Cannot defeat BBA and plant ailment!! HELP!

[ian_m]

Boiling RO will not make any difference. Looking up solubility's of KNO3 and KH2PO4 (242gr/1000ml & 22g/1000ml) you shouldn't be having any solubility issues.

Measuring a dKH value of your RO is worrying, I suspect your RO water isn't, which could explain your tank issues and maybe your macro issues.

1. Try making your macro with cooled boiled tap water, that works for me no precipitate, despite 22dKH tap water.
2. Get a TDS pen to test your RO water.
3. Get an ammonia & free chlorine test kit to test your RO water. If either of these are present in your RO water then your need to replace the pre-filter and RO membrane. And regularly test your RO water before use (TDS pen is fine as well) as RO units are not guaranteed to remove chloramine and chlorine from tap water if run too fast and/or have poor pre-filter (a de-chlor prefilter) and poor membrane.

 

[Kuojne]

Allright, so i’ve got myself some MgSO4, waiting for the water to cool down now.
Also changed RO filters and membrane and let the water run for a while. TDS meter, the value of my RO is: 5-6ppm, which to my knowledge is perfect?
Tap water had 215ppm

So i did the kH test again on my RO and this time it came as 0.9.. Maybe i’ve installed the pre-filter incorrectly?

Couldn’t find ammonio or chlorine test kit on saturday, will continue the search on monday.

 

[Kuojne]

Allright, so i’ve got myself some MgSO4, waiting for the water to cool down now.
Also changed RO filters and membrane and let the water run for a while. TDS meter, the value of my RO is: 5-6ppm, which to my knowledge is perfect?
Tap water had 215ppm

So i did the kH test again on my RO and this time it came as 0.9.. Maybe i’ve installed the pre-filter incorrectly?

Couldn’t find ammonio or chlorine test kit on saturday, will continue the search on monday.

 

[ian_m]

Ammonia and test kits are not as strictly necessary as a TDS pen. Would have thought RO should be 0 ppm TDS, maybe you still have an issue with your RO setup.

However in absence of test kit just and further information you could just add dechlorinator, which should also remove ammonia, to RO just in case. Remember to use dechlorinator with the tap water as well

 

[Kuojne]

Using cooled boiled water is not enough? I must add dechlorinator also?

 

[ian_m]

Sorry to thought you were using RO in your tank. Mixing EI, cooled/warm boiled water is fine.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Would have thought RO should be 0 ppm TDS, maybe you still have an issue with your RO setup.

TDS meter, the value of my RO is: 5-6ppm, which to my knowledge is perfect?

It should theoretically be 0 ppm, but I'd be happy with 5 - 6 ppm, to get down towards 0 ppm you would need a DI (ion exchange) filter as well.

So i did the kH test again on my RO and this time it came as 0.9

Sounds like the test kit, you can't have much alkalinity when you have virtually no salts of any description.

If you look at sea water it ~35g of (mainly (NaCl)) salts in one litre and about 35,000 ppm TDS, you can see from that you are looking at the equivalent of a few grains of NaCl to give you 6 ppm TDS.

cheers Darrel

 

[Kuojne]

Thank you for helping.

I have one more question - according to James’ calculator i am only getting somewhat 15ppm of potassium per week with my macro recipe, but i am getting more than enough of nitrate - 21ppm. I’ve read Clives’ thread about Ei dosing with dry salts and he recommends 30ppm of potassium per week. Should i add more KNO3 and don’t sweat about nitrates?

 

[X3NiTH]

I had a look at your source water.

Lithuania is the only country in Europe to exclusively source tap water from subsurface Aquifers.

The chemistry of your water is exceptionally rich and saturated, the unpallability of the tap water taste is due to the Iron and Manganese content (the more palatable the water the more likely remediation has been performed on the water to reduce the metals content).


This table is found in the below PDF.

MIGRATION FORMS OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS IN SHALLOW GROUNDWATER IN LITHUANIA

You will need to find out which Aquifer applies to you for the region you live in, comparing your out the tap TDS with the above table should give you a starting point of the mineral content before remediation (to make it safe for the distribution network and to keep it within EU directed levels for safe human consumption).

In general it appears you source waters are in the range for EI level mineral nutrition coming out your tap, nice!

I don't think you have enough plant mass in relation to the water volume in your tank to be able to absorb all that nutrition with everything else you are adding on top so it's feeding the BBA. I would suggest (already mentioned above) blacking out the tank from incidental room light when the tank light is off, from a personal perspective this helps immensely to prevent BBA spread on foliage and keeps it localised to fast flow areas making it easier to deal with (I black out my tanks because of spill from two 60w LED spotlights that my be on when the tank is in the dark period and this is in a room that receives no natural daylight, yours is getting massive amounts of ambient light in the dark period).

🙂

 

[Kuojne]

Well, i did few water changes per week, instead of usual 1 change and the BBA did stop spreading, now i am battling plant ailment... The plant's older leaver are way darker green than the new ones, and they seem to be curling at the edges a little bit, plus getting some algae on it... I really do think that i am giving enough of CO2, it is at least 5-7 bubbles per second, the flow seems really good.. Is something wrong with my ferts? Am i making them incorrectly or something?