# tropica specialised dosage



## darren636

After driving around the south west of England this morning, I finally found a shop that actually sells ferts that contain npk  ( note to all other shops-  NPK IS WHAT WE WANT, SORT IT OUT) .	anyway... What dosage do people go with on a high tech setup. ?

PS.  Thanks aquajardin for having plenty of goodies.


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## Ian Holdich

What size tank?


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## darren636

My 40 litre quarantine. So, 30 litres of water , the rest florabase and plants. No fish.


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## darren636

Just curious to see what people do , in terms of double dosing etc. I have no idea if its a strong fert or not.


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## sanj

Does it not give you a dosage guidence on the bottle? I would have thought it was in the order of 1ml per 10 litres, unless their mix is different from what I am used to seeing.


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## Andy D

George uses this so perhaps he can advise on his dosage regime?

Their guideline is 1 pump (1.2ml) per 10 litres per week but for high-tec they advise to dose 2-3 times per week.


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## darren636

sanj said:


> Does it not give you a dosage guidence on the bottle? I would have thought it was in the order of 1ml per 10 litres, unless their mix is different from what I am used to seeing.


 yep. Got guidance, but no indicators of % npk etc.  I only used dry powders before


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## darren636

Andy D said:


> George uses this so perhaps he can advise on his dosage regime?
> 
> Their guideline is 1 pump (1.2ml) per 10 litres per week but for high-tec they advise to dose 2-3 times per week.


 2-3 times dose per week? Interesting.


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## Mick.Dk

As usual, Darren, it depends on the other facts of the tank.
I have no problem doing double or triple dose of recommended - IF OTHER parameters are high too (plantmass, growthrate, light, waterchanges ...........etc.)
The recommended dose is on the conservative side, aimed at tanks quite less planted and "lower tech" than most here.....
Mick.


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## Andy D

darren636 said:


> 2-3 times dose per week? Interesting.



You may have seen it in my other thread but I asked them why they suggest dosing weekly. Here was the response:

'I have read the tread on ukaps and understand your confusion. You’re right, it is always better to dose frequently and in smaller quantities than to dose more rarely and in greater quantities. The plants prefer to be fed regularly – like humans J. When fertilizers are added more rarely, the plants might get hungry, adapt to the environment lacking fertilizers and need time to re-adapt when fertilizers are dosed again.

We recommend dosing weekly as many tanks have plants with a steady and slowly growth, and in that case, it’s okay to dose weekly. In addition, many aquatic hobbyists only spend time on their tank once a week, if not even rarer. However, in tanks with rapidly growing plants, the plants need a dosage several times a week to ensure the best possible growth conditions. In our test laboratory, we usually dose 2-3 times a week.'

I suppose the one omission is how much they dose in those 2-3 times. As Mick says I suspect the figure is conservative. Personally I would probably dose 1 pump per day. More won't hurt except on the wallet.


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## darren636

Mick.Dk said:


> As usual, Darren, it depends on the other facts of the tank.
> I have no problem doing double or triple dose of recommended - IF OTHER parameters are high too (plantmass, growthrate, light, waterchanges ...........etc.)
> The recommended dose is on the conservative side, aimed at tanks quite less planted and "lower tech" than most here.....
> Mick.


 I guess it would be on the 'lean' side.  With no livestock entering this system , I can experiment freely. Thanks all


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## Mick.Dk

Just to give advice : you can "downscale" the amount of NPK by exchanging a percentage of total amount, to premiun fertilizer, that contains no NPK. This way not reducing others.
Mick.


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## parotet

I dose Tropica specialized in my 24 litres planted tank. When there's lot of biomass I dose daily 1.5-2 ml, when there's less 1 ml,  always with liquid carbon (again depending on biomass 2-3x). I can't remember the recommended dose but I think I'm dosing 2-3x. 
Works well but obviously only for small tanks.


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## Mick.Dk

parotet said:


> I dose Tropica specialized in my 24 litres planted tank. When there's lot of biomass I dose daily 1.5-2 ml, when there's less 1 ml, always with liquid carbon (again depending on biomass 2-3x). I can't remember the recommended dose but I think I'm dosing 2-3x..


That's precisely, what I ment - way to do it 
Mick.


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## martinmjr62

My local P@H stocks tropica  specialised and tropica plant growth substrate,not sure if they all do

Cheers
Martin


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## Andy D

Mine has just started with these products although they have Premium and not Specialised. 

They have CO2 set up in one tank too but it is not very well maintained.


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## martinmjr62

OOOOps just realised that my P@H stocks Premium and not Specialised but i suppose its a step in the right direction. I might have a word next time i'm in there to see whether than can add the specialised to their delivery.Their plant selection looked the worst for ware though 

Cheers
Martin


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## Trevor Pleco

Have been using Specialised the past 2 years in various size tanks with good results. At the very start I naively dumped the weekly recommended dosage in one or two days and got an algae bloom within a few days. This is a mistake many folk I understand make, as it's not explained carefully in the dosage instructions. From then on I divided the weekly recommended dosage over six days together with 40% weekly water changes and have never looked back. I have a heavy plant load in some tanks and have never felt it necessary to dose more apart from occasionally adding a little more KNO3 when I felt the plants needed it..

One other thing, there seems to be a slight discrepancy with the recommended dosing on the Tropica web site which suggests  '5 mL per 50 L water' so 50ml for a 500L tank. However on their table on the bottle it recommends 50 pumps per week for 500L, as they put a value of 1.2ml per pump this works out at 60ml per week for a 500L tank and not 50ml !?


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## parotet

When I began to dose with Specialized I was also a bit confused with that... but algae rules, I had to adjust the dose to my particular needs, independently of the recommendations. In my case, I have a 'problem' with my LED light unit that seems to be over dimensioned for this tank. I am dosing 2-3x ferts and liquid C and I am still dimming the light. That means that there is still room for more!


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## wisiu

I am using specialised since 2 months and never gonna come back to dry salts. My tank is only 68 L and I was always struggling with the plant growth. So far I am testing the dosing but at the moment 3 pumps per day. I only changed the dosing since 1 week from 2 pumps per day and I think plants looks a bit better but it might be just matter of time. I think I may try to dose 1 pump per day soon which is recommended dose and I will let you know if any problems.


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## parotet

I've just prepared my homemade liquid ferts, both a bottle of macro and micro... well, I use also a bottle with a pump, like the Tropica one. So it is also very comfortable to use.
The main difference to me is the price, probably 10x less... but there is also another important thing: when I began to use Tropica Specialized in my nano tank I read quite a lot about the dosing of this product. The best place to visit and understand what I mean is the Tropica website itself. In the layouts section some famous aquascapers (some of them in that forum) explain what they did, the equipment used and the dosing regime... and most of them are using much more than the recommended dose.

So, at the end, what is a recommended dose? A guidance just to know if you need half a bottle each time or just some drops, but you cannot use it a reference, at least in my opinion. The fact is that I'm dosing 3x to see my plants in nice conditions, that is what they need, that's all. It also helps to know the NPK content of this liquid. Several websites offer this information and you will see that, if you want to reach the recommended NO3, PO4 and K levels for example in the Estimative Index, you will need quite a lot more than the recommended dose. But again, what is the EI? Just a guidance to know more or less what your plants need that will obviously change depending on the conditions...


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