# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Balancing ferts



## canadianaquanut (Dec 7, 2004)

I need help again. 
I have read a bunch of stuff about dozing fertilizers and am still a little confused. 
I have an algae problem and in an attempt to get rid of it I have done the following things
1) Bought about 100 stems of two fast growing plants
2)Increased the CO2 output to 12ppm and increasing it further
3) Started dosing with ferts
Its the last one that is giving me problems I can't seem to get my head around figuring out the balance. 
I am using Seachem products to start with. On Saturday I did a 50% water change and basically started again. There seems to be some slow improvement.
I am using
Flourish twice a week 3ml
Nitrogen twice a week 4ml
Potassium twice a week 7.5ml
Excel 7.5ml everyday ( I don't think I need this anymore as I have increased the output of the hagen CO2 reactors.
Iron 7.5ml everyday
I tested my water tonight and got the following
ph - 7 
kh - 4 
Nitrate - 0 (after adding Nitrogen)
Phosphate - 0.5 
I did put in an initial dose of 42ml of phosphorus.
I know my nitrates needs increasing but not sure how much. Will adding phosphorus increase the phosphates ?
Any help greatly appreciated


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## canadianaquanut (Dec 7, 2004)

I need help again. 
I have read a bunch of stuff about dozing fertilizers and am still a little confused. 
I have an algae problem and in an attempt to get rid of it I have done the following things
1) Bought about 100 stems of two fast growing plants
2)Increased the CO2 output to 12ppm and increasing it further
3) Started dosing with ferts
Its the last one that is giving me problems I can't seem to get my head around figuring out the balance. 
I am using Seachem products to start with. On Saturday I did a 50% water change and basically started again. There seems to be some slow improvement.
I am using
Flourish twice a week 3ml
Nitrogen twice a week 4ml
Potassium twice a week 7.5ml
Excel 7.5ml everyday ( I don't think I need this anymore as I have increased the output of the hagen CO2 reactors.
Iron 7.5ml everyday
I tested my water tonight and got the following
ph - 7 
kh - 4 
Nitrate - 0 (after adding Nitrogen)
Phosphate - 0.5 
I did put in an initial dose of 42ml of phosphorus.
I know my nitrates needs increasing but not sure how much. Will adding phosphorus increase the phosphates ?
Any help greatly appreciated


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

Have you added more lights yet? If I remember you just had 110w on your 75gal ? And yes stop using Excel if you are adding CO2. 

If you still have 110w, with CO2 levels at 12-18ppm are about right. I would not be adding any more phosphorus until your nitrate levels come up. That you are trying to achieve are 
NO3 = 5-10
PO4 = .5

What kind of algae do you have? If its green algae on the glass mostly I would stop adding Iron for now too. Low Iron will not show as a algae problem any way you should have enough using flourish.

In my 75gal with 220w if I does more then 5ml of flourish twice a week I have algae starting to show up. For your tank I wouldn't increase flourish until you get NO3 up and then I don't think I would increase flourish right away. Once you get NO3 and PO4 levels in balance then you can start working on the rest of the stuff.

Then you have to balance your CO2 with the amount of light you have. With low levels of light you can use CO2 but at lower levels compared to tanks with higher light. With my 75gal with 220w I like to have CO2 at 25-30ppm. I use 9-10 hours of light with CO2 running 24/7. I use 5ml of flourish 2/week. That is my constant. I add NO3 or PO4 to maintain my goal levels. Once you find your constant then you can start adding a little Iron until you reach the point of algae showing up on the glass. 

One of the biggest problems made by beginners. is trying to do to much at one time. Then you have no way of knowing if one thing you did was the right thing or not. I know this from experience. You have to make changes slowly and give your tank time to react to the changes. Hope this helps.

Hawk


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## Jason Baliban (Feb 21, 2005)

Consistantly learning from Hawk!!!


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## canadianaquanut (Dec 7, 2004)

Thanks Hawk
That makes it a little clearer.
As for the algae I do have some on the glass although it has slowed the last few days. I think I have some thread algae as well.
As far as lights go I ordered a dual sattelite 260w set up which I am hoping to pick up tomorrow.


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

Remember with the higher light you will need higher CO2 levels.
If your algae seems to be going away or spreading slower Your tank may be starting to balance it self. the algae on the glass could be from the iron you are adding. Stop adding it and see if it clears up. The thread algae could be from your low level of CO2. When you add your new lights you will have to up your CO2 levels, that should take care of the thread algae. Good luck! can't wait to see some pics.

Hawk


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## canadianaquanut (Dec 7, 2004)

Well I added the new lights Saturday. I now have 260w CF. The thread algae does seem to have gone away but it has been replaced with what seems like beard algae. I did a large water change on Sat and reset my parameters to the following.
CO2 - 24PPM
Nitrate - 5-10ppm
Phosphate - 0.3 - 0.5 ppm
I also tested for Iron and it shows 0. I checked the test kit and it is working.
I added 3ml of flourish (75g tank by the way)

How long should it take for the algae to show any signs of retreating ? 
It's frustrating because I would really like to start growing plants not algae and of course the lfs has some plants that I wanted and will probbaly be gone by the time I am ready.


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

How long do you have lights on? Are the plant you have now showing sings of new growth? Your water parameters look ok so its getting your light balanced with your CO2. As long as your plants are growing well you can get by with 9-10 hour of light. If there not growing well because of algae growth on them you may need to do some trimming and get some fast growing stem plants to out compete the algae. Until the algae starts showing signs of dieing back I would so water changes twice a week. It may take a few weeks for the algae to start to die and months to go away. What I would do now that you have your new lights and the water parameters are in the correct range is take every thing out of your tank and clean it. Do a bleach bath on the plants you have that can take the stress. I would all so go buy the new plant you want. I am impatient I rather take a day and start with a clean tank. 

Hawk


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## canadianaquanut (Dec 7, 2004)

Thanks again Hawk
I am in the impatient camp too. I was kinda figuring it would come down to a bleach treatment all along.
Well I guess I know what I am doing this weekend 
Thanks


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## alexperez (Oct 8, 2004)

I would increase the CO2 to at least 30ppm
and increase the Nitrates to 20ppm Phosphate to 2.0ppm. You need to get the plants to grow really good and the algae will stop growing. The algae that in there will need to be removed.
It takes a few weeks to see results. Just make sure your nutrients are always there. 
Read this Article it will help.
http://www.barrreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1


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## canadianaquanut (Dec 7, 2004)

So I did it
I spent about 8 or 9 hours on Sunday cleaning the algae from the tank and bleaching the plants, Also did a lot of trimming. So far haven't lost any plants but still have some algae in the tank although it doesn't appear to be growing too much. 
I bought some stuff to start dosing PMDD. After some research I decided this was the direction I wanted to take. And for $20 I now have a lifetimes supply. 
So hopefully everything will fall into place and I can start to seriously grow some plants, frustrating thing is though I have to drive about 100km round trip to find a store with a reasonable selection. When I get there I am never sure whether they will have the plants I'm looking for. 
Hope fully I can borrow a camera soon and post some pics.
Thanks for everyone's help


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