# Tropica Plant Nutrition +



## zig (10 Dec 2007)

Well someone is bound to ask this at some stage so I may as well be first.

I want to know the what is in Tropica plant nutrition +, what is the actual makeup in ppm terms of N and P in particular.

Here's what they have on the instruction leaflet that comes with each purchase, for someone non scientifically trained like me it may as well be greek!

Declaration

W/W% (Gew./Gew.%, P/P%):
N 1.34%, P 0.10%, K 1.03%, Mg 0.39%, S 0.91%, B 0.004%,
Cu 0.006%, Fe 0.07%, Mn 0.04%, Mo 0.002%, Zn 0.002%.
HEEDTA, DTPA, E123

Min temp. 5 C
Ver 3.0

250ml = 260g
500ml = 520g

Normal dose is 5ml per 50L of water. 

I reckon its a bit limited on P myself as GSA is quite easy to get with it even at the recommended dose for low light tanks.

My test kits are not good enough to register the dosage even if they were accurate which I doubt.

All other thoughts on its use are welcome but particularly interested in the makup in ppm terms to give me a better idea of what I am actually dosing.

Thankyou


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## Ed Seeley (10 Dec 2007)

PPM means parts per 1,000,000; percentages are parts per 100.  Therefore just divide the percentages by 10,000 to get ppm.

Of course you'll then have to work out the ppm of the dry ferts  to compare them to the amounts in the fertiliser, as they will be the weight of the whole compound.  You need to use the atomic weights for this, e.g. for Mono-potassium nitrate, KNO3, the breakdown is K = 19, N = 7 and O = 8 so KNO3 has a molecular weight of 50, of which only 7 is Nitrogen.  For 100g of KNO3 then only 14g will be Nitrogen!

HTH!!!!


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## George Farmer (10 Dec 2007)

Don't know.

Works bloody well for me though as an all-in-one.  I have high NO3 and PO4 in my water though, and high GH.


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## JamesC (10 Dec 2007)

If all the N came from NO3 then each dosing adds 6ppm NO3.
Also each dosing adds 0.4ppm PO4.
These are the doses per week.

I'm led to believe that N comes from ammonium nitrate and P comes from potassium phosphate.

EDIT: After some more thought it is probable that pure ammonium nitrate is not used but some form of ammonium and nitrate is.

Ed, btw way you've got the atomic numbers and atomic weights mixed up. The atomic weights are K=39, N=14, O=16 and P=31.

For those who dose EI these amounts may seem tiny. For PMDD and PPS-Pro users then these values are quite similar. Under PMDD I dose 7ppm NO3 and 0.7ppm PO4 per week with 4wpg T5 lighting. Plants grow very well but slower than under EI which isn't a bad thing.

The one thing that I find strange is E123 that is added. It is Amaranth which as far as I can tell is just a food colouring.

Hopefully my calculations are correct.
James


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## Ray (10 Dec 2007)

How do you know it contains Ammonia?  I'm quite suprised because you can dose it weekly or daily, so a weekly does could be a bit high - especially if you dosed after some maintenance that disrupted the substrate and also caused an ammonia spike...

The 6ppm sounds about right, I've been double dosing it and after a couple of weeks and 1 50% water change it was at about 15ppm Ntrates according to my non calibrated test kit.


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## JamesC (10 Dec 2007)

Most of the off the shelf products use some form of ammonium as their source for N. Seachem's Flourish Nitrogen uses guanidine which is similar to urea. ADA Aqua Soil also uses ammonium or something similar to urea.

James

EDIT: Seachem's website even states that Flourish Nitrogen has N derived from Potassium Nitrate and Urea - http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/FlourishNitrogen.html


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## zig (10 Dec 2007)

Ok thanks for the input guys.

Thats very interesting James, so basically each 5ml dose gives me 6ppm no3 and 0.4ppm po4, very similar to pps or pmdd formula as you say I didn't realise it would be that close.

The E123 probably is just a colouring agent, the liquid itself is green in colour so that probably explains that.

Yes I do find it good alright, I was just surprised when GSA showed up in a low light tank after a few weeks of dosing at the recommended levels, but, I was dosing 1ml of Carbo plus each day as well so that obviously tipped the balance, although it was a very small amount (of carbo plus) for a 40 gallon tank, but it obviously made the difference.

In a different small 54L tank (5WPG) I dose 2ml each day and have had no problems at all with algae its worked great on that tank, in actual fact I could probably dose a little less now that I now the ppm amounts, maybe a couple of ml less per week, won't bother now though as its going quite well, but good information anyway.

Very interesting about the ammonium as well James.

Overall I find it good.


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## George Farmer (11 Dec 2007)

I will contact Troels Andersen and let you know more about it, Peter.


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (11 Dec 2007)

well done for working all that out peeps  im going to go back to + again over the normal, and see if i can cut down on the vast amounts of powders i seem to get through with my greedy hygrophila's.  

last time i used this though i had algae problems, so hoping that wont happen again! lol ill just make sure i have the filtration right up to cope with any excess NH4 running around the place.


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## Ed Seeley (11 Dec 2007)

JamesC said:
			
		

> Ed, btw way you've got the atomic numbers and atomic weights mixed up. The atomic weights are K=39, N=14, O=16 and P=31.



Oh my God yeah!  What a nupty mistake!  That's what happens when you don't really pay attention to what you're doing doesn't it?!  Thought the numbers seemed wrong but never bothered to check it.  Sorry


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## TDI-line (19 Dec 2007)

Where can you buy this from?


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## Ray (19 Dec 2007)

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk


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## TDI-line (26 Dec 2007)

Thanks Rayl.

Is TPN worth buying aswell as TPN+ ?


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (26 Dec 2007)

TDI-line said:
			
		

> Thanks Rayl.
> 
> Is TPN worth buying aswell as TPN+ ?



theyre both practically the same, just + has a small amount of P and N in it.


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