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plantnoobdude
3-4 K is more than enough per week and that is why you were seeing great results, also the way tropica works, it mainly uses NH4 or urea and 0 NO3. far as the calcium goes, you can always dose it separately on the same day if you like, I usually keep the calcium and Po4 solution separately just like you see in the recipe below.
again, am not a shrimp expert and not sure about their requirement but these recipes are more focused on plants. if you were to add some minerals for your shrimps such as Ca, Mg, Cl, S etc. these recipes will still give you good results similar to Tropica which you were using previously. far as urea goes, it is completely safe to use even if you were adding high doses of it, I sometime dose 1 ppm N from urea in a single dose, but you will see better results when this is dosed daily in smaller amount such as 0.4 ppm N from it. Nickel can be added to the recipe if you want, I can edit my post to add some nickel in those recipe if you like.
like I said even if someone had 30 ppm Ca or the Marchner ratio is completely off in their aquarium, they should still get good results if they were to switch to Urea/NH4 based ferts and reduce their over all NO3 and K.
Marchner ratio is not mandatory
if someone truly want to explore while using 100% RO water and doesn't have any fish or shrimps, they can use this recipe as a good starting point, this is all you will be adding to your 100% water, do not add anything else except the following :
500 ml solution, 50 ml per 100 liter (26.41 Gallon) water
Solution #1
4.27 g NH4HCO3
2.85 g K2CO3
0.23 g NaHCO3
Solution #2
4.64 g NH4NO3
2.88 g MgSO4*7H2O
1.19 g MgCl2*6H2O
Solution #3
6.38 g Ca(NO3)2*4H2O
Solution #4
1.84 g KH2PO4
This will give you the following concentrations of nutrients:
4.72 ppm HCO3 (= 0.27°dKH), 3.14 ppm N (= 2 NH4 + 7 ppm NO3), 2.14 ppm K, 1.1 ppm Ca (= 0.15°dGH), 0.43 ppm Mg (= 0.1°dGH), 0.42 ppm P (= 1.3 ppm H2PO4), 0.38 ppm S (= 1.1 ppm SO4), 0.41 ppm Cl, 0.06 ppm Na
you need to add 0.02-0.05 ppm Fe from Tenso Cocktail weekly or use Tropica Premium to reach similar dose while using this recipe, start with smaller doses at a time, such as 10-20 ml per 100 liter. keep in mind that this is a experimental recipe which worked well for us and you can play with it if you like.
