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Dymax Tropical 36 watt

Hi Clive,
how are you doing ? Here i am fine, we are entering in the dry season, so that means cloudy weather but with no rain and no sun for 4,5 month. we will have dusty days now lol, but a least it will be 24 C° and not 40 so that's cool.

well I have done the ph readings yesterday for the two tanks and tap water (20 G and 73 G).
tap water : before rest 6,23 rest for the night Ph 7,25
20 G : (I have increase a bit the CO2 since 2 days) Ph at light on 5,24 and when water rest over night I read Ph 7,27 So i assume that there is minimum production of acidic by an other factor than CO2.

73 G : (CO2 also increased) Ph lights on 5,25 and when water rest over night the reading is Ph 6,44 ! So in that tank there is some acidic produce by plant or tannin leaching from the wood or some other things.

So doing the test was a good idea now i know. But i ll do again the test in a week to see if it's the same.
Now that we know that should I increase a bit CO2 on the 73G to reach Ph 4,8 or I stay at 5,25 (but I think that a drop of 1,25 ph will not be enough with my very soft water).

An other question mate :
I am a bit lost with dosing MgSO4 and CaSO4. I dose them in my tank because tap water is very very soft so I assume that there is very very low (or none) level of Ca and Mg in there. So here is my dosing

73 G : KNO3 --> 1 tsp (consistent spoon)
KH2Po4 -> 1/3 tsp
MgSO4 --> 3/4 tsp
CaSO4 --> 1/2 tsp
TRACE MIX --> 1/3 tsp

Do you think I am ok with this ?

20 G : KNO3 --> 1/3 tsp
KH2Po4 -> 1/8 tsp
MgSO4 -> 1/4 tsp
CaSO4 -> less than 1/4 tsp

TRACE MIX --> 1/8 tsp

I think that my dosing regime is ok, but I just would like to have a confirmation.

I have a small project building in my head, don't know when i will start it but I think it will be a nice project and an interesting one for ukaps members. I will do a 15 G tank with plants from Congo only ! as my friend and I have found different species that do well i think it will be a good experimenting !!

well man thanks again !!
I think we should change the title of this thread cause now we are far from the Dymax lights, and there nice infos on this topic lol.

regards
 
After being on petaphile calculator (I know that tom have help in building this calculator) I start thinking that I am too lean on Mg an Ca ?!!
for the 70 G its saying that I have to put 3X per week 13 g of MgSO4 and 15 g of CaSO4
for the 20 G it says 4 g of Mg and 5 g of Ca.

That's much more than I dose now, i am a bit confuse 😕.
what is you thought about the last two post master ?

cheers
 
Hi zanguli,
For the 73G you can add more CO2 but really you need to think about the fish, because they will have to make an adjustment too. If you are not having CO2 related faults right now then there is no reason to stress the fish. As the plants grow in and acquire more mass then things might become a bit more complicated and you might start to see some problems where only an injection rate will solve the problem. CO2 is like a narcotic for plants. The more they get, the more they need. So if the CO2 falters and if they were on a high CO2 diet then they will suffer more. If there are no fish in the tank and if you want to maximize growth rates then sure, push the injection rate as far as you want, but if you aren't having any problems then I would leave it alone.

As far as Ca and Mg, this is a very similar situation. If you aren't having any problems such as yellowing of the leaves, then there really is no need to change the dosing. I forget where I have explained this before but the plants gather Ca and Mg and the levels in the leaf continues to increase daily because they do not exit the leaf. NPK and carbon go in and out of the leaves, but trace elements are actually toxic metals so they require special handling by the plant. The plant does not want to move trace metals around too much because it becomes expensive, so they remain in the leaf. So you only need small amounts of trace metals to help new leaves. Go ahead and try the amounts that are shown in the calculator. Try this for about 3 weeks and document with photographs and notes the difference. If you cannot see much difference between the old dosing and the new dosing then forget about the higher number and return to the original dosing. There is no point in adding more if there is little benefit because that just costs more money. You are much more likely to see improvement by adding more NPK. Plants need 100X more Nitrogen than they need Calcium. I really wouldn't worry too much about trace elements.

Cheers,
 
Hi Clive
my two tanks are fish less, i am a bit plant addictive since less than a year lol. So my goal is to understand the best i can plants and to maximize growth rate. Than maybe next year i will start plants and fish. I have been keeping fish since I have 10 years old (now i have 27) so I was a bit tired of discus etc.... I love plants and i prefer to take care of plants than fish haha.
So now you know that my only focus is plants !

So what i have done is push a bit the CO2 of the 70G at Ph 4,84 lets see. i have some very small CO2 issues like very few hair algae and some crypt melt but very few !! i am checking flow everyday (try to improve it the best i can ) and this week end I will build a reactor for my FX5 for better distribution.

I will try your advice raise the Mg and Ca dosing for 3 weeks.
So here will be the dosing for the next three weeks and I will see if i get better results.

KNO3 --> 1 tsp (5,5 G)
KH2Po4 -->1/3 tsp (1,2 G)
MgSo4 --> 2 tsp (10 G) it use to be 3/4 tsp
CaSo4 --> 1 consistent tsp it use to be 1/2 tsp
I will monitor all this and see if there is improvement.
In fact now that your are telling me about yellowing of plants. I do have yellowing of new leaves and curling down of the tips and border of the new leaves. I have checked for yellowing of older leaves but I can't see none ! this is happening for Ludwigia Inclinata var cuba and for P. stelatta and only yellowing for the S. Porto Velho. I have noticed that only now because before I used to have only fern and anubias in that tank so it took time to see a change.
here is a pic of the L inclinata (it's in the tank since 3,5 weeks now so the older leave you can see are emerge leaves.
Sorry for the orientation of the pic again but I forgot I have to take pic HORIZONTALLY !!!!!!!

let me know

cheers man
 
Hi mate,
The curling is most likely CO2 related. You should cut off all the emmersed leaves to give the new leaves more room the breathe.

I don't see in your dosing list any other trace metals such as Iron. The yellowing could be from lack of Fe, or even lack of Manganese (Mn) if you are not dosing these.

Cheers,
 
Hi Clive
I am sorry on the last post I was focus on macros. but if you see the post n°81 first post of page 5 there is the info.
I do dose a dry Trance mix from a french web site (aquascape boutique). I dose like this:
70 G --> trace mix 1/3 tsp
20 G --> trace mix 1/8 tsp
I have already asked the for the composition of their mix but they don't want to give it. I told them i need to know for my EI dosing, and they have answer me that there is no problem I will reach the right amount needed for EI with this trace mix. The guy there is using pps pro method and he use the same mix.
So I think the trace mix is ok (hope so).
Plus i am dosing 45 drops of ECA from ADA (bottle says to dose 25 drops)
it could be a N defficiency a start since a week or so to see my white substrate becoming a bit brown ( BGA ??) that would also explain the yellowing !?

So the curling could be a CO2 deficiency ?? i will cut all emmersed leaves for better flow and distribution in there !!
well now that my CO2 is crank at Ph 4,84 and that I have raised the dosing lets see in three weeks how they will react about all these changes.

hope that I will solve these problems.

cheers mate
 
Yeah, normally any type of structural fault is caused by poor CO2. Regarding the color, sometimes it's hard to judge because you are comparing the color of the submersed leaves with the color of the emmersed leaves, which you shouldn't do because they are totally different. The lighter color may be the normal color when the plant is submerged, but adding more nutrients and more CO2 will not cause any issues. So lets see what happens...

Cheers,
 
Hi master 😉
I was really thinking about what you were saying on an iron or manganese deficiency :crazy: . So when i came back home I decided to turn off the filters and pump to have a better view of plants from the top. What I have noticed is that all my plants are very yellow and very pale. when I looked to the P. stelatta it was CLEAR that it should be a micro deficiency.
I will try to take a pic to be sure. So I have been thinking that maybe my trace mix is maybe no longer good !!!! I have it since July 2012 and I think I store it the wrong way !!!
I simply left it in a plastic bag with a zip on it. So I took the fresh trace mix I received 3 weeks ago to compare color and texture. It appear that my old one is more wet color is yellower than the new one and it's even hard to see the small blue & green particles that are in the mix !! It is clear that you can see a difference between the two !
So do you think that the old one is ruin ???
How do I have to store my dry salts please.

I'll take a pic tonight.

cheers Clive
 
Hi Zanguli,
It really shouldn't matter how you store them. They last forever and the only thing that can change them is if they react with some other chemical and change to something else. There could be some issue with the chelation of components like Iron or Manganese that would render them useless if the got wet, or, it could even be that they were not chelated at all and combined with other substances. Even so, I would more likely worry about whether you got what you thought you had paid for. It's best to store dry salts in a dry place. That's really all you have to do.

Without knowing what the contents of your mix is from the supplier it's really hard to say. I have no idea what the blue and green particles are or whether they are even relevant. I've never had such a colorful trace mix. It was either dull brown or a dull green. Maybe have a chat with one of our sponsors to see if they can ship to Congo, or maybe look around for some other French vendor who will ship to you.

Maybe you told me before, but can you list the website you bought from? Maybe I can use google translate to check the ingredients.

Cheers,
 
Hi Clive,
that's a good news that my trace mix can last forever !! but i will try to dose for three weeks with the fresh mix to see if there is a change !!
even if I give you the web site you wont find no info on my trace mix because they don't put the ingredient on the web site and they don't want to give it to me !
www.aquascape-boutique.fr.
ceg4048 said:
Hi Zanguli,
There could be some issue with the chelation of components like Iron or Manganese that would render them useless if the got wet, or, it could even be that they were not chelated at all and combined with other substances.,
Click to expand...
Do you think that that could be my case for Iron and manganese (wet) ?


I would like to buy from our sponsor (EI Salts specialist) but they don't ship outside of EU so i don't know ! maybe I should just passe the order and they ship to belgium and than a belgium/congolese transporter make the transfer. they will not know that it's for outside of EU.

cheers mate
 
Hi Zanguli,
Well I checked the website. Unless I made a mistake, I found the link to the trace mix here=> TRACE MIX - 100g - AQUASCAPE, aquaristic online shop you can even select it in English.

If that is the right one, well the ingredients are right there at the top=> Chelated trace mix...Analysis: Fe 8.2% ; Mn 1.82% ; Zn 1.16% ; B 1.05% ; Cu 0.23% ; Mo 0.15%

So this is fine, I don't see a problem with it at all, except the color in the photo doesn't have any blue/green grains as far as I can see, but it's a very small photo.

Like all trace mixes, this one is mostly Fe, so there really should not be a problem. There are so many variations of things that can go wrong, but at least we know now, if that link is the correct one, that the Fe and Mn are probably chelated, but if it got wet and turned more brown then that might indicate Iron rust or oxidation of one of the other metals. Who knows what it got wet with, or if it was water, what was in the water? It's really difficult to say precisely.

In any case, just add more of the new trace mix for now and see if things improve.

Cheers,
 
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