# Fertilator section



## dannyfish (Sep 7, 2006)

Hi 
I want to know whether the dose amount at the fertilator calculator is for daily use or weekly use?
Thk in advance


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

Hard to say what they mean with those numbers - probably why it doesn't say. They are not really a recommended dose, but acceptable levels found in the water column.

Fe looks like a straight up daily dose, except many of us dose more then 0.1ppm. So it is more of a daily dosing minimum that comes from the PMDD (old school) methods.

PO4 is more of compromise between low tech and high tech setups (EI doses are around 2ppm 3 x a week) with a water column reaching levels around 3ppm.

KNO3 doses, in a perfect world, would add just enough NO3 to the water column to keep NO3 at about 10ppm, but due to uptake differences the water column often can reach levels as high as 30ppm.

The little numbers at the bottom of the calculator provide a target. Remember the old saying, "they couldn't hit the side of a barn." Well those numbers represent. I wouldn't worry to much about what they mean, they are a mishmash of ideas about meeting nutrient demand and probably should just go away.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

tug said:


> Hard to say what they mean with those numbers - probably why it doesn't say. They are not really a recommended dose, but acceptable levels found in the water column.
> 
> Fe looks like a straight up daily dose, except many of us dose more then 0.1ppm. So it is more of a daily dosing minimum that comes from the PMDD (old school) methods.
> 
> ...


I'm curious about all of this? Were you involved in writing the program?


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

dannyfish said:


> Hi
> I want to know whether the dose amount at the fertilator calculator is for daily use or weekly use?
> Thk in advance


When I use it to figure how much (grams, mililiters, etc...) I should be dosing to reach my preferred ppm, I take it to mean weekly dosings.

For example, if it says I need 20 mL of '_this_' and 25 mL of '_that_' to have '_these ppm_' in a '_this many gallon_' tank, I'll dose those amounts per week. But, I've never tested anything so I can't honestly say for sure...my plants do well though.


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## wearsbunnyslippers (Feb 18, 2008)

tug said:


> The little numbers at the bottom of the calculator provide a target. Remember the old saying, "they couldn't hit the side of a barn." Well those numbers represent. I wouldn't worry to much about what they mean, they are a mishmash of ideas about meeting nutrient demand and probably should just go away.


dood??

just because you dont know how to use it properly, doesnt mean you have to bash it... i have found the fertilator invaluable in working out my fert dosing, and have even ported it to php to be used on our local south african forum.

@dannyfish - the amounts are not daily or weekly, and the target ppm's are derived from EI parameters.

if you put in two teaspoons of kno3 in a 100g for example, with no plants or fish this would bring you ~17ppm, this is probably a little on the high side, but still within the accepted EI paramaters of 10-20ppm. with a 50% water change, this would bring you to ~8ppm. to bring yourself back to the accepted range you would therefore only does 1 teaspoon, make sense?

now if you have fish, then ideally you would want to divide this by 7 and add a little bit on a daily basis. i would not recommend just dumping two teaspoons in your tank due to the inhabitants, if it is plants only go right ahead. dosing a little powder 6 times a week gets a little boring very quickly, so most people divide by 3 and dose every second day. to make things a little bit more complicated, you should split your micro's and macro's, as adding fe and po4 at the same time can cause them to form iron phosphate which is insoluble in water and will precipitate out, making both unavailable to your plants. so even though your are dosing loads of fe and po4 you might see deficiencies.

macro's are NPK and micro's are the rest, fe, ca, mg, b etc.

so you take your 2 tsp's divide them by three and add them to your tank on mon, wed, fri. now because there are plants actively taking up nitrates, you can measure nitrates on sunday, if you are way down below 10ppm then you probably have loads of heavy feeders and might need to increase the nitrates a bit. if you are way above ~17 ppm then your plants are not taking up the nitrates as fast as you are adding them and can decrease your dosing a bit.

if you do a 50% water change you then can decide if you will dose more ferts with the changed water or wait for mondays dose, this will be a bit of guesswork but hopefully your test results will help you. a little on the high side and i would skip til monday, a little on the low side and i would add a little, then top up on monday.

now that you have a feel for dosing your tank, as your plant mass increases, you will need to increase your dosing slightly, 10% more plant mass, 10% more ferts, and vice versa when you do a trim, remove 10% of the plant mass, dose 10% less.

i only tested my water a few times while finding my feet, once you get the hang of things, you will be able to see what your plants need and dose accordingly. testing your parameters lets you tailor make your dosing for your tanks requirements.

the above method goes for all the ferts you add to your tank. ideally if you are a bit obsessive compulsive, you should add something, test your water, wait 1 day and test again. this will give you the uptake rate of whatever you are adding to your tank.

hope this helps


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

wearsbunnyslippers said:


> to make things a little bit more complicated, you should split your micro's and macro's, as adding fe and po4 at the same time can cause them to form iron phosphate which is insoluble in water and will precipitate out, making both unavailable to your plants. so even though your are dosing loads of fe and po4 you might see deficiencies.


While this is widely quoted on the internet, it is untrue that chelated Fe like CMS+B will preciptate Fe in the presence of PO4. You can test it yourself. Just make up your CMS+B in distilled water and make a 1g/ 100 ml solution of KH2PO4 in distilled water. If you mix them you do not get any precipitate.

Fe precipitates in alkaline water.


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Have you guys seen the downloadable EI Nutri-Calc .exe calculator in quenton's signature? It is called: "Nutri-Calc[v1.9.3 Mar 10/07]: an EI Dosing Calculator & Tank Size Calc" There are quite a few posts about this calculator that tells all the different things that it will do. It is really a neat fert calculator. I have it saved on my desktop along with Chuck's fert calculator. You can use the nutri-calculator to calculate your EI dosing régime. Then use APC's fertilator to calculate how many ppm's that particular dose is. Then you can use Chuck's fert calculator to make your solutions, if you want liquid ferts, that is. Using all three calculators, will clear up a lot of mud that is in that ol' Mississippi.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi Left C,

Wow, handy calculator that quenton put together! It sure makes it easy to see how much I need to dose.


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## Newt (Apr 1, 2004)

Left C said:


> Have you guys seen the downloadable EI Nutri-Calc .exe calculator in quenton's............ I have it saved on my desktop along with Chuck's fert calculator. .............


Is Chuck gadd's site still up?
I have been unable to get to it for the past few months. 
Did the url address change?

I feel as thou you can use the APC Fertilator any way you want: daily, weekly, whatever.
You just need to input to find the level ppm you want to attain/maintain.


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## wearsbunnyslippers (Feb 18, 2008)

ray-the-pilot said:


> While this is widely quoted on the internet, it is untrue that chelated Fe like CMS+B will preciptate Fe in the presence of PO4. You can test it yourself. Just make up your CMS+B in distilled water and make a 1g/ 100 ml solution of KH2PO4 in distilled water. If you mix them you do not get any precipitate.
> 
> Fe precipitates in alkaline water.


it depends on the trace you are using. if they using one with the more common EDTA the chelator does not last as long. but DTPA and HEEDTA last much longer. not everyone uses CSM, including myself, and most products will not say which chelator they are using, so i just mentioned it as something to watch out for.


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## bosmahe1 (May 14, 2005)

wearsbunnyslippers said:


> it depends on the trace you are using. if they using one with the more common EDTA the chelator does not last as long. but DTPA and HEEDTA last much longer. not everyone uses CSM, including myself, and most products will not say which chelator they are using, so i just mentioned it as something to watch out for.


I believe CSM+B uses EDTA as a chelator for the Fe. I add DTPA at a ratio of 1:4 with the CSM+B so there will be Fe available for a longer time. I dose .18 ppm traces daily.


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Seattle_Aquarist said:


> Hi Left C,
> 
> Wow, handy calculator that quenton put together! It sure makes it easy to see how much I need to dose.


It sure is very handy. I wonder why it isn't popular??? I know ... Few people know about it. quenton did a great job!


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Newt said:


> Is Chuck gadd's site still up?
> I have been unable to get to it for the past few months.
> Did the url address change?


Sadly, Chuck's site is gone.

Anthony, Darkblade48, sent me a zipped copy for Windows Desktop that he has. Would you want to ask him for a copy?


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## Newt (Apr 1, 2004)

Thanks for the info LeftC. I loved Chuck's site and he always had good advice. I hope he's not involved with the Petswarehouse lawsuit. 

No thanks for the copy. I had put it on our main computer at home sometime ago and the McAfee Security Center didnt like it being on there as with other applications.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

wearsbunnyslippers said:


> it depends on the trace you are using. if they using one with the more common EDTA the chelator does not last as long. but DTPA and HEEDTA last much longer. not everyone uses CSM, including myself, and most products will not say which chelator they are using, so i just mentioned it as something to watch out for.


I suppose that it does depend on the trace you are using. Have you ever tried to mix your trace solution with KH2PO4 to see if you get a precipitate? It would be interesting to see if this PO4-Fe story is true or not? As I've said I tried it with CSM+B and no precipitate.


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Newt said:


> Thanks for the info LeftC. I loved Chuck's site and he always had good advice. I hope he's not involved with the Petswarehouse lawsuit.
> 
> No thanks for the copy. I had put it on our main computer at home sometime ago and the McAfee Security Center didnt like it being on there as with other applications.


I don't really know why Chuck's site went away. Someone said that Chuck didn't want to pay for it anymore. I don't know if it is true or not.

That lawsuit has been going on for years, hasn't it?

I have it saved on my desktop. There is a "Safe Run" option, but I don't use it. That's weird that McAfee hates it. It doesn't bother my Kaspersky IS 2010. My Kaspersky went bonkers when I tried to download "Core Temp" though. LOL


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## Newt (Apr 1, 2004)

Yes, unfortunatley the lawsuit has dragged on. Its too bad that when you have free speech you need to becareful of how you word your feelings. The wife is a lawyer and has advised me on how to 'properly' word dissatisfaction - best to avoid it all together.


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

Very good advice!


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## Elohim_Meth (Nov 4, 2007)

ray-the-pilot said:


> It would be interesting to see if this PO4-Fe story is true or not? As I've said I tried it with CSM+B and no precipitate.


I tried to mix FeEDTA and KH2PO4 solutions and there was instant precipitation.


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## bigstick120 (Mar 8, 2005)

Left C, your link above requires a login, can you repost the link?


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

I don't know a lot of the history behind the calculator Left C, I wish them all the best. My favorite calculator, "Yet Another Nutrient Calculator"
http://calc.petalphile.com/

I am not aware that 0.1 ppm of iron is an EI parameter?


wearsbunnyslippers said:


> ...the target ppm's are derived from EI parameters.


 CSM+B is dosed to a level that provides 0.1 -0.2ppm of iron as well as other trace found in CSM+B, but iron is often dosed much higher with added FeDTPA and Fe Gluconate to increase iron levels.

:yo: wearsbunnyslippers- it's dude, as in "the dude". Try and get it right.


wearsbunnyslippers; said:


> dood??


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

Elohim_Meth said:


> I tried to mix FeEDTA and KH2PO4 solutions and there was instant precipitation.


OK I went back and retried this test. I have a 1.6% KH2PO4 solution (11,300ppm) that I use for adding P to my tank. I took 1 ml of this and added it to 1 ml of CSM+B and to a second formula that has no EDTA as a chelating agent and neither of them formed a precipitate. I'll wait until tomorrow to see if there is a delayed reaction.

If you bring the pH up you will get a precipitate with most Fe solutions. Maybe you were using K2HPO4 which is alkaline? or some other alkaline FE formula?

What was the FeEDTA formula that precipitates with KH2PO4?


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## Elohim_Meth (Nov 4, 2007)

I retried the test too just now, with ferrous gluconate this time. There were ferrous gluconate solution (10 g/L) and KH2PO4 solution (5 g/L), I mixed them and the solution became cloudy at once. It contained fine particles that begun to settle down.


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## wet (Nov 24, 2008)

In regards to the percip FePO4 and Fe(PO4)2, here's a post and demonstration you folks may like: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/showpost.php?p=435753&postcount=18

Baseline:









PO4 and DTPA Fe just mixed with the stated time apart:









... and after a little while, you can see how some has settled...









and some of the percip is still free floating









With only my gardener-level chemistry, I do wonder how much of this is ray-the-pilot using distilled (deionized?) water and simply being more pure (closter-to or at 0 KH, 7 pH) than whatever Elohim_Meth, myself, and all the other folks who have experienced this issue use. RO is not necessarily "pure" water and is dependent on membrane age/use/quality, for example.

I haven't had a KH or GH test in years, but maybe this is worth more experimentation. I think most of us have found simply spreading out the time or dosing location in the tank makes this an unnecessary concern, especially with regular input (be it through PPS-Pro or EI or whatevs), though. "Unnecessary" being measured by observable turbidity and plant health.


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

bigstick120 said:


> Left C, your link above requires a login, can you repost the link?


Here you go. Let me know how if this doesn't work for you. It works for me.

First, I save it on my desktop. Then click RUN to open the file. After that, you get a 'green headed creature' shortcut icon on your desktop that gives you the calculator when you click on it.

All the credit for this handy calculator goes to quenton.

http://www.cherniaksoftware.com/homepage/Data/NutriCalc.exe


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

While the pics are great, I cannot really see what you are calling precipitate? What you need to give are details of your experiment so that anyone else (like stupid me) can follow and duplicate your experiment. I'd like to repeat what you did. Can you give enough details so that I can? You can do it as a PM since it may waste too much band with on this post.

BTW I've been adding macro and micro together every day for 2 years and haven't seen any precipitate.

I'm not saying that what other people experience is untrue, it just doesn't figure with my experience. it is interesting to find out why since it could lead to better fertilizer plans.


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## wet (Nov 24, 2008)

Hey, ray-the-pilot. I'm too stupid to properly manage my PM limits  We could go with another thread if you want to but I hope no one minds the discussion here.

There were two experiments pictured -- the first with baselines was from an old dilution thread I posted on in some thread somewhere. The second is the question of Fe and PO4 precipitate, and we originally did the experiment as part of the "Iron: How much and often" thread linked above: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilizing/57789-iron-how-much-often-2.html#post435753 There you'll find ppms used (normal dosing for my tanks at the time) and time between missing chemicals (also in the notecards in the pictures). I am using generic "purified" RO water and plastic party cups from my corner's store. There should be more than enough information to recreate the experiment, though understand I eyeballed the water doses and time for a simple demonstration.

Look at the bottom of 0.5ppm Fe from 10% DTPA and 2ppm PO4 from KH2PO4 dosed 1 minute apart. That white stuff is precipitate that's fallen all out solution. The sample with mixing 30 minutes apart is a little cloudier than it should be. (Those cheap cups aren't totally transparent, but you can get an idea of transparency in the other pics.)

Now, that cup is a small volume of water, and like you, there's plenty of people who dose P and Fe together into their tanks without ever seeing precipitate (in a tank's current and volume, most who have experienced an issue call observe a "haze") or deficiency (due to the resulting insoluble compound). I recall detailed and thoughtful posts from nfrank particularly in other threads on this subject. And I agree with him and you that in practical terms dosing together into most tank volumes usually does not matter.

But in regards to keeping Fe and P together in a concentrated solution -- not our tanks -- the reaction is more important and apparent. But I do wonder how acidic or neutral/pure/deionized water and a dark container would mitigate this issue, since the Fe will stay in its chelated state longer per the graphs in various chelation threads. That's just a guess and I'm only a gardener with a calculator and am no chemist, though. But even with available Fe and PO4 you could calculate based on solubility of the compounds used (example: http://www.cramster.com/qa-board/message-topic.aspx?message_topic_id=463746 )

In terms of better fertilization plans, I think the only time we ever see it is in folks who prefer to dose from solution and not dry, then want to combine various elements into one solution. Plenty of other people dose on alternating days or day and night, but I think this is as much to do with separating macro and micro dosing in our schedules and heads than anything. There's probably some superstition and gardening voodoo in dosing micros and macros separately for fear of them mixing even in a full tank's volume, but I figure doing whatever makes sense to the gardener or makes them feel better is okay, too. I'm totally guilty of this with various things in my dosing.


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## dannyfish (Sep 7, 2006)

Left C said:


> Have you guys seen the downloadable EI Nutri-Calc .exe calculator in quenton's signature? It is called: "Nutri-Calc[v1.9.3 Mar 10/07]: an EI Dosing Calculator & Tank Size Calc" There are quite a few posts about this calculator that tells all the different things that it will do. It is really a neat fert calculator. I have it saved on my desktop along with Chuck's fert calculator. You can use the nutri-calculator to calculate your EI dosing régime. Then use APC's fertilator to calculate how many ppm's that particular dose is. Then you can use Chuck's fert calculator to make your solutions, if you want liquid ferts, that is. Using all three calculators, will clear up a lot of mud that is in that ol' Mississippi.


Hi
Are you able to email to me the EI Nutri calc?
[email protected]
Many thank


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## Left C (Jun 14, 2005)

dannyfish said:


> Hi
> Are you able to email to me the EI Nutri calc?
> [email protected]
> Many thank


No problem. There is no need to email it to you. I have you covered. It is provided a little further down in this thread in Post #25. I went ahead and copied it and it is posted below.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilizing/72566-fertilator-section-3.html#post550904



Left C said:


> bigstick120 said:
> 
> 
> > Left C, your link above requires a login, can you repost the link?
> ...


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