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New Traces from Aqua Essentials

My main concern is the rather high levels of Copper in these.
I guess it's fine if you dose hardly any, but then why use it?

1:5 ratio of Cu: Fe seems way too high for things like shrimp and small fry.

Fine if you dose tiny amount or add no more than the 0.1ppm.
If you dose .5, now it's 0.1ppm of copper that will stay in solution and be available for toxicity.

I dose 0.5 to 1.0 Fe every other day or thereabouts.
0.1-0.2ppm of copper is not what I want.
0.02 to 0.05ppm is the most I generally desire.

Flourish adds much less copper, but goes too far the other direction.
I think modifying these products and adding a bit more Fe is one solution though.

If you have softer water dose more frequently as a habit, Fe gluconate, harder water, DTPA Fe.
Add a bit of the Fe, say 1/3rd by mass of the Fe amendment.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
So "Trace Mix Plus" is just the old trace formula?

Why is the 'Plus' / Old variety now recommended only for CO2 tanks, and not those that use Carbon liquid?

I use AE's liquid carbon, and currently use their old trace mix, so wonder why it is now recommended that I should actually use the lower concentration 'new' trace mix, rather that the 'plus' / older mix.

Also has anyone used AE's 'new trace mix', made up to the same iron strength as the old mix, (8x stronger), with shrimp in the tank?
I am concerned as to what effect the extra copper will have, although if my numbers are correct that will still be less copper than would be present in the GardenDirect mix, (although it is THEIR high copper value that kept me away from theirs).
I'm just wondering if anyone has used any of these 'higher copper' mixes with shrimp, and what if any effects were noticed?
 
I've never noted any issues with CRS, RCS or amano's with CMS+B.
I've dosed that pretty richly.

The other thing that can be done, is spike the product with some added DTPA Fe or Fe gluconate.
I have a lot of Fe gluconate, cost is relatively good, 450 grams would run about 35$ USD. and that would make an equivalent 190 liter's or thereabouts of seachem's Flourish Fe iron.

By spiking the Fe, the ratio required goes down for Fe, but up for the others.
So you dose a bit less of that and can target lower ranges.
Plants do pretty well with a wide range, but the critters and the effects of copper are really the main issue for trace mixes, not too low like Seachem flourish, but not too high either.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Hi Hi I'm new to all this i've got a 450 to 475ltr tank not even sure ,it's a planted tank it's not doing good the plants are not growing for anything,to honest i think it's my fert i don't think i'm using enough so i wanna try dry salt and wanna know if i could buy all the diff salts for my tank including measurement
 
zoltan said:
Hi Hi I'm new to all this i've got a 450 to 475ltr tank not even sure ,it's a planted tank it's not doing good the plants are not growing for anything,to honest i think it's my fert i don't think i'm using enough so i wanna try dry salt and wanna know if i could buy all the diff salts for my tank including measurement
Click to expand...

Check out the dry salts thread in the tutorial section.
Then head over to the sponsors to buy the dry salts.
 
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