# Tropica specialised



## matthewwoodgate (12 Feb 2021)

Hi there can anyone help me 


with how much tropica specialised I need to dose into my aquarium please.
A week ago I set up a dennerle nano cube 20 litre with 4 types of easy grow plants, Bacopa Caroliniana, Cryptocoryne wendti green, Helanthium Bolivian up and Marsilea hirsuta.
Obviously there is a dosage recommendation on the bottle which works out to 1ml per 10 litre of water per week. After I put my substrate, hardscape and plants in I put 15 litres of water in so I dosed 1.5ml of fert. Today will be my first water change so looking for advice on dosing going forward.
Some say dosing should be daily but dividing 1.5ml into 7 doses is impossible.
In his new book George Farmer recommends 1ml per 40 litre per day for low energy set up (I don’t have CO2 injection) so that would be 0.375 ml per day which is a lot more than tropica say. I will always do a 50% water change every week and I use a cut of 50% RO water and hard tap water.
I gave up this hobby a few years ago coz of algae (and massive snail infestation) so I’m trying to do everything right this time.
any advice would be helpful please.


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## dw1305 (12 Feb 2021)

Hi all, 
That looks good for a week from set-up. 


matthewwoodgate said:


> A week ago I set up a dennerle nano cube 20 litre with 4 types of easy grow plants, Bacopa Caroliniana, Cryptocoryne wendti green, Helanthium Bolivian up and Marsilea hirsuta.
> Obviously there is a dosage recommendation on the bottle which works out to 1ml per 10 litre of water per week. After I put my substrate, hardscape and plants in I put 15 litres of water in so I dosed 1.5ml of fert.


I'd just do that, plant health looks fine, as they grow you might find you need to add a bit more.  

cheers Darrel


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## Zeus. (12 Feb 2021)

matthewwoodgate said:


> Some say dosing should be daily but dividing 1.5ml into 7 doses is impossible.



Not really, as 20 drops equals 1.0ml so 10 drops a day and your good 


matthewwoodgate said:


> ennerle nano cube 20 litre
> Obviously there is a dosage recommendation on the bottle which works out to 1ml per 10 litre of water per week. After I put my substrate, hardscape and plants in I put 15 litres of water in



Most folk ignore the substrate hardscape and dose for the tank volume, this also fits with the principle of 'nutrients in abundance' and the weekly 50% WC will reset your tank removing any excess ferts/DOC (Dissolved Organic Compounds)

BTW - Nice start


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## Matthew Robinson (20 Feb 2021)

I have a new 20liter dennerle cube as well and i have been looking in to fertz aswell and it looks like a drama with the dosing i wanted to go down the the tropica way but it looks a little to hard for me personally to add drops of the fertilizer, so im going with ADA range i know its a little expensive for the 4 bottles that will be required over time  but dosing says 1ml per 20liters of water per day, the fertz are alit little leaner 

Im using the ADA aqua soil too only because i got it for cheap from local online sales page, 
So the fertilizer works with this soil 
It says start off in week 2 with dosing 1 pump per day of brighty k and 1 pump brighty mineral per day 
After 3 month you add the 3rd bottle in to the mix brighty iron again 1 pump per day 
And after say 6 months the 4th bottle brighty nitrogen again I pump per day 
The only thing I see is they don't dose phosphat that might be a problem later if no fish stock 🤔 
As a said its a little expensive they do 4 bottles that are required over time not sure what the price is in the uk but over here in Germany its 12.90€ for 180ml and 17.90€ for 300ml
But if u only need one pump per day is 300ml for the whole year supose okey bu only time will tell,
I also like the aqua rebell range they do a dropper lid for drop dosing but there you need to buy there empty bottles and pour the tropica fertilizer in so the dropper lid works 

But great start BTW 
Matt


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## DaveWatkin (20 Feb 2021)

I use syringes (no needles) for various things in various sizes.

I have a small hotel shampoo bottle which I pump my tropica into (15ml) and the add with a 1ml syringe.

Two tanks are weekly dosed after water change and one is daily as has co2.

I just round up the quantity to closest ml and it's all nice and simple.

My 90L gets 10ml per week, my 57L gets 6ml per week and my 20L gets 1ml per day (but has waterchanges twice a week)


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