# GH Booster



## Rodgie (4 Oct 2017)

Hello everyone, 

I'm dosing EI method in my 15 gallon tank. But I didn't buy the GH Booster salts. My tap water reads 3GH, will that be enough for my plants? I will check the GH of my tank tonight when I get home, the last time I check like 2 weeks ago it was 10GH because I have some sea shells in the filter. I have some snails so trying to keep their shells healthy in having hard water aside from their food supply.

Thank you in advance, 
Rodgie


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## AverageWhiteBloke (4 Oct 2017)

Your plants will be fine as long as you have included magnesium (epsom salt) in your EI mix. If you live in UK most water doesn't have any in and the shells will be adding calcium which will raise GH but in KH. GH is the total of permanent hardnes + temporary hardness. KH comes under temp hardness.


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## Rodgie (4 Oct 2017)

I'm not sure if my EI package has some magnesium. And I'm from NY our tap is Always 3dGH. If my EI mix doesn't cover the magnesium, will I have a problem with my plants in the long run?


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## ceg4048 (4 Oct 2017)

Epsom Salts = Magnesium and is sold in almost every pharmacy such as Walgreen's, CVS or even at Target.
Grab a box and toss a couple of teaspoons in at every weekly water change.
End of worry.

Cheers,


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## Rodgie (4 Oct 2017)

Hi sir ceg,

It's an honor to see you reply to my question. I will take your advice, my last questions, how much will I put for my 15 gal tank? It's safe to just toss it and not worry of dissolving first correct? There's approximately 12gal of water in it.

Best regards
Rodgie


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## AverageWhiteBloke (4 Oct 2017)

Rodgie said:


> Hi sir ceg,
> 
> It's an honor to see you reply to my question. I will take your advice, my last question, how much will I put for my 15 gal tank? There's approximately 12gal of water in it.
> 
> ...


Couple of teaspoons, EI recommends 10ppm magnesium 1tsp is about 5 gram and 5gram raises 100 ltrs to 5ppm 


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## Rodgie (6 Oct 2017)

Hello AWB

So finally I got myself some epsom salt from Walgreens. But I read at the back 1teaspoon = Magnesium 493 mg. 

If you say I need 10 grams to get 10ppm, does it mean I have to put more than 2 teaspoon?


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## ceg4048 (6 Oct 2017)

Hi Rodgie,
                Please don't worry about getting things exact. 2 teaspoons every week will be fine.

Cheers,


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## AverageWhiteBloke (6 Oct 2017)

Rodgie said:


> If you say I need 10 grams to get 10ppm, does it mean I have to put more than 2 teaspoon?



Hello mate, like @ceg4048 says there's no need to worry too much about magnesium as its one of those elements that you need some presence of and the plants will use it so you get a bit of tolerance and no need for being too exact. Ceg doesn't worry about the amount of salt because he has ran tanks with extreme high levels just as an experiment and found no detriment so best practice is to have more rather than less to be on the safe side. Too much of everything is better for plants than not enough of one thing, if something is low the plants will suffer. However, I appreciate that people will worry and when they are trying to get things right they want to understand why they are doing something rather than indiscriminately chucking stuff in their tank even though Magnesium is something that you can indiscriminately chuck in your tank within reason 

If you haven't already done so have a read of the <UKAPS Article> based on the findings of @plantbrain (Tom Barr) and wrote and explained by ceg (Clive see above) essentially the idiots guide for the likes of me it comes down to making sure plants don't get deprived of any nutrients during the course of a week between water changes. The parameters to make this happen are recommended as follows.....

Nitrate (NO3) 20ppm per week
Potassium (K) 30ppm per week
Phosphate (PO4) 3ppm per week
Magnesium (Mg) 10ppm per week
Iron (Fe) 0.5ppm per week

Dosing traces and NPK on alternate days so the Iron doesn't react with phosphate.

If you want to know how to reach these levels I tend to use <James Planted Tank Calc> for easiness. Just put in your tank volume and for dry salts use 1 in all the other boxes and teaspoons or you can use grams if you have access to some digital scales but as Clive says it's not exact science.

I have roughly 100ltr tank so I tend to use 2 teaspoons, I also have digital scales and using a 5ml medicine spoon I found that each level spoon of epsom salt was about 5gram on average so I put the scales away and went with that. If I find my GH is rising significantly over time I either change more water that week or one week do a spoon less. It isn't that important.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (6 Oct 2017)

Just to add mate, not sure why your product says how many mg per teaspoon but just make sure you have Epsom salts with nothing added just pure Epsom. Some of these products can have other things in like a hint of lime or other things depending of it's intended purpose if for human consumption so just check the breakdown on the label and make sure it has nothing else in the ingredients. If it has don't put it in!


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## Rodgie (6 Oct 2017)

Great! Thank you for the clarification guys! I really appreciate it. I definitely want to learn more about the nutrients we use for the plants. 

I noticed the package that you guys get there in U.K. For EI method doesn't come with K2SO4. Meanwhile here in US our EI kit doesn't come with Mg. I guess it's because our water here(in some state) are naturally hard. 

Together with KNO3, KH2PO4 and K2SO4. Adding those macro with Mg on the water change day won't cause any chemical problem right? 

And I have a feeling I am correct but I want to double check with the expert. On my Micro day I put CSM+B and I'm thinking of still using 1ml of my Seachem Flourite to get some Iron from it. These won't hurt the function of my Micro nutrients correct? 

Sorry my questions are very noob. Just really trying to get the correct source of answers from here. This is the only site I trust. 

And yes the epsom salt I have is naturally pure. I saw others with lavender and other things mixed with them. 

Regards, 
Rodgie


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## ian_m (6 Oct 2017)

Rodgie said:


> I guess it's because our water here(in some state) are naturally hard.


Yes. In US hardness is from magnesium and in UK hardness is from calcium. Dosing extra Mg in form of magnesium sulphate won't be a problem. Basically ignore what is in your water, this is the start of the path to poor plant health and just dose full EI as explained in the articles. In Florida last month I saw Espom Salts was available in Wall Mart for a foot soak, for b*gger all $$$$ price for a couple of Ye Old 5 pounds in weight (2.2Kg !! ).

Not sure you need to add K2SO4 as well, that is normally added/used by people/countries where you can't purchase KNO3.



Rodgie said:


> These won't hurt the function of my Micro nutrients correct?


Probably be fine. Normally adding in excess has no effect other than emptying the bottles (and wallet) quicker .


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## ceg4048 (6 Oct 2017)

I agree that you don't really need to add K2SO4. As Ian mentions, it will not do any harm to add it, but it's more a matter of simplification of your procedures. Knowing whether or not you need to worry about K2SO4 is more important.

If you are adding KNO3 and KH2PO4 then the plants are receiving plenty of K, the vast majority of it coming from the KNO3.
Originally, there were those who had a severe mistrust of NO3, or who determined that their water supply was already rich in NO3 so they did not dose KNO3.

Since most of the K was based on the KNO3, if you do not dose this then you could not get enough K just from the KH2PO4, so K2SO4 was used as a substitute for KNO3.

Many also tend to try to reduce the total amount of salts being added to the water, especially when breeding fish, so it makes sense to eliminate K2SO4 and to not have any penalty associated with it's deletion.

Cheers,


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## AverageWhiteBloke (6 Oct 2017)

I knocked this up some while back when I was lowering salts for the purpose of breeding. I was trying to get an idea of when potassium sulphate under dosing might become an issue when reducing ferts assuming that my tank is quite heavily stocked and I was using floating plants as a canary that nitrogen could come down a bit as could po4,  my tap water had a fair bit and I was still adding it in my ferts.
I thought the first thing that might rear it's head as a problem could be the k2so4. Anyway, although not exact science and knowing that just because I'm putting those amounts in doesn't necessarily mean the plants are getting some you can see from the columns how much k2so4 you get from the po4 and kno3 when dosed at those rates. 




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## Rodgie (7 Oct 2017)

Great! Thank you for those explanation guys. I'm definitely not going to a breeding path. I'm will be happy to see my tank with blooming plants and some swimming buddies. 

So with K2SO4, if I don't add it. What about the sulfur that I can get from that fertilizer? I think plants still can benefit from the sulfur in that fert. Unless it can be found from the other macros that I just don't know

These fertilizer companies here are tricky. They add ntruients in the package that can already be found in other fert. .


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## AverageWhiteBloke (7 Oct 2017)

Rodgie said:


> What about the sulfur that I can get from that fertilizer?



Sulfur? If you mean potassium sulphate you can see from the chart that if you dose KNO3 at 9.56ppm and PO4 at 1.12 ppm dosed 3 times per week you would get 6.65ppm potassium sulphate per dose or 19.95ppm weekly so extra potassium sulphate isn't required when dosing nitrogen and phosphate at those levels. Potassium Sulphate or *(K)* is mixed in with the other two salts *(K)*NO3 and *(K)*h2po4 so you get enough from them.


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## Rodgie (7 Oct 2017)

Lol! 

I'm such a noob. I'm sorry. 
Last question about Co2. I'm dosing 2ml everyday on my 15 gal tank. Is that enough? My finnex fugeray light is ON for 5 hours (on a timer). And lastly, is there a link that I can get explaining gown Co2 gets diminished by surface agitation or too much of water circulation. I just want to test my own tank. I don't want to be wasting my Co2 if my 2 filters are just pushing them out of water.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (7 Oct 2017)

2ml I'm assuming you're dosing liquid carbon not gas? Liquid carbon doesn't gas off, it does degrade over 24hrs and the carbon gets used by the plants. Dose is fine but you can up it a bit. Lot of people here dose 2 or 3x recommended dose if they have lots of plants which also has anti algaecide properties. Some plants are said not to like it though and it is quite a powerful chemical. Avoid breathing in the fumes and skin contact as much as possible.


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## Rodgie (7 Oct 2017)

Okay thank you sir for those knowledge.. I might try dosing 3ml after a month of regular pattern of 5 hours light with EI method. I'll observe the performance of the plants, which are Anubias, java fern, amazon sword, banana plant, water sprite and Ludwigia palurisis(just added this week) hopefuly some of the Algeas on anubias will stop completely soon. And Yes I'm dosing Excel.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (7 Oct 2017)

Nice one, get some pictures of the tank up as well, we like to look at other tanks here  If you've only just recently started the tank the Journal section of the board is a good place to be. When people can see pictures of your tank developing and have all the information regarding lighting, ferts etc it's easier to get advice for your particular set up and keeps all the information you will pick up in one place for you to ref back to


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## Rodgie (7 Oct 2017)

Oh yes! Absolutely! I'll find time on my days off to post my tank in the journal section. My tank is actually 5 years old. But switched to live plants just about 9 months ago. And literally this week I just started EI dosing. But I'll do your advice sir and will be happy to get more feed back from this awesome group of knowledgeable hobbyists! 

Best regards 
Rodgie


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## ceg4048 (8 Oct 2017)

Rodgie said:


> So with K2SO4, if I don't add it. What about the sulfur that I can get from that fertilizer? I think plants still can benefit from the sulfur in that fert. Unless it can be found from the other macros that I just don't know


Hi,
     If you are using tap water then you will not have to worry about Sulfur because tap water usually contains high SO4 levels. You can verify by looking at the water report for your region. It is actually very rare to encounter a sulfur deficiency, which is characterized by general yellowing of the plant, especially in the young leaves. This is an identical symptom of Iron or Magnesium shortages, and general yellowing is typically a Nitrogen shortage.

A sulfur shortage would be encountered with RO users, not typically with tap users, so It isn't really something to worry about.

Cheers,


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## Rodgie (16 Oct 2017)

Thank you ceg and everyone! 

As always it's amazing to ask these questions in this forum compared to others. By the way, I created a journal of my tank, I have further questions there and would appreciate your inputs. 

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/15gal-column-tank.51054/

Please take a look and let me know what you think. 

Have an amazing day everybody 
Rodgie


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