# Just got my GW ferts and have ????



## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

Hello all,
I just received my shipment of ferts from Greg Watson. They are KH2PO4, K2SO4, KNO3, and CSM + B. I have mixed the dry ferts with some distilled water as suggested on Rex Griggs' website. Now my question is how much to dose. I have a 75 gallon with 1.5 wpg, DIY co2, and Eco Complete. There are about 70 gallons of water in the tank after displacement. I think it will soon be pressurized co2 just not for a week or two. The last water tests were:
Phosphate - 5 ppm
Nitrates - 10 ppm
KH - 4 degrees
GH - 4 degrees
Ph - 7.2
This was right before I hooked up the DIY CO2. That has been running for a couple of days. I have a whole bunch of plants I got from a local club meeting and am ready to give it a go. Could any of you suggest how much to dose of each chemical? The KH2PO4, CSM+B, and KNO3 are mixed with water so ml would be appreciated. The K2SO4 I would mix dry with a little tank water, so a tsp measure would be appreciated. I am still trying to learn all of this. If I could get an amount to throw in there that would help until I understand things a little better and can figure it out on my own. If there is a link or web page you can point me to I can probably figure it out on my own. Any help is certainly appreciated. Thank you, Jim


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Before we can give you much help, we need to know in what concentrations you mixed the ferts...assuming you mixed up individual nitrate and phosphate solutions.

I have always added my ferts dry to the tank with the exception of the Plantex CSM+B. It just seems easier to me this way.

Here is a link to Chuck Gadd's Planted Aquarium Calculator:

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_aquacalc.htm

It's a downloadable calculator that can be used to figure amount of ferts to add.

To make things really easy, just go with Tom's Estimative Index. I used that for over a year and had great results. I can send you the dosing schedule I used if you are interested


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

Absolutely. I would love it if you could send that to me. I mixed 500ml of distilled water with 2 tbsp of KNO3, 1 tbsp of KH2PO4, and 2 tbsp of CSM + B. I have been looking at Chuck Gadd's calculator to try to come up with some numbers. I would love to see what you have so I can compare. Also, I am looking into a pressurized co2 setup. The financial advisor thanks you very much.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Your challenge will be CO2 mainly.............

Beyond that with 1.5w/gal, I'd go weekly dosings of KNO3(1/2 teaspoon), KH2PO4(1/8 teaspoon) and about 2x a week 10mls of traces.

Add a fair amount of fish, lots of herbivores, eg SAE's, shrimps etc, keep CO2 high.

KH and GH are fine.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## czado (May 26, 2005)

> Phosphate - 5 ppm


 Is this missing a decimal place? If not, how often do you change water?

re mix:
You can't mix both KH2PO4 and Plantex into the sme solution, as it will form a percipitate. As you play with Chuck Gadd's calculator, note that 100mL of your mix into 75gal gives 15ppm NO3 and 7ppm PO4. Tom Barr's ~4:1 ratio above is the smallest I've read him recommend to someone starting EI, and assume it is because there is 10ppm NO3 in the tank already. Its normally recommended to keep NO3O4 at 10:1, and 100mL would be way too much Plantex, not to mention a PITA dose. (I and I know others here dose at smaller ratios than 4:1, but do it under high light and CO2 with an excess of other nutrients.)

re sites:
Good calc site, but omits units in formulas: http://users.ev1.net/~spituch/Chemicals/chemicals.html 
Fertilator: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilator.php?

*If you want help with the math to make mixes, just ask. IMO its best to dose, observe, and measure to get and idea of your specific tank uptake before combining ferts into one solution.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

molurus73 said:


> Absolutely. I would love it if you could send that to me. I mixed 500ml of distilled water with 2 tbsp of KNO3, 1 tbsp of KH2PO4, and 2 tbsp of CSM + B. I have been looking at Chuck Gadd's calculator to try to come up with some numbers. I would love to see what you have so I can compare. Also, I am looking into a pressurized co2 setup. The financial advisor thanks you very much.


Did you mix this up as one solution or did you mix up separate solutions? If you did one, I would probably toss it and just mix up a CSM+B solution 2 tbsp to 500ml.

Dose the KNO3 and KH2PO4 dry as suggested. Add the KNO3 and KH2PO4 to a small container of tank water (I use a Rubbermaid container) and pour it in the tank. 1/2 tsp of KNO3 will give you 6-7 ppm of NO3 and 1/8tsp of KH2PO4 will give you about 2ppm of PO4.

Once you get the pressurized CO2 going you will probably need to increase the frequency of the dosing to 3x a week instead of once a week.


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

This is the page where I read about mixing the dry ferts with water.
http://rexgrigg.com/dosing.htm
I do mix them each in there own solution.

I moved the tank to the other side of the room. These tests were taken about a week after I got it set back up. I usually do a water change every Friday night. I am doing one tonight. A couple of days late, but stuff happens. I will test after that and get my new plants in the ground and begin dosing then.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Good! Your post made it sound like you may have just mixed everything together in one container of water 

Tom's dosing suggestion would have you dosing 6-7ppm of KNO3 and about 2ppm of PO4 to you tank. 

To add those amounts, you would need to add:

40ml (6.4ppm) of the KNO3 solution
20ml (1.6ppm) of the KH2PO4 solution
10ml of trace 2x a week as Tom suggested

I probably wouldn't test the tank, I would probably just add the fertilizers. It is better to have too much in the tank than not enough  The next weeks water change will reduce the amounts of fertilizers in the tank by half, assuming you do a 50% water change. 

At this rate you are going to be OK on liquid ferts for a while. Once you add the CO2 and increase your dosing to 3x (120ml) a week your KNO3 is only going to last about a month or so. This is when you should look into adding stuff dry. It is much easier and much quicker, plus you don't have to worry about making the solution and measuring the right amount for each dose


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

Thank you very much. That is exactly what I needed. Now all I gots to do is figure out where in the heck to put everything.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Double check my calculations with Chuck's calculator before you go adding the stuff. In Chuck's calculator I have my tank volume set to 66g instead of 75g to account for substrate displacement, etc. If you already added the ferts, don't worry, it shouldn't be wrong, but double check it anyway 

You may be able to increase the PO4 solution to 25ml (2ppm). I have found that by keeping PO4 in the 1.5 - 2ppm range I can eliminate green spot algae.


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

OK. My PO4 was at 2 ppm when I did a test after a water change. Nitrates at about 6 ppm. CO2 was at about 15 ppm. I dosed 20 ml traces and 40 ml of KNO3. Does that sound about right for now? I am working on getting CO2 up a little higher. I added a third bottle to my DIY setup and refreshed one of the original bottles. I guess I will see what happens.


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

I am not dosing phosphates yet because mine are high enough naturally. Should I be dosing any K2SO4 - potassium sulfate? I am going to work on reading and understanding the EI method by Tom Barr. I like not needing to test all the time.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

The dosing sounds good. I don't see a need to add any PO4 since your levels are already 2ppm. I would do it next week though. You may want to add a little K2SO4 to the tank. You probably don't need the K2SO4 right now. 

Normally you add enough K to the tank with KNO3 and KH2PO4. Once you get the CO2 in the 30ppm range and steady, you may want to look at adding some K2SO4 to the tank. The K2SO4 dosing comes into play for those times when you don't need to add KNO3. 

I would probably split up the Traces into two doses next week...10ml on say Sunday (assuming you do a water change on Saturday and add KNO3 or KH2PO4 on Saturday) and another 10ml on Wednesday.


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

Ask and yee shall receive. CO2 was at 60 ppm today. Fixed that real quick. I only dosed 20 ml to get it started. Good news is my JBJ regulator will be here on Thursday. I have officially converted. Thanks for everything. After everything grows out a bit, I will tackle the algae issue. I am sure you will hear from me a lot more.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Whoa, 60ppm with DIY? That's pretty cool. How many bottles did you put on the tank? Not to burst your bubble, but keep an eye on the CO2 levels. That may be an initial spike in the CO2 production and it will probably die down some. Which is a good thing because 60ppm is pretty high. Are the fish doing well?

Glad to hear about the regulator. Did the financial advisor OK the expenditure or doesn't she know about it  I am assuming you got a CO2 tank also...

Don't wait to tackle the algae...hit it hard the moment you find it. The faster you attack it, the faster it will go away. If you need help setting up the regulator, let me know. I don't live too far away...


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## molurus73 (Apr 15, 2005)

She doesn't know about it yet. She knows about the money I had in my paypal account, just not what i used it on. I may come a callin about setting everything up and the algae thing. We will see. 

That was an initial spike. That was with 1 bottle about 5 days old and 2 bottles brand new. I just removed one bottle and positioned the spraybar to agitate the surface. Since I should have a pressurized setup by this weekend, I wasn't too worried about taking that bottle off. The fish are fine now, but there were a few that I was worried about.


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