# High K, very low NO3 - no tips stunting. Why is this ?



## kekon

Having analyzed different tanks parameters and my own one (mainly NPK) i came to the conclusion that there is no tips stunting (most probably Ca deficiency) when K is high (say 15..20 ppm) and very low NO3 (below 2 ppm).
When only NO3 is raised to higher values and K is high some plants get severely stunted (look like severe Ca deficiency). Even Polysperma doesn't grow at all. I'm very confused why it happens...


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## Salt

I know plants prefer NH2 to NO3, because NH2 is closer to an amine group which plants use to make plant proteins. I hypothesize that plants may be "participating" in the biological cycle, and getting the nitrogen they need from the ammonia and nitrite from the fish in the tank before it turns to nitrate. That may explain why many tanks have plants growing great even though there is little to no nitrate measured.

As far as nitrate rich water stunting some plants, I don't have any guesses, other than there are still ongoing debates regarding high nitrates affecting fish health.


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## kekon

I dosed urea for some time and must say that it's worse source of N... I have much better results using NO3. Urea is converted to NO3 quite quickly and then the produced NO3 is used. I dosed 3 nitrogen forms silmultaneously - it gives a little bit faster growth at the beginning but after 2..3 days time it's exactly the same as in case when KNO3 i used. It seems urea is better used by terrestial plants.


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## suaojan

kekon said:


> Having analyzed different tanks parameters and my own one (mainly NPK) i came to the conclusion that there is no tips stunting (most probably Ca deficiency) when K is high (say 15..20 ppm) and very low NO3 (below 2 ppm).
> When only NO3 is raised to higher values and K is high some plants get severely stunted (look like severe Ca deficiency). Even Polysperma doesn't grow at all. I'm very confused why it happens...


You may try to dose Ca(NO3)2.
It can raise both Ca & N together


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## kekon

> You may try to dose Ca(NO3)2.


I used it for some time. This adds very little Ca.


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## banderbe

Sounds like the outer valence electron has been dislodged from the isopropyl catalyst reactor inhibiting cellular quadrant 34 in the chloroplastic zone.


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## dennis

Barry, I though you had hit the nail on the head till I double checked. There are only 28 chloroplast_icizable_ zones.

Kekon,
Actually, I may be experiencing what you describe. In all honestly my experience could be the result of a hundred different factors but let me explain briefly my situation.

First:
I have very hard water. Gh~460mg/l, Ca hardness~350mg/l, Ca++~140, Mg++~25. I have very hard well water. The Ca and Ca hardness tests are Lamotte. The Gh is an cheap test but it was calibrated with a CaCl2 reference solution.

I dose KNO3 and KH2PO4 for macros and Flourish and Flourish Fe or FeEDTA for traces, in sufficient quantities. NO3 and PO4 levels are checked with Lamotte test kits.

Now, over the last few months, whenever NO3 levels went above ~60mg/l I would start to get stunting of Rotala sp, BGA would develop and the fish/shrimp were unhappy. Water changes would remidy the issue for a week until levels built back up. For a while I dosed 4mg/l NO3 daily (if Tom Barr can why can't I) Later, through the business of life I neglected the tank. No water changes for 3 weeks, I cut back on marco dosing but still dosed a good bit. At one point, after a ~30% water change I tested NO3 levels of 88mg/l. At that point NO3 had not been dosed for almost a week. Stem plants right at the waters surface grew fine but lower in the water column there was tip stunting.

Fast forward:
I stopped all macro dosing for a couple weeks, did 40%wc every 5-7days and checked NO3/PO4 levels weekly. NO3 uptake averaged 2-3mg/l daily, slowly increasing as plant mass increased. Once No3 levels reached 35-40mg/l stunting all but disappeared and everything grew much better. At this point I did a major trim for the local club meeting and another wc. A few weeks ago I rescaped the tank, removing and trimming all plants, 60%wc, etc. Post rescape NO3 was 3.5mg/l PO4 was 0.3mg/l.

I decided on a new fert schedule, NO3 and PO4 4:1mg/l added every other day. Flourish and Fe added on alternating days. I added traces directly after the wc and macros starting the next day. At day 3 from setup, NO3- 7.7mg/l PO4 2.5mg/l (keep in mind I assume a +/-10% error due to dilution of sample for testing, rounding error, etc) 7 days later, day 9 from setup, NO3=26.5mg/l PO4-no test. I have kept a spreadsheet record of dosing, testing, wc, etc. It shows a very slight uptake for NO3 but then plant mass was intially very low and also stressed from the rescape.

In the first days after the rescape, I noticed some stunting of new growth which I attributed to low NO3 and stress. Within a few days, growth had improved as NO3 deficiency was removed. Then, sometime around day 12, tip stunting started again. Regardless of NO3 uptake at this time, levels should have reached 30mg/l NO3 on or before day 12. Now, on day 15 No3 levels should be 38+mg/l NO3 (I have not tested in a few days). Stunting has gotten worse on 4 Rotala sp and on Polygonum sp., BGA is developing again on growth tips and some gravel areas.

One thing possibly note worthy, possibly coincidence; after the rescape I incorporated extra K into my marco solution with K2SO4. Before the rescape, whenNO3 levels were 80+, I noticed that the addition of K caused an almost immediate increase in NO3 uptake which I took to assume was due to K limitation. Anyway, my current every other day dose adds, 4mg/l NO3, 1mg/l PO4 and 2.5mg/l K.

I was not adding K in the past and BGA/stunting started at a higher NO3 concentration. ~60+mg/l pre K addition, ~40mg/l now with K addition.

As I said, it could be all coincidence, accident, etc. I know logically that there could be 100 different factors, but to not share my rather unscientific observations seemed inappropriate and uncooperative.

Re: high nitrates and fish/shrimp health... I have mostly corydoras pygmeaus/habrosas and otocinclus sp. in my aquarium. I also have Amano shrimp and cherry shrimp. The fish are pretty tough little buggers but the shrimp start to drop like flies at really high NO3, say 70-80+ Now, its possibly due to low O2 or some other buildup, for sure I cannot say.


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## banderbe

Dennis, damn you're right! I miscalculated.

I'm just poking some fun at Kekon. He thinks way too hard.


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## Salt

banderbe said:


> He thinks way too hard.


No, he makes observations, asks questions, experiments, and posts results. The hobby needs much more of that.


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## MrSanders

> No, he makes observations, asks questions, experiments, and posts results. The hobby needs much more of that.


 Agreed.... I have had issues with all of my tanks for a LONG time. Its people like kekon, and thier observations that make me sit back and think... the answer to my problems are to "just add more" as is so MANY times suggested of people.

Some pleople can toss in a bunch of this and that and grow great plants.... others for reason yet to be known have a combination of water, substrate, lighting etc. that create a very touchy environment that needs careful balance....

I appriciate what you do kekon, and appriciate even more you sharing your thoughts and opinions despite the crap you can sometimes catch from those who think the key to success is half a pound of ferts per week, along with lethal levels of CO2. sometimes attention needs to paid to detail... and thats just what your doing. Keep up the good work!! 

Dennis I would also like to tank you for sharing detailed information of your tank... it isn't often that people keep such detailed record keeping and observations... maybe if we were all a bit better with that we could more easily compare nutrient levels and effects in our own systems. But boy that can be a lot of work! hats off to you also


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## dennis

To be honest I agree with you all. Often as not people over think, get burned out, try to hard, etc. I agree with Barry there. On the other hand, MrSanders is right in that what works for one person may not work for another. Some of us ask why, wonder why.. but that does not make one side right and another wrong. One of the things I like about this hobby is that I can get as deep as I want, take it to whatever extreme I choose. I know that that kills it for some people but it drives it for others.

Personally, I find this kind of stuff a good outlet for practicing and solidifying, a "real world situation" of the things I learn in school.


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## banderbe

Edit: I'm not contributing to Kekon's post so I deleted this reply.  Carry on.


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## kekon

Thanks very much for sharing your thougths and experiments results with me. 
You all do great work (i'm sure that my work is only like a drop in the ocean comparing it to all the hard work you've done in the hobby)
I know i'm too mad and maybe i overcomplicate things but if something doesn't work i have to find other way to solve the problem and that's why i go deeply into details.



> I'm just poking some fun at Kekon. He thinks way too hard.


Barry, i know you do like doing that  You would probably say: "throw away all that stuff, buy a bottle of TMG, add some of it to the tank, add X spoons of KNO3 and KH2PO4 and that's enough". But believe me - that doesn't work for some plants i've been growing in my tank for a year now. You can't satisfy
all the plant species needs using one fertilizing method only - just as your body can't be in a good health eating only bread and drinking only water every day.

The thing is that all the pieces of advice i've been given from "great aquascapers" don't work. It's people like Mr. Sanders, Dennis, Salt who help me to improve things in the hobby and it really works. Ok, i've written to much... Let's return to the topic.


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## Freemann

I avoid indulging answering to things I am not sure of, this is why I don't answer to many posts, but let me try to say my thoughts on this one:
High K low NO3 plants can't start a faster growth rate, high K, high NO3, plants start their growth mechanism and the next on the line nutrient gets limited, maybe the assimilation at this point of Ca (the process is supposed to be somewhat passive) is not fast enough or who knows what other nutrient for that matter maybe responsible, and leaf curling stunting appears. Maybe there is a highest growth point on the plants and above it something is not possible to be assimilated(at least in the way we provide it). Well I must say at many things this hobby is such a mess. I still believe from my personal experience that the best root to avoid many of this problems is a nutrient rich substrate.


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## azfishguy

kekon said:


> You can't satisfy
> all the plant species needs using one fertilizing method only - just as your body can't be in a good health eating only bread and drinking only water every day.


Well kekon, you got that right! I think this is an ongoing problem people deal with in their setups. We spend hours looking at our tanks and putting together an amazing new scape project. We have all the colors and shapes in just the right places. Then the days comes. We spend hours planting, replanting, clipping and what not. We add water, dose, check the CO2 bubbles and wait. Sometimes the results are great and sometimes things are not going the way they were going in our heads beforehand. Some plants grow like crazy weeds while others struggle or die. On top of that there is some GDA on the glass and the whole project is going out the window. We then try to figure out what went wrong. Everything was there NPK,CO2,Ca,Mg - everything! Yet, that darn A. reineckii instead of striking red, turned into a brown, twisted, and ugly mutant. Anyways, we do all those things but often times we forget that we pack together species from all around the world together in a 20 or 50 gallon tank and demand of them to just sit there and look gorgeous. I don't think it works that way. We may get away with some species from the Amazon growing fine with D. diandra or something but there is a reason why bananas don't grow in Ohio and tomatoes in the Arizona desert. There are no universal tank conditions ideal for every plant we collect. I wish that was the case. Obviously we can get away with a lot of this crime against nature and grow many different species together. There are times, however, when R. macrandra will be perfectly happy while some "easy to grow" moss will turn into mush. Just something to consider.


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## kekon

> I still believe from my personal experience that the best root to avoid many of this problems is a nutrient rich substrate.


It'd be probably out of nutrients quickly especially if one had fast growing species. I grew many plants without any substrate and their growth was amazing - low GH and NPK. I think that we just overfertilize our tanks.

Sometimes i think it would be better to apply nutrient rich substrate under the roots of some plants only which may require good substrate. As a matter of fact some nutrients will go out from the substrate into the water column. It cannot be avoided. We must also take into acoount the fact, that there could be other micronutrients necessary (besides the basic ones: B, Zn, Cu, Mo, Fe, Mn) that we don't know about or they have not been investigated yet. Since i use only RO water i added to my micro fert additional elements: nickel, cobalt, vanadium, iodine, tin, aluminium.



> PS. Kekon regards to kaczorki,lepperki etc.


The issues with curled leaves, stunted tips etc. began whey they came to power


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## azfishguy

kekon said:


> The issues with curled leaves, stunted tips etc. began whey they came to power


Doesn't surprise me a bit


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## Freemann

> It'd be probably out of nutrients quickly especially if one had fast growing species.


No it doesn't, a properly prepared soil+laterite substrate will last for 3 years guarantied and start to deteriorate in the 4th year. It will provide a rich, full of bacteria environment, will promote good root growth and give great buffering capacity in case we miss something of the amounts of ferts we add in the column.



> I grew many plants without any substrate and their growth was amazing - low GH and NPK. I think that we just overfertilize our tanks.


I wish it was that simple. Many plants will do ok with low amounts of NPK but some plants do need higher N concentrations in the column (specially with inert substrates, they will soon saw deficiency symptoms if this amounts are not provided, mind you I do not mean to target levels like 50-80 ppm NO3, but still a steady supply of N is a prerequisite same applies for K (even amounts above the ones provided from KNO3) same goes for P and TE, Fe. Maybe optimal uptake values and concentrations must be met to give the plant the impetus it needs for proper growth. More than once I have seen NO3 deficiency with low NO3 in the column, plants like stellatas, umbrosum and others are the ones to exibit problems first.
It is very difficult for us with no lab resources to come to conclusive answers concerning our plants behaviour, growth cause there are so many unaccounted factors involved in each process (see my previous post) most of the time we can just speculate.


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## kekon

> No it doesn't, a properly prepared soil+laterite substrate will last for 3 years guarantied and start to deteriorate in the 4th year. It will provide a rich, full of bacteria environment, will promote good root growth and give great buffering capacity in case we miss something of the amounts of ferts we add in the column.


What about such plants as Anubias, Microsorium ? Their roots cannot be put into the substrate and they grow very well. When it comes to umbrosum it doesn't need much NO3; it grows like weed in very low NO3 (2..5) and very soft water (GH about 2). ADA makes sobstrates but they're expensive and i know some folks who use it but they don't have very good results: plants turn pale and they have to supplement additional iron (ECA) to get richer colors. 
The plain gravel used as substrate is also full of bacteria i think provided it's not cleaned very often (by rinsing). 
It seems substrate is a good thing when you don't want to pour ferts into the tank but if you do it every day the substrate is not necessary.

Here is a picture of Blyxa, HC, Glosso and cardamine Lyrata - they're all planted in plain gravel, without any additions  (and grow like weeds)


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## Freemann

> What about such plants as Anubias, Microsorium


Anubias here always head their roots to the substrate even when planted high.



> ADA makes substrates but they're expensive and i know some folks who use it but they don't have very good results: plants turn pale and they have to supplement additional iron (ECA) to get richer colors.


 Well we have 100's of examples of very nice tanks with ADA what if they have to add ECA aswell?


> The plain gravel used as substrate is also full of bacteria i think provided it's not cleaned very often (by rinsing).
> It seems substrate is a good thing when you don't want to pour ferts into the tank but if you do it every day the substrate is not necessary.


Soil is a completely different thing from plain gravel even bacteria wise. I think substrate is very good in any case, adding ferts on the column or not. Best of out tanks (me and a friend) have been the ones with rich substrate in addition to column ferts. 
As for umbrosum in this tank of mine it does not grow either way . 


> Here is a picture of Blyxa, HC, Glosso and cardamine Lyrata - they're all planted in plain gravel, without any additions


The same plants will grow very well with rich substrate, little column ferts and even less maintenance column wise I have done it in the past.
Kekon what I am bassically saying here is this. Some plants may grow fine with such low NO3 and no support from a substrate some don't. Plant physiology is much more complicated than it looks initially with our experiments in a single or a couple of tanks (believe me I have been fooled into believing I found the answer myself many times to discover on the end that I have missed something), and we need not to rush into conclusions. Still I agree with you on the fact that we don't need to add a **** load of ferts to have good growing plants but 1-5 ppm NO3 in the column is very low for some species.


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## kekon

> Plant physiology is much more complicated than it looks initially with our experiments in a single or a couple of tanks


Yes... it's far more complicated than i thought at the beginning... Frankly, the elctronics i deal with professionally is much simpler than plants physiology If an electronic circuit doesn't work showing "deficiencies" (or "excesses") you can easily connect it to different measurement instruments which help to localize what's wrong but you cannot do the same with plants :mrgreen:


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## defdac

If there was a way to have individual member posts as an RSS-feed I would have subscribed to yours a long time ago Kekon. Keep up your fantastic work. I always do a "kekon-search" everytime I'm here.


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## kekon

> I always do a "kekon-search" everytime I'm here.


I always did "burned tips search" :mrgreen: 
But... now it seems i solved the problem eventually 
The culprit of burned and stunted tips was... too little K... confused ? So am i...

I'll give an account of what i did to come to such conclusions:

Last week i decided to switch from Ca(NO3)2 to KNO3 + some NH4NO3 and i began to dose. I got the impression that Ca(NO3)2 was harmful to plants to some extent as it was examined by Edward (he reported some issues when using Ca(NO3)2). Additionally, CaNO3 is marked as "irritating" chemical compound. I read an article about the CaNO3 that contributed to Ca deficiency when it was used to fertilize crops in the South Corea.

At the end of the week i noticed that umbrosum and alternateras look better - new shoots grew without deformations ! I realized that the real change that was made was higher K from KNO3. I calculated that it was 15 ppm K at the end of the week while it was 10 ppm at the beginning. The NO3 was 5..10 ppm and PO4 0,2 ppm, Ca 25 ppm, Mg 4 ppm (test kits calibrated). So it was for the K that helped - only 5 ppm more ! I was very confused... To ensure that it was K and to check if K doesn't cause Ca deficiency i purposely lowered Ca during WC from 25 ppm to 16 ppm (the Ca uptake is very low throughout the week - no more than 3 ppm). I recostituted RO water so that it was 15 ppm both in changed water and in the tank. At the beginning ot the new week i began to continue dosing more K so that ot was close to 20 ppm. The plants growth was even better !

A person i know did very similar experiment. Some time ago he had severe tip stunting and twisted leaves. He dosed much KNO3 and K2SO4. However, the issues dissapeared slowly. He told me he dose 20 ppm K to changed water and had no more issues. I couldn't believe that despite high K and Ca about 30 ppm he did not have issues that were killing me in my tank..
I made him to tell me what NO3, PO4, Ca and K are in his tank. The only interesting thing was not too high NO3 - 2..5 ppm. Despite low NO3 plants grew quite well !

So, on the whole:

1. If one wishes to have high NO3, PO4 and K - one must have hard or very 
hard water in order not to have stunted tips.
2. If we have soft (or even very soft water) NO3 cannot be high (5 ppm can be enough - it's even better to dose little NH4 together with NO3) but we can dose higher amounts of K. At Ca 10..30 ppm we can keep 20 ppm K.

At present my water params are (in ppms):

Ca: 16
Mg: 4
K: 16..18
NO3: 5
PO4: 0.2

micro dosage (weekly doses, DIY micro fert):

Fe: 0.28
Mn: 0.14
B: 0.006
Zn: 0.003 - it seems too little, rosetting appears on Rotala Indica
Mo: 0.003
Cu: 0.003
Ni: 0.001
Co: 0.001
Al: 0.000035
Li: 0.000035
V: 0.0000175
Sn: 0.0000175

Unfortunately i can't place new pics here because i've reached uploda limit


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## Jason Baliban

kekon,

this is an awesome thread!! I wonder how the level of co2 effects the outcome as well. I am currently doing some experiments with co2 levels. I am running 8-12ppm of co2 without any algae issues. I will share my results when i am done.

I have a quick question about your micros. When you say your weekly micro is Fe: 0.28.....what does this mean? Does this explain the total amount of micros you are putting into the tank weekly, or what is in the actual micro solution? If the 2nd is true, how much of the micro solution do you add daily? I have heard that too much FE limits K....have you run into this?

Thanks

jB


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## kekon

> When you say your weekly micro is Fe: 0.28.....what does this mean?


Yes, this is the total amount of Fe added to the tank during the week, which means it's 0.04 ppm Fe daily. The same concerns other micros. 0.14 ppm Mn means 0.02 ppm daily and so on.
I did experiment with not chelated micros (only Fe was DTPA-chelated) but i will write about it in other thread.

As far as CO2 is concerned i haven't noticed too many differences between high and low CO2 concentrations. I ran from 10 to 30 ppm with no issues with plants. I was told by someone that too much CO2 will cause the same effects as Ca deficiency but i've never noticed that in my tank.



> I have heard that too much FE limits K....have you run into this?


It's difficult to say; some time ago i dosed 0.1 ppm Fe daily but because of low K(no more than 10 ppm) it could have been K deficiency itself. The noticeable thing when high amounts of Fe were dosed was cloudy water which was caused probably by chelator excess (chelators are organic compounds so i think they may contribute to algae blooms, green water etc.)


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## morta_skuld

very informative bro! i have the same experience with no3. my walichii wont grow with high no3.


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## defdac

> 2. If we have soft (or even very soft water) NO3 cannot be high (5 ppm can be enough - it's even better to dose little NH4 together with NO3) but we can dose higher amounts of K. At Ca 10..30 ppm we can keep 20 ppm K.


Why would it be better to use NH4 with NO3 instead of only KNO3? What kind of NH4-dosage are we talking about?
My main concern is algae blooms and nitrite killing fish.


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## kekon

I add NH4 together with NO3 because i found a commercial N nitrogen fert ("Eurdrakon") procduced by Drak firm (DRAK-Aquaristik) and it has 3 nitrogen forms: NO3, NH4 and urea so i decided to give it a trial. The fert adds to the tank the following (100% daily dose):
1 ppm NO3
0.1 ppm NH4
0.09 ppm NH2

The fert is composed of KNO3, NH4NO3 and CO(NH2)2. I think NH4 causing huge algae blooms is an exagerration similar to PO4 causing algae. If we add small amounts of NH4 (0.1-0.5 ppm) we don't have to be afraid of algae. 
Many folks add NH4 to their tanks without any algae issues. NH4 is consumed in a few hours and that's why it doesn't cause algae (provided that the daily dose is not high - 0.1..0.2 ppm seems to be good)
I noticed urea is a "weak" form of nitrogen for aquatic plants as it seems to me it's not absorbed by plants directly (anyway it is consumed very slowly). First, it is converted to NO3 (even in a few hours after dosing) and the consumed by plants. For that reason i stopped to dose urea eventually.

Plants respond quite well to such a mixture of NH4 and NO3 especially if there was a slight N deficiency. But it also seem it's much better not to dose NH4 only, it's better do dose it together with NO3. 
NH4 is not as dangerous to fish as NH3. Anyway once i killed 10 fish by adding NH4(OH) to the water - about 0.8 ppm during 3 days (i made a mistake in calculations) 
NH4(OH) is extremely toxic (it's stated on the bottle but i was like a fool and ignored the fact...)


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## HeyPK

Miracle-gro also has those three forms of nitrogen, and I'll bet it is a lot cheaper. Just add it in small amounts so that the ammonia levels stay low and do not injure or kill fish and invertebrates.


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## defdac

I've just started testing a Tropica Plant nutrition+ lookalike (10 times more concentrated though). Nitrogen is in the form of NH4NO3.


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## kekon

> I've just started testing a Tropica Plant nutrition+ lookalike (10 times more concentrated though). Nitrogen is in the form of NH4NO3.


Wow, that's interesting. From what i calculated the N dose which is added to the tank per week is very small - about 1,5 ppm N so it gives 0.34 ppm NH4 and only 1.17 ppm NO3 per week (i assume there is 1.3..1.5 %N in the fertilizer)
I use N fert composed of KNO3, NH4NO3 and urea and it works quite well.


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## Glouglou

*Stunted Tip, Curly leaves.*

I'm used to go with higher amount of everything and not be very happy of the overall look of the plants.

Now I'm going with numbers around Kekon finding:

Actually I'm not dosing NO3 and PO4 to drive them down. I'm calculating and recording, week after week what I'm adding to this tank and will post this later.

Tank now!
Ca = 30
Mg = 12
PO4 = 1 (stable)
NO3 = 12 (was stable but now going down)
K = (I really like to have a good test for it, any sugestions)
CO2 = 10
PH= 6,8
Fe=1
KH= 20
GH= 120

For now I'm only dosing micro and potassium (heavy)

Elodea growing fast
Rotala slow down, used to have pinpoint hole, still slow but no more hole.
It's the Ludwigia that for a long time is in slow mode and curly leaves, dead bottom leaves just came back to life when I add more potassium
I will have a more acurate view off all this later.


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## kekon

Do you really have 1 ppm of Fe ??? It's very high. 
Now i use TMG but i can't see any difference between TMG and my own micro fert.
When it comes to PO4 i don't notice any growth improvement when it's 0.1 ppm and then 0.5 ppm. It seems plants don't "notice" higher PO4.


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## Glouglou

*High Fe*

Yes Kekon, I'm driving this down slowly. I think .25 to .5 will be better and if I can go lower without problem, I will.

Like I said every aspect of this tank is recorded for now 1 month 1/2, I will post , if anything interesting.

The ressurection of my Ludwigia with higher dosage of potassium is a kind of interesting.


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## Laith

I've been following this thread with interest. One of the points that struck me is dosing so little NO3 (1mg/l per day), so two weeks ago just to see what happened I lowered my NO3 dosing on one of my tanks (moderate stocking, heavily planted, CO2, 2.8wpg noon burst 5 hours, total 8 hours photoperiod with the rest at 1.4wpg all with T5s, tap water with a GH of 15 and a KH of 11) to that level from the 4.5mg/l of NO3 I usually dose daily with an autodoser.

I've now started to notice slower growth, stunted plants, older leaves turning yellow... and algae that I haven't seen in a while start to appear (looks like the beginning of BBA on some leaves as well as a touch of thread algae). So today I increased the NO3 dosing back to 4.5mg/l per day to see if that reversed the symptoms I'm seeing.

It really is amazing how every tank setup is different. There are so many variables that play a role in maintaining each individual tank that it does take quite a bit of "tweaking" and experimenting with the variables to get it right.

Then you move 50kms with a different source of water for example and you have to tweak all over again!  

That's why kekon's experiences are useful: every tank will require patience, perseverance and experimentation until one finds the balance that works for their particular setup/environment.


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## Glouglou

*To Laith*

Well, you know what. Yes, every tank setup is different but I really think that we should dose base on consumption of nutrient and not on concentration.

In my case, by example I dose KNO3 for over 5 months, and my test reading was stable around 8 to 10 mg/l. At the end of that five months, with the same dosing, NO3 start to raise (and PO4).

Now it's around 2 month without dosing KNO3 and it only start to go slowly down.

I think that, after a while, plants fill up their nutrient reserve (in this case NO3 and are saturate with the stuff, they cannot used the NO3 in the water column and take a while to use their reserve and only when the reserve is used they start to take the NO3 from the water column. I'm sure that it's easier for the plant to take from their reserve compare to the water column.

I'm recording all aspect of my tank for 2 months and I base my dosing on the speed of consumption or stagnation of all nutrients.

So far, improvment. But it's to early to say...


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## Laith

This is what I mean by every tank being unique. I've been dosing 4.5mg/l of NO3 every day in this tank for 18 months. I don't test that often now but for the first 12 months I did just to see. With calibrated test kits, I never noticed the NO3 and PO4 creep up over time. NO3 has always been steady at between 15 and 20mg/l and PO4 around 1.5-2mg/l. I tested after I reduced the NO3 dosing, and after a week my NO3 had dropped to around 5mg/l as shown on the test kit (and my PO4 went up), which is probably around the error margin of the kit anyway.

Nutrient concentrations creeping up also depends on your water change levels and frequency. 50% water change once a week means that your levels can *never* get higher than 2x weekly dosing, and that's without taking into account plant uptake. Unless of course you have a heavy bioload (once again indicating how each tank is unique).

Just a 20% difference in plant mass between two tanks will alter consumption rates... I used to notice a slight increase in concentrations after a massive pruning for example. I also noticed a decrease when adding lots of plants or over time as the plant mass grew and increased.


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## Freemann

> Well, you know what. Yes, every tank setup is different but I really think that we should dose base on consumption of nutrient and not on concentration.


Yes glouglou this is my approach as well.



> I think that, after a while, plants fill up their nutrient reserve (in this case NO3 and are saturate with the stuff, they cannot used the NO3 in the water column and take a while to use their reserve and only when the reserve is used they start to take the NO3 from the water column. I'm sure that it's easier for the plant to take from their reserve compare to the water column.


I suspect the same thing myself. I think there is a big clue in the luxury uptake factor.

I observed something else as well. There is a certain range of values of KNO3 in which plants and the tank are in good condition around 20-30 ppm, anything above or bellow and problems become evident. It is like KNO3 is the major moderating factor on plants, tank behavior.

Also I find that when NO3 is dosed daily around 1.5 ppm soon K deficiency appears it seems that on this levels of KNO3 dosing K from KNO3 only is not enough.


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## detlef

Which K deficiency symptoms do you observe, Freeman?
How does it look like on your plants, can you specify?

I'm fertilizing K solely from KNO3 since many years. Only signs of defs I am seeing sometimes is some crinkling on new leaves of umbrosum and H. micranthemoides. Also little whitening here. 

Regards,
Detlef


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## Freemann

Detlef I observed this mostly in aromatica pin holes in leaves that wil enlarge and kind of strip the leaf of it's tissue leaving the leaf nerves behind this was remedied with small additional amounts of K. Something like this:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/displayimage.php?imageid=4316
or this look at the lower leaves the new ones are after the addition of K:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/displayimage.php?imageid=4317


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## Freemann

Detlef I observed this mostly in aromatica pin holes in leaves that wil enlarge and kind of strip the leaf of it's tissue leaving the leaf nerves behind this was remedied with small additional amounts of K. Something like this:








or this look at the lower leaves the new ones are after the addition of K:


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## detlef

Thanks a lot Freeman for posting pictures. As I'm well aware of the plant nutrient link you've posted a while ago you should know better than me. But by the looks of it I'm inclined to say that otos could have been the culprit. Therefore may I ask you if at the time you took the aromatica photo did you keep otos in that same tank as well? Also, could you remedy the "K deficiency" only once or have you been able to verify your findings?

Having grown many different plant species, no aromatica though, I was never able to observe typically described K def. symptoms i.e. pin holes, yellowing etc. with solely KNO3 fertilization. So I keep wondering... 

Best regards,
Detlef


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## Edward

Hi 
When NO3 is 60 - 80 - 100 ppm with K proportionally present, we have a problem. Plants stunting, some algae starts growing and fish don't feel well. But, when similar NO3 situation happens by plants leaking N back to water column all goes fine.
How? When plants are growing well they are loaded with nutrients, removing all elements from water column. But when CO2 is turned off, plants start leaking large amounts of N back to water. This easily goes as high as 100 ppm NO3. Interestingly all continues to be healthy waiting for the CO2 to come back. 

We have no issues with stunting, algae or fish. No burned tips, no curling, no deficiencies. We dose PPS daily before lights go on. No water testing what so ever. This is working perfectly on low light and very high light, small and large aquariums too. CO2 level does not matter neither, testing not needed. As long as there is some CO2 dissolved we are ok. Simply maintain TDS at 2x tap and dose daily in the morning. 

Thank you
Edward


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## kekon

I have come to the conclusion that N uptake depends greatly on Ca concentration. The higher GH the more N must be added. If we have soft and very soft water (say GH 2..5) it may happen that NO3 need not to be dosed. I have such a situation - no NO3 dosage but NO3 stayed at about 2 ppm throughout several months.
I also notice that K itself doesn't cause tip burn so severely as NO3 or NH4 does.
This confirms observations made by many people i know. From the past experiments i have the following (i wrote it somewhere but i will do it again):

GH = 2 (Ca = 8, Mg = 4)
NO3 = 2..3 (no NO3 dosing, all the NO3 produced naturally by fish)
K = 15..20

NO tips stunting, great plants growth (but some nitrogen-hungry plants affected and die)

GH = 2
NO3 = 20..30
K = 27
PO4 = 1.5

Severe deformations, stunted tips, some plants die, growth stopped completely, many leaves look as if they were fried on a frying pan 

GH = 5
NO3 = 10
K = 10
PO4 = 1

Less severe deformations, but very slow growth (even Polysperma "stands still")
many tips burned (especially on Umbrosum and Alternatera)

GH = 5
NO3 = 5
K = 20
PO4 = 0.2

Quite good growth, healthy tips, good pearling

From my friend's tank:

GH = 8
NO3 = 5 (2 ppm NO3 and 0.2 ppm NH4 daily + 20 ppm K at WC)
K = 25..30
PO4 = 0.2

Very good and fast growth, NO tips burned, no deformations.

So i think we must fit N dosage into our GH. A biologist told me that if there was too low GH and too much N, plants suffered from nitrogen excess. Some folks using EI method and dosing much NO3 may have great plants because the average level of NO3 can be low despite high KNO3 doses - not necessary 10..30 ppm or so like EI assumes because at high K and GH, all the NO3 is rapidly consumed by plants (especially if there are many fast-growers in the tank)


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## dennis

Kekon,

What would you suggest as NO3 and K levels for a Gh of 25+ degrees? 

What I have found in my particular setup is that high NO3 (>30-40mg/l) was associated with stunting. Lowering NO3 levels and increasing K (adding 15mg/l weekly versus adding8-9mg/l weekly previous) showed an improvement. Adding no NO3 and allowing tank levels to fall very low was associated with lots of stunting of Rotala colorata, pink, nahjanshen and macranda green. Rotala sp. green was fine.

Another observation. Every time I try dosing NO3 (4mg/l at a time) I observe severe stunting, curling and deformation of new shoots within one day on Rotala colorata, pink, nahjenshen and Polygonum sp. Most other plants are looking better than I have ever grown. Also throughout all of this I dose 15ml Flourish weekly and .4mg/l Fe from ferrous gluconate (25 gallon aquarium, micro dosing divided into 3x a week)

CO2 levels are very good. Mist method with good circulation.

Sorry to trespass in your thread but since it seems similar, any thoughts?


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## Freemann

Detlef
Just 2 otos in this tank in 400 lt, pretty useless fish for me this ones are.


> As I'm well aware of the plant nutrient link you've posted a while ago you should know better than me.


I wouldn't bet on this one .
Still I am pretty sure this is K deficiency .
But now with the nutrients on the pumps I can tweak much much better in specific increments and see reactions.

Edward very interesting. 


> When NO3 is 60 - 80 - 100 ppm with K proportionally present, we have a problem. Plants stunting, some algae starts growing and fish don't feel well.


So is it K or NO3 that causes this problems? I reckon NO3 but does K plays a role aswell?

Kekon


> I have come to the conclusion that N uptake depends greatly on Ca concentration.


This is very interesting as well and it could explain some things.
Question is how can we really verify all this? This is the most difficult part.

Dennis
With 12 Gh, above 30 ppm NO3 I start seeing problems as well on plants, and some bga creeping in. But if I go low I have problems as well.


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## kekon

> What would you suggest as NO3 and K levels for a Gh of 25+ degrees?


Hmmmm, it's quite hard water but i'd try to keep 10..20 ppm NO3. However, i know that stunting (stunted tips) can occur when there is not enough K, Mg and Ca or they are not properly balanced against each other. Take a look at these pics (labelled with "-Mg", "-K") http://4e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=t&id=289. The K and Mg deficiences look nearly the same and it's often quite difficult for me which deficiency (K, Ca or Mg) really occur  
Do you have RO ? Perhaps you could try to soften the water to have GH = 8..15.

Anyway i know some plants don't care about GH. Blyxa japonica seems to be such a plant. The only thing it needs is stable and decent NO3 no matter what GH is. For me it grows perfectly well when there is 10 ppm NO3 - i tried 16 ppm Ca, 25 and then 50 ppm and it always grew very well on contition NO3 was not lower than 10 ppm (i calibrated the test kit many times).
This is a problem i can't solve because such plants as Blyxa must have decent NO3 to grow well but other plants are stunted; and the opposite thing: low NO3 - many plants grow well but Blyxa slows down and rots.



> Quote:
> I have come to the conclusion that N uptake depends greatly on Ca concentration.
> This is very interesting as well and it could explain some things.
> Question is how can we really verify all this? This is the most difficult part.


I checked it in a simple way. Once i was told that i had too low NO3 so i added 10 ppm NO3 not from KNO3 but from Ca(NO3) so only NO3 was added (and very little Ca but we can neglect it). 2..3 days later my Umbrosum was like dead - looked like straw. Alternatera Reinecki had new leaves curled.
When it recovered a little i added only NH4 (about 0.8 ppm) from NH4(OH) and the very next day in the evening i had the same effect - Umbrosum was severely stunted. So it was N that caused the issues (K was 10 ppm all the time). No matter in what form N was added.

Suspecting Ca deficiency i raised Ca up to 50 ppm (CaCO3) and maintained such level for at least a week and 10 ppm NO3. NO changes. Adding Ca didn't help at all and the stunting remained. The next step was to get back to "old and good" KNO3. I prepared a solution composed of KNO3, urea and NH4NO3 (in order not to dose too much K). I began to dose the solution (1.5 ppm NO3 daily). At the beginning of the experiment it was 10 ppm K. In the end of the week i noticed an improvement - umbrosum had new healthy tips, new Alternatera leaves were beautiful without any deformations and the growth of all the plants was considerably faster. What caused the improvement ? It was K - i calculated that at the end of the week there was about 15 ppm K. So only 5 ppm K more helped. To ensure that more K doesn't cause tips burning i decreased Ca to 16 ppm and set K to 20 ppm. The new week plants grew a little worse and some stunting appeared but it wasn't so severe like before.

So the only thing i can do now is to find such a NO3 dose (or NH4) that doesn't cause stunting. (just start to dose 1 ppm NO3 for example and if NO3 rapidly grows too high - it will mean plants don't need any more N)

Sorry for such long text...


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## defdac

I have a GH of 2 and can see the same things as you kekon. And I can add another interesting observeration - if one limit PO4 or light, higher NO3 doesn't seem to hurt.

Full blast with CO2, light and NPK+micros seems to drive uptake at a faster pace than the plant physiology can cope with?

A bit like bitter pit syndrome in apples which is tightly coupled with Ca, N and sunny weather.

Ca seems to be the toughest nutrient for the plant to transport fast enough under very good growth conditions - especially when Ca is low (low GH) and poor circulation which makes the boundary layer around the leaves and the diffusion of Ca big problem. Big and undisturbed root systems seems to help also.


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## kekon

> And I can add another interesting observeration - if one limit PO4 or light, higher NO3 doesn't seem to hurt.


The same thing happened in my tank but it seems to me PO4 is not as harmful as other nutrinets when in excess. Now i try to keep PO4 at 0.1..0.2 ppm and i don't notice any big difference between 0.1..0.2 and 1..2 ppm PO4. But i still don't know how to help my Blyxa (i do love this plant) to survive at low NO3 - perhaps it would be a good idea to dose NO3 or NH4 under its roots but i still don't know how to do it: some peat + clay soaked with NO3 or something like that. But the question is how much N shold be insterted under the roots ? (i've never used any special substrate for a planted tank)


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## Edward

Freemann said:


> Edward very interesting.
> So is it K or NO3 that causes this problems? I reckon NO3 but does K plays a role aswell?


Hi Freemann
The reply was to Dennis's post #7, about unexpected high N levels. 
You asking what causes this problem, K or NO3? Neither. It is not that simple. We know that plants really hate changes. Lately I have experienced higher plant quality by using dosing pumps. Even using the same precise solutions dosed by hand versus time controlled dosing pumps make a difference. Water change lowering rapidly TDS conductivity is a killer too. It deforms new growth. 

Thank you
Edward


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## kekon

It's a good idea to use a separate micro fert for changed water so that it had stable and known levels of all the micronutrients. The second fert - for daily dosing. I think that it is rapid change in micronutriens level (after WC) that makes plants grow slower after WC.


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## Freemann

Edward:


> You asking what causes this problem, K or NO3? Neither. It is not that simple. We know that plants really hate changes.


So what you are saying is that it is not the amount of NO3 but the sudden changes, (inconsistency and shock, ph fluctuations as you say elsewhere  ) kind of shock the plants and create problems.



> I have experienced higher plant quality by using dosing pumps. Even using the same precise solutions dosed by hand versus time controlled dosing pumps make a difference.


You are telling me, I have been using dosing pumps in my tanks the last 10 years. They surely make a big difference by dosing nutrients in increments during the course of the day. I suspect a drip WC method would make a difference as well but I can't get around setting a drip system here. I also believe and have said it many times in the past that nutrient rich substrate makes all the difference in the world by providing a nutrient buffer zone, promoting root growth and thus more pathways (possibly the appropriate ones for specific nutrients).

Kekon
Here plants grow much faster after a WC, no matter if I add more ferts at the same time or not.


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## kekon

I was thinking about the substrate but it seems it could cause another problems. For exemple when one has to uproot plants when we want to change plants or to place them in different place in the tank. When taking out a plant from the substrate some of it will get over the gravel making water murky and releasing nutrients into the water column. I was told ADA substrates are enriched with lots of NH4 and sometimes it gets into the water in large amonuts causing green water (of course i don't have to be right as i've never used any ADA products). Some aquascapers say substrates are good for people who don't have too much time to take care of their tanks (dosing ferts every day, measuring water parametrs etc.) But when you take care of your tank every day you don't have to put any substrate into your tank (maybe i will try to use a substrate in the future but i like doing experiments  )


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## toffee

Hey kekon, for folks that have hard water (gh=250ppm, ph=7.6), high bio load (NO3=60ppm), no CO2, low light (2wpg). Would high K (say 20ppm) help or what? Tap has high nitrate (20ppm) so even frequent wc would help to reduce much.


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## kekon

I wrote to Seachem and asked them why there is so much K in the "Equilibrium" (recommended dose will raise potassium to 50 ppm). They said that K should be kept at 30..120 ppm in a planted tank...
I dosed 40 ppm to my tank and most plants were doing okay, except Didiplis Diandra which had some leaves twisted. I'm doing some experiments now with high K and i will write about it soon.


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## toffee

30-120ppm? Sounded really high. I am going to try up the dosing of K and see how it goes.


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## Glouglou

This is a very interesting info on the antagonist relation between the alkali K > Na > Mg > Ca

http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.200401/msg00585.html

I actually cure stunted and diformed tips in Ludwigia by lowering my Nitrates to 5 ppm and dosing Potassium.

Phosphates .35 ppm
Ca: 40 ppm
mg: around 10 ppm
Fe(traces): .4 ppm (some green algae)

Well, I also Improve my CO2 diffusion (this is probably another factor)


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## Peteman

Hello, first post here 

I know I NEED good doses of K in my 85 Gal or this happens like clockwork


1tsp K2SO4 3 times a week (do 50% water changes). Any less works for a while but then I get the mutations again. One stem gets hit first but others quickly follow. All my ferts (K,N,P trace etc.) are dry ones from my friendly pot gr.. hydroponic store. Tough plant, can't remember the name (Limnophila aquatica?), except for K, it's my low K indicator in my tank.

Now if I could only work out why my Mayaca fluviatilis have stalled...

Pete.


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## kekon

> I actually cure stunted and diformed tips in Ludwigia by lowering my Nitrates to 5 ppm and dosing Potassium.


It was K that helped. Too little K causes tips stunting as well on some plants; i checked it several times. Also, NO3 excess will do the same especially if Ca is too low (below 30 ppm). Nitrogen excess causes Ca deficiency as well but many people don't believe it.



> I know I NEED good doses of K in my 85 Gal or this happens like clockwork


If you dose 15 ppm K once a week it will be quite enough. What GH do you have in your tank ?


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## toffee

High NO3 will cause Ca deficiency? I would love to see some experiement on that one because I constantly have high NO3 in my tank.


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## Peteman

kekon said:


> It was K that helped. Too little K causes tips stunting as well on some plants; i checked it several times. Also, NO3 excess will do the same especially if Ca is too low (below 30 ppm). Nitrogen excess causes Ca deficiency as well but many people don't believe it.
> 
> If you dose 15 ppm K once a week it will be quite enough. What GH do you have in your tank ?


GH of 80. 15 ppm K weekly doesn't work for me for that plant. I've tried 1tsp at water change, 2x 1/2tsp rest of the week for 18ppm total and the effects pop up again. That is my most sensitive plant though.

Pete.


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