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Nowhere to buy trace elements!!

l1nd0gg

l1nd0gg

New Member
Joined
19 Oct 2020
Messages
19
Location
Manchester, UK
Recently, APF have been out of stock on chelated trace elements, and I can’t seem to find anything similar anywhere, I refuse to pay £3.99 from a guy on eBay, selling 10g in a small drug bag when I have a 1500L tank. EI dosing is supposed to be a cheaper alternative, especially for large aquariums… do you or anyone following this discussion, know any sources at all for micronutrients, preferably ready mixed, but open to any suggestions considering it’s impossible to get chelated trace elements from aquariumplantfood.co.uk 🙁

Cheers in advance.

Nathan in Manchester


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I tend to shop around for NO3, PO4 and K and use various salts from time to time. Ebay is great for Magnesium Sulphate (epsom salts) and Potassium Sulphate (K2SO4) etc
But you could also use Micracle grow for NPK as well, which I thick @dw1305 has in the past and tweak it with some Magnesium Sulphate and Potassium Sulphate 😉
1631745976581.png
There are so many options as plants don't care about brand, salts are salts and buying liquid ferts esp for a large tank is well expensive. Spending a little time with the IFC calculator with your large tank could be well worth the effect
 
Zeus. said:
I tend to shop around for NO3, PO4 and K and use various salts from time to time. Ebay is great for Magnesium Sulphate (epsom salts) and Potassium Sulphate (K2SO4) etc
But you could also use Micracle grow for NPK as well, which I thick @dw1305 has in the past and tweak it with some Magnesium Sulphate and Potassium Sulphate 😉
View attachment 174368
There are so many options as plants don't care about brand, salts are salts and buying liquid ferts esp for a large tank is well expensive. Spending a little time with the IFC calculator with your large tank could be well worth the effect
Click to expand...

Solufeed do offer NPK Solutions… 1:1:1 Balanced 20 kg

That’s got NPK + magnesium + trace….

Have you ever thought of using this?


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As Darrel points out many fertilisers are designed for agricultural plants and ammonium based ferts like Urea which is cheap a packs lots of N for it money also carries the risk of it being lethal to our livestock as the ammonium based salt is being converted to NO3. But our plants can use them as well

However there are commercial ferts for sale for our tanks which also use ammonium salts like ADA and TSN ( Tropica Specialised Nutrition) these do tend to be on the low side of [N] compared to EI dosing. It is much safer to just use a NO3 based salt like KNO3.

I have been using urea as a source of nitrogen for about 12months, without any issues I may add. However I do dose the fert many times a week - very small doses up to 100 times a week. So the Urea concentration is never very high in the tank and the micro flora in the tank gets to convert the small amounts continuously so the potentially lethal states never reach the dangerous levels in theory! I don't test any parameters so its all done on a wing and a prayer starting with small amounts of the urea salt added to my fert bottles and slowing building up the amout of Urea I add. I wont post what I dose urea wise as others may not have the same success and they may lose live stock if it goes wrong
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

Go on, tell us, we won't judge you. I'm investing in some <"Solufeed 2 : 1 : 4"> as soon as I've run-out of <"Miracle-Gro">.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...
Well that's LBW with Darrel bowling, as TBH I am not 💯% sure ATM it's been so long since I set it up based on a clone of TSN, which I recently doubled the dose. Will do the maths as soon as I get time, busy next few days so slap me if I forget 😜
 
Zeus. said:
Well that's LBW with Darrel bowling, as TBH I am not % sure ATM it's been so long since I set it up based on a clone of TSN, which I recently doubled the dose. Will do the maths as soon as I get time, busy next few days so slap me if I forget
Click to expand...

Hi Zeus, I’m about to buy one of these ferts now off solufeed. I know you suggested the Solufeed 2:1:4 High K 1 kg

But there is also a high N too:

404 Not Found - Top Quality Speciality Water Soluble Fertilisers | Solufeed

The Solufeed Shop provides a carefully selected range of good value, no-nonsense, professional grade products tailored to meet the needs of the professional grower and keen amateur alike.
shopfront.solufeed.co.uk shopfront.solufeed.co.uk

These two products do actually include the trace elements, so would I not need to bother with the trace elements: Solufeed Sodium Free TEC

It’s a mind field all these ferts haha


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l1nd0gg said:
Hi Zeus, I’m about to buy one of these ferts now off solufeed. I know you suggested the Solufeed 2:1:4 High K 1 kg

But there is also a high N too:

404 Not Found - Top Quality Speciality Water Soluble Fertilisers | Solufeed

The Solufeed Shop provides a carefully selected range of good value, no-nonsense, professional grade products tailored to meet the needs of the professional grower and keen amateur alike.
shopfront.solufeed.co.uk shopfront.solufeed.co.uk

These two products do actually include the trace elements, so would I not need to bother with the trace elements: Solufeed Sodium Free TEC

It’s a mind field all these ferts haha


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Click to expand...
I will have a look at the data sheets for the products and add them to the IFC calculator, it's easy enough to do and should be able to work out a suitable dosing regime - I think, but macro and micro salts together might make it tricky, I will find a way 😏
 
Hi all,
l1nd0gg said:
But there is also a high N too:
Click to expand...
I'd just be a little bit more circumspect with that one. It maybe fine, but we are, to some degree, in <"Donald Rumsfeld territory">.
....... because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And ......... it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.
Click to expand...
The good thing is that the 4 : 1 : 2 mix <"doesn't contain any ammonia">, but it does contain 25.1% Urea (CO(NH2)2). The issue with the urea is that it will <"be converted to ammonia"> by plants and microbes with the urease enzyme. If you look at the <"linked thread"> you can see that there a number of variables that might effect that conversion rate.

cheers Darrel
 
Last edited:
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

I'd just be a little bit more circumspect with that one. It maybe fine, but we are, to some degree, in /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns']Donald Rumsfeld territory[/URL]">.

The good thing is that the 4 : 1 : 2 mix /solufeed.com/media/46461/water-soluble-npks-hobby-3.pdf']doesn't contain any ammonia[/URL]">, but it does contain 25.1% Urea (CO(NH2)2). The issue with the urea is that it will /www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/tobys-urea-fertilizer.64112/#post-639541']be converted to ammonia[/URL]"> by plants and microbes with the urease enzyme. If you look at the /www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/tobys-urea-fertilizer.64112/']linked thread[/URL]"> you can see that there a number of variables that might effect that conversion rate.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...

So you recommend the 4-1-2 mix? I’ve bought the trace elements alone already and it’s being shipped


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Hi all,
l1nd0gg said:
So you recommend the 4-1-2 mix?
Click to expand...
It is the one that I'll buy. I just think it gives you a bit more margin for error.

It is still has plenty of nitrogen, but only 7% urea. A relatively small amount of ammonium rich fertiliser will <"give you a lot of ammonia">.

In the case of the urea we just don't know how quickly it will convert to NH4+ (and CO2) or what proportion of this conversion will be done by plants or by microbes.

cheers Darrel
 
Last edited:
Based on
1632428412614.png

I have set them all for 0.6g/week/100l - the reason I used this dose per week is because that's the dose I have set for comparing all traces, this isn't just a trace but used it for convenience ATM. Plus seeing I was adding a couple thought I would add them all
1632428649734.png
1632428816594.png
Hope that some help 😉 Any changes in dose amount just ask and can provide the ppms of trace elements as well- just ask with product and dose.
I have not double/triple checked all the data I have entered -yet😬
 
Zeus. said:
Based on
View attachment 174623

I have set them all for 0.6g/week/100l - the reason I used this dose per week is because that's the dose I have set for comparing all traces, this isn't just a trace but used it for convenience ATM. Plus seeing I was adding a couple thought I would add them all
View attachment 174625
View attachment 174626
Hope that some help 😉 Any changes in dose amount just ask and can provide the ppms of trace elements as well- just ask with product and dose.
I have not double/triple checked all the data I have entered -yet
Click to expand...

0.6g per week per 100L of what?


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