# PMDD Dosing Question.



## RudeDogg1 (18 Dec 2011)

Hi guys, Ive been reading this page http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/PMDD.htm Im thinking of using the PMDD formula without PO4 because my tap water contains quite abit. But the dosing on that link is only for the formula with PO4 and seperate micros. Whats the dosing rate for the normal formula?
Cheers Rudi


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## plantbrain (19 Dec 2011)

The Original PMDD without PO4:

Article: http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/pmdd-tim.html


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## RudeDogg1 (22 Dec 2011)

Surely 1ml a day for a 240 litre is to little? Atleast it sounds like sod all lol


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## plantbrain (23 Dec 2011)

RudeDogg1 said:
			
		

> Surely 1ml a day for a 240 litre is to little? Atleast it sounds like sod all lol



Well , those were back when lean was really the in thing, and everyone thought algae was caused all by excess nutrients.
Works better than many thought/think but could be improved and there was little risk due to ferts.

Lighting was muc less intense, T12 and maybe T8 if you were ahead of the game.

Me?

I had MH's and about 5x the light many had.
This is what I had/was doing back when this came out:












But I had a lot of fish and I had a lot of PO4 in the tap and I dosed CO2 by eyeball.


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## RudeDogg1 (23 Dec 2011)

Awesome looking tank. So will that dosage be ok? I find it all abit confusing  especially when my link has a different dosage than yours


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## RudeDogg1 (24 Dec 2011)

Bump lol


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## plantbrain (30 Dec 2011)

I dose roughly 30-45ppm of NO3 a week, 1-2 ppm of Fe, 30-50ppm of K, 10-15ppm of PO4.
This is for higher light stem plant growth tanks.

For less, well, obviously, I use less.
This is a slow process to dose and see.
Dosing calculators can easily tell you what you need to add to a solution, or dry powder dosing to achieve any ppm.

Target ranges can/do vary widely.

Really depends on what your goal is scape wise, plant species chosen and what not. There are a lot more issues at hand than some set in stone fert routine. Ferts in general are very easy, but many are nutrocentric, yes, you need them and need to learn some about them, but most place a lot more weight on them than is needed and deserved.

I'd worry more about light/CO2, CO2 more than any one thing.
Most everyone just tweaks the ferts a bit, whether or not this helps is debatable.
Still, all fert routines get modified and often heavily.


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## GillesF (30 Dec 2011)

Tom,

how did you dose CO2 back then? Bio CO2? Liquid CO2?

Gilles


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## plantbrain (2 Jan 2012)

That tank had DIY CO2.
There was no Glut dosing back then, maybe in 6-8 years later....then we saw SeaChem Excel come around.

I dosed about 5ppm 2-3x a week of NO3 as KNO3, but I also fed my fish well.

PO4 came from the tap, at 1.1 ppm of PO4.
I did 50-70% weekly water changes.
Sometimes 2x a week.

Traces I also added more than anyone else, maybe 5X the typical advanced hobbyist. Co2....I added 2-3x as much as the going advice at the time. I dose a bit more P and N these days, but it presents no issues. Some claim it does(but cannot support this claim)...if so, I would also have to see those issues myself, and having done it for many years on many tanks, different set ups etc...........and with nearly 400 species of the hardest pickiest plants in the hobby.

It does not say why they had issues, only that independent of other factors, the nutrients when  non limiting play no such role in poor horticultural results. Simply because "so and so" had issues....does not imply that their claim is valid. 1001 ways to screw something up, and only a few to get something right. At least I know from experience what the issue is_ *not.*_

The DIY CO2 was a headache and I learned a great deal about CO2 using this and made all sorts of devices to dissolve CO2 well while being able to vent off the DIY CO2 at night. This tank also has an overflow and Wet/dry filter, might like my tanks today. A few things have changed: sediment, tank itself went rimmless, better lights, better gardening on my own part, better CO2 and gas tanks.........etc.


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