riccia, Java Moss, Java Fern, Hairgrass, Microsword and HC. Aragonite sand covers the front 1/3 of the tank where my shellies hang out so I don't add any buffer. They eat frozen brine. I have 2 yeast bottles going at the moment for CO2. Had some algae problems but the more CO2 I add the less algae there is. I don't test very much either. I'd recommend PPS Pro.


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

Hi IbnOzn,

How much light do you have over your tank? Sounds like a similar setup, but I bet you have a lot more light over your tank. 

Please understand that our friend cannot be relied on to do any testing or mixing of solutions. Our friend is a disaster with taking care of anything living. The tank we built for him is his first success.

I'm thinking that the simplist thing might be to just have him dose 2-2.5 ml of Flourish every day or every other day. I've grown anubias and crypts with just nutrients from fish waste under low light before. Since only 3 gallons out of about 25 gallons will be changed once/week, I'm just concerned about nutrient buildup.

What's the best thread link/article for PPS Pro? Does it include a simple chart?


----------



## IbnOzn (Mar 16, 2007)

I do have more light, 65 watts, so it's probably double what you're running. You're looking to achieve the right dosing for the 36 watts you have though so just lengthen your photoperiod.

The PPS Pro system has only two solutions, a micro and a macro fertilizer and you may be able to substitute Flourish as the micro fertilizer. You'll probably need some sort of macro fertilizer in addition to the Flourish. The fish waste will give you some of the phosphate and nitrates found in a macro but other elements are needed too.

You can mix the solutions for your friend so mix larger quantities and set him up with 6 months worth or more in advance. 1ml per 10 gallons as a rough guide for dosing so it's a no-brainer.

Alternatively for macros you can go get a bottle of Flourish Potassium, Flourish Nitrogen, Flourish Iron and Flourish Phosphorus and try to figure out how much of each like I see you are doing. 

An off the shelf CO2 system like the Nutrafin would be worth considering too, especially in a high PH tank.

Here's the forum on PPS Pro: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/pps-analysis-feedback/
Read the first sticky entitled Newbie Guide to PPS Pro, it'll explain better than I can and Edward would be able to help with you this as well.


----------



## fishstein (Dec 12, 2005)

Hi IbnOzn,

Thanks for the helpful info. A few comments/questions:

- Lengthening the photo period is not an option - this just leads to algae growth, as plants will stop or slow down photosynthesis after a period of time. This is well documented. More than 12 hours lighting period is not a good idea in general.

- C02 is not an option for this tank - again, we are dealing with someone who has difficulty taking care of a simple plant and fear of dealing with anything mechanical (believe me) - it's a miracle we've got the tank as healthy as it is (and party due to overbuilding the filtration and keeping feeding levels to a healthy but lower end range). He'll be using Flourish Excel for carbon for the plants. With low light and all slow growing plants, he probably doesn't need C02 and Flourish Excel should be more than enough.

- PPS Pro dosing is 1ml PPS solution per 10 gallons of tank water? Will read up. I specifically would want to know what quantity of dry ferts (in measuring spoon sizes) of his dry fert macros - mono potassium phosphate and potassium nitrate - he should add to what quantity of water to make a solution. Other nutrients come from sea salt and epsom salt he adds to the water during water changes plus crushed coral in the filter).

- He will definitely use Flourish for micros because that's easiest and he already has it. How much should he add at a time, and how many days a week? Every day or every other day? Generally for our own tanks we add Flourish on the days we don't add dry ferts, so that the iron in Flourish doesn't bind with the mono potassium phosphate we add.

We've had great success with Estimative Index fertilizing, but with his small water changes, that's not a good idea for him. Trying to read up on PPS Pro and then make it as simple as possible, or he'll never do it.


----------



## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Another option to consider is Phertz, where the solutions are dosed by one squirt per X gallons. No measuring at all. You can read up on Phertz here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...ertilizing/41602-pfertz-plant-fertilizer.html


----------

