# Let's figure out the optimum dosing for my 110 gallon tank together



## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Before I start I just want to give guys some background. I've been doing planted tanks for 5 years now and had some success and failures (more failures then success). I've tried EI, PMDD, PPS and everything in between. My first tank was a 45 gallon Hi-tech tank and I had good results with just dosing Flourish because I had a heavy fish load and my tap water was good.

My latest tank is 110 gallon and I'm getting poor result and I think part of the reason is that I moved to a new place and my tap water has over 3ppm of Phosphate. 3ppm of Phosphate is not a big problem once your tank is established and growing well but It can be a nightmare when you are just starting to set-up a tank and waiting for everything to grow out. My new 110 gallon tank is only a month old and needs time establish itself and gain stability. I think this is the most challenging stage because the plantmass will grow and your dosing needs to grow proportionally. I will attach some pictures of my tank tonight to give you an idea of my biomass and plant density. 

All that being said, I just got my 5 stage RODI unit today and I can't wait to experiment with better water parameter. My new 110 gallon tank is a money pit - no expense was spared. The tank is 48" inches long and 30" inches deep. About 2-3" of Flourite all around. Two Eheim 2028 Pro II canister running. 300 watt Hydor In-Line temp set at 76 degree. Pressured Co2 with Aqua Medic Reactor 1000 (about 4BPS to acheive 30ppm of CO2). Coralife Turbotwist 36watt UV steralizer. Milwaukee PH controller. 

Currently, I'm using the aqualight 260watt Compact Flourescent. I just brought the Aqualight Pro (2X 150watt 10,000K HCI and 2X 96Watt Actinc) and it will be coming next week. I will probably switch out the 96watt Actinc bulb for a 6,700K bulb. Not sure but I'm thinking of 9 hours photoperiod at 300watt and then 2 hours of midday blast at 492watt. 

My fish stock are as follows and I used the Eheim automatic feeder (about 1/2 teaspoon of flake food per day):
-15 rummynose
-8 rainbows
-8 SAEs (overated fish - will get getting rid of it soon)
-2 cardinals (I brought 20 and 18 died... : ( 
-2 Mollies

Tonight I'm going to set up my RODI and do 100% water change in the next two days. I'm planning to use baking soda and equilibrium to reconsistute my RO water. I like to keep my GH and KH very low, maybe around 1 degree for both GH and KH. I will figure out the math tonight. I will also post picture of my tank tonight. 

Please feel free to chime in anytime. This tank will be a work in progress and I would like all of us to participate and work on this together. I want to participate in this year's aquascape contest and maybe with your help my dream to have a beautiful tank can finally be realized. 

-John


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## MrSanders (Mar 5, 2006)

Looks like you came to the right place, everyone is usually more than willing to help out! 

Right off the bat you has mentioned that the tank wasn't shaping up how you would like it to. What's going on? problems with specific plants? algae and types? that sort of thing would help out, also just to give us a starting point are you currently already dosing anything at all?


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Here are some pic.


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Pic


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Finally got the picture to work.


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Ok, got my picture upload. Got my RODI tonight. I plan to do a 95% water change tomorrow. What are your suggestions for reconstituting RO water?

Buffering capacity and pH

-Using the link above, I plan to add 2 teaspoon of Baking Soda to get 1 degree of KH.

-1.5 tablespoon of Equilibrium to get my Potassium level to around 10ppm (assuming 100 gallon tank volume). Can someone confirm if this is true?
How much GH will that add?

For now, I'm thinking of only dosing enough Marco & Micro needed for daily consumption. So about 1ppm of Nitrate, .5ppm of Phosphate, .5ppm of Potassium (my best rough guess). This is something I'm still trying to fiddle around with, I'll update you guys after the water change.


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Here's a pic of my RODI that I got from Ebay. It's awesome and comes with TDS meter and a flush kit. I got about 200ppm of TDS from my tap water. I got it from a vendor called H20 Science. The customer service is top notch! I highly recommend Nathan from H20 Science.


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## azfishguy (Jul 1, 2005)

Hey John
Nice tank. I still owe you a pic of my tank which I may send you tomorrow. My first impression though is sparse. The plants don't seem to look too bad as far as it's possible to see in this pic. I would however plant it more densely.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

One thing I would suggest, is you throw in quite a bit more fast growing stems. One criteria to use is how much gravel can you see? There's a lot visible there. Having a lot of nutrients to begin with, you need a lot of plant mass to soak it up, once things balance out, you can start removing them. My 2 cents worth.


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Yeah - my tank looks crappy now. There's no aquascape what so ever, but it'll get better. For now, I just want my plant to grow well. Eventually, I will get rid of most of my stem plants. I don't plan to get more stem plants, I'm just going to be patient and let everything grow out. I'll go very light on my Marco & Micro dosing. I'm thinking of something like 5PPM of Nitrate, .2PPM of Phosphate, and 10ppm of Potassium. Another reason I like to keep the nutrient level low is because I hate weekly water change and I want to extend it to maybe 3-4 weeks. 

My aquacape goal is to have the foreground completely carpeted with Ranalisma Rostrata (smaller version of E.Tennullus). As for the background, I used resin cave to form six compartments to separte the plant. For the background, I have Amazon swords, Red Rotala Macandra, Vals, Ludwigia, and some crypt specimen.


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Questions:

1. How do you guys reconsitute your RO water? 
2. I like to keep my water extremely soft - what is the absolute bare minimum GH & KH to support healthy plant growth.
3. What is the TDS of your tank?


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

I got this info below from another thread - Is anyone aware of this? Any confirmed issues with Equilibrium use?




"Actually, I was with Nathan at the convention this year when he spoke to George Batten, Seachem's research chemist, about this very topic. I believe George said that equilibrium is not for *completely* reconstituting RO water, and that they were still working on a product to do this. My understanding from the conversation was that equilibrium is a supplement for softer water, but can do some squirrelly things if used by itself. Its probably best to cut the RO water 1/2 or 1/4 with tap to get the desired hardness, and add equilibrium to taste. I would encourage you to get into touch with Seachem directly for more info. "

As for those who claim that water hardness doesn't matter, nor does pH, I would ask them kindly to provide some quantitative data supporting this claim


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

johnzhou2476 said:


> Questions:
> 
> 1. How do you guys reconsitute your RO water?
> 2. I like to keep my water extremely soft - what is the absolute bare minimum GH & KH to support healthy plant growth.
> 3. What is the TDS of your tank?


I use Kent RO Right to remineralise my RO water.

I run my tanks with 0dKH, 3-4dGH, but not sure on TDS (I have one plumbed inline to my RO unit, not a free roaming one!). Plants grow great, fish are healthy and breeding merrily, inlcuding wild cichlids and cardinal tetras.


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Below is an excerpt from another post. I too find EI dosing way too rich in nutrient for my tank and I prefer running my tank on the lean side. I'm going to following the suggestion below and see how my tank respond in the next couple of weeks. 



"Lean water column and rich substrate, good circulation, CO2 injection.
Something around the parameter of Kekon finding:
Ca = 10
Mg = 4
PO4 = 0.1
NO3 = 2
K = 15
CO2 = 10 very fast growth,
no stunting at all,
heavy micro dosage, high iron demand
no NO3 dosing at all "


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

Ok, I've just spent the last two hours goofying off at work trying to figure out my new dosing plan. I think I got a good baseline rountine to start out with. Please feel free to chime in and make recommendations.

*MACROS*
Using Chuck's calculator based on 90 gallon water volume:
1. 1 tsp of Potassium Nitrate, 1/8 tsp of Mono Potassium Phosphate, and 1/2 tsp of Potassium sulfate will yield the following NPK ratio of 10:1:10. (So that's about 10ppm of Nitrate, 1ppm of Phosphate, and 10ppm of Potassium).

2. That being said, I will mix 8 part Potassium Nitrate with 1 part Mono Potassium Phosphate and with 4 part Potassium Sulfate to come up with a Macro dry mix that will give me that 10:1:10 NPK ratio.

3. I'm assumig that my tank will consume .5 Nitrate daily (it's still lightly planted). On Odd days I will dose 1/8 tsp of my Macro mix above to add about 1ppm of Nitrate, .1ppm of Phosphate, and 1ppm of Potassium.

*MICROS*
1. On Even days I will dose 5ML of Flourish and 3ML of Flourish Iron.

*R/O water reconsitute*
1. 2 teaspoon of Baking Soda to get my KH to 1 degree.
2. 4 teaspoon of Equilibrium to get 9.75 PPM of Potassium, 4.03 PPM of Calcium, and 1.205 PPM of Magnesium based on the link below:

FertFriend

HOW'S THAT FOR A START?


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## azfishguy (Jul 1, 2005)

I think the fact that you are trying to come out with your own dosing for your tank is the best solution. I just don't think it is possible to simply state that the good dosing for a 55G tank is this and for a 120G is that. I'm probably repeating multiple posts now but I think it is true. A planted tank has multiple variables. That includes but is not limited to water parameters (Gh, Kh etc), plant mass, type of plants, type of substrate, type of light, photoperiod, age of tank, type of testing kits, and other I can't think of right now. There are the general guideliness we should follow for starters but following blindly somebody's tank dosing regimen has IME very little value. For example somebody says: "rich substrate". Rich meaning what? ADA rich? Iron rich? porous clay rich? Substrate tabs rich? Aged and fish poop rich? All of the above rich? What is rich? Some recommend big loads of KNO3 and KH2PO4 3 times a week to have great plants. If I followed that recommendation I would end up with stunted and deformed plants. It works for the other guy but it doesn't work for me. Why? Heck I don't know! Maybe his/her water is harder, maybe he/she has MH light hanging there with some 2 hour thermonuclear blast in the middle of the day or maybe his/her plants are easy to grow weeds? I don't know. Same tank size; tons of ferts works for him/her - doesn't work for me. IMO the best dosing regimen method is the method you come up with yourself. I can tell you what I dose when and how. You follow that and you get zippo. You think I gave you a bad advise and move on to another one. Follow the general rules but the fine adjustments is your job. Trial and error is the way. I know the frustration when you try yet another way which makes things even worse than before. The hobby is a challenge and we are in it "not because it's easy but because it's hard." Right?


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## johnzhou2476 (Nov 28, 2006)

azfishguy said:


> I think the fact that you are trying to come out with your own dosing for your tank is the best solution. I just don't think it is possible to simply state that the good dosing for a 55G tank is this and for a 120G is that. I'm probably repeating multiple posts now but I think it is true. A planted tank has multiple variables. That includes but is not limited to water parameters (Gh, Kh etc), plant mass, type of plants, type of substrate, type of light, photoperiod, age of tank, type of testing kits, and other I can't think of right now. There are the general guideliness we should follow for starters but following blindly somebody's tank dosing regimen has IME very little value. For example somebody says: "rich substrate". Rich meaning what? ADA rich? Iron rich? porous clay rich? Substrate tabs rich? Aged and fish poop rich? All of the above rich? What is rich? Some recommend big loads of KNO3 and KH2PO4 3 times a week to have great plants. If I followed that recommendation I would end up with stunted and deformed plants. It works for the other guy but it doesn't work for me. Why? Heck I don't know! Maybe his/her water is harder, maybe he/she has MH light hanging there with some 2 hour thermonuclear blast in the middle of the day or maybe his/her plants are easy to grow weeds? I don't know. Same tank size; tons of ferts works for him/her - doesn't work for me. IMO the best dosing regimen method is the method you come up with yourself. I can tell you what I dose when and how. You follow that and you get zippo. You think I gave you a bad advise and move on to another one. Follow the general rules but the fine adjustments is your job. Trial and error is the way. I know the frustration when you try yet another way which makes things even worse than before. The hobby is a challenge and we are in it "not because it's easy but because it's hard." Right?


Azfishguy - I think you hit the mark. I totally agree with everything you said. For me this hobby is a challenge and that's why I'm loving it. Yes, it can be very frustrating at times but when you get it right it's just pure bless. Now, I've been doing a lot of reading on this forum and plantedtank.net forumn lately and Aquasoil really sparked my interest. Even Tom Barr is endorsing it.

So, being the compulsive/spontaneous person that I am I pick up 5 bags of that Amazonia aquasoil to replace my Flourite. For me, the concept of substrate fertilization via Aquasoil vs. water colmun fetilizatin via EI made more sense. If you look at nature, most large body of clean water has almost no NPK and yet plants are thriving. I think fertizliation via Aquasoil is more natural and mimics mother nature. Beside, having a leaner water column is healthier for your fish. I can't wait to get my Aquasoil and confirm what all the hype is about.

BTW: I will be selling 100lbs+ of Flourite on Ebay very soon, auction will start at $1.00


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## azfishguy (Jul 1, 2005)

I would love to try the ADA stuff. The problem is that it's way over my price range. Maybe some day. Flourite is not my favorite substrate either. I don't care for its color and grain size so Last year I replaced it with the aquariumplant.com substrate. It was cheap and I decided to give it a try. I like it a lot actually. It looks like some sort of charcoal. Small size grain and, IMO, its blackish color looks better than flourite but that's a matter of taste. Anyways, yeah I believe ADA is a good and worth of trying substrate. Keep us posted on your results.


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