help with dosage amounts

[Arte Et Labore 1875]

hi, I have just bought all the chemicals and a set of micro scales but i'm not great with numbers so would someone mind giving me a little advice on the dosing regime.

my tank is 120L, 3/4 riccia 1/4 blyxa japonica, i'd like to add this macro solution whilst alternating with the standard TPN for trace.

25g potassium nitrate KN03
2.8g potassium phosphate KH2P04
11g potassium sulphate K2S04
20g magnesium sulphate heptahydrate mgS04
500ml water

i cant figure out how much i should start dosing using the EI method for my tank, could you help?

Thankyou for your time.

 

[ceg4048]

Hi,
According to JamesC's Timesaving Dosing Calculator You would be fine to dose 30ml of that solution 3X per week as a baseline number. Adjust the dosing from there based on what you observe in the tank

Cheers,

 

[Arte Et Labore 1875]

thanks for that ceg.

after having another look at the calculator i might up the KH2P04 to 5.5g, would that be ok?

also i'm not quite sure of the benefit of adding K2S04 as well as KN03, can someone explain this to me?

adding 30ml of this solution would add 1ppm of mgS04 per dose - is this a good ball park figure?

 

[ceg4048]

Yeah, sure. Add as much PO4 as you want. When you do your water changes, throw the old water in your vegetable garden or on your potted plants.

There is no benefit in adding K2SO4 if you are adding KNO3. KNO3 is 40% K, so adding 25 grams of KNO3 to your mix means that you are adding 10 grams of K, which is plenty, especially considering that you are adding some K via KH2PO4 as well. No need to buy more powder. Make life simple. People only need K2SO4 when they freak out about nitrates or if their water is high in nitrates so they refuse to add KNO3. If you don't add the KNO3 then you lose your main source of K, so of course you'd have to dose K2SO4 in that case. Of course nothing bad will happen if you dose more K than you need but why waste money? I'd rather buy a couple of beers instead of some dumb salt.

MgSO4 is a difficult one to gauge because it all depends on your tap water. Some people's tap is high in Mg and others have lo quantity. the good news is that you don't really need a whole lot of Mg, so that number will be fine to start off with. If you were using a lot of RO water, which doesn't have much of anything I would worry about this but tap water users get this stuff for free in most cases.

Hope this clarifies.

Cheers,

 

[Arte Et Labore 1875]

cheers ceg, i've used old fish water on my plants for years, liquid gold!

ok good to know for the future, as i've already bought it though i may as well include a little.

I got a full analysis of my water contents the other day and my Mg is almost none existence so i'm hoping adding this amount will be beneficial, is there a safe range to stick with?

 

[ceg4048]

cheers ceg, i've used old fish water on my plants for years, liquid gold!

ok good to know for the future, as i've already bought it though i may as well include a little.

I got a full analysis of my water contents the other day and my Mg is almost none existence so i'm hoping adding this amount will be beneficial, is there a safe range to stick with?

No there is no safe range because like the other salts we add, MgSO4 is food, not medicine. Add as much as you want, or as little as you want and see what effects on growth it has. Then you will know exactly how much works for you and how much simply is a waste of money.

The more powders we add to the water the higher the Total Dissolve Solids (TDS) I'm not sure how familiar you are with this parameter, but be advised that high TDS (as well as high kH/GH) have been reported to be a limiting factor for the breeding of soft water fishes, such as possibly discus and some species of dwarf chiclids.

If breeding these types of fishes is in your itinerary then you want to add as little of these salts as you can get away with and still have healthy plants. If breeding is not on your itinerary then you're free to experiment and to add as much as you like.

Some more data on Magnesium in the thread About Magnesium

Cheers,

 

[Arte Et Labore 1875]

hi, i just ran out of tpn+ so i finally made up this solution, i used normal tap water and i expected the liquid to be cloudy after adding the powder but its crystal clear - is this normal?

thanks.

 

[ceg4048]

Yes, the clouding issue is more related to the traces than to the macro mix, but even that is a lottery depending on water hardness and so forth. Just carry on...

Cheers,