Hi Clive,
thanks for your reply. But at all... I've dosed my tanks before with alot more Urea and I've dosed with alot more NH4 fertilizer too. Adding just 3-5 ppm of NO3 coming from Urea or NH4. There wasn't that growth. And I've started with low Urea and NH4 dosages and have risen the level higher and higher to see at what level the growth would be better and better.
So Urea would not do the magic in this case. And many of my fellow hobbyists here in Germany can see the same in their tanks. Just adding Urea or NH4 isn't the trick.
And I'm not using the anhydrous forms of the salts and do not know why you assume that. I've clearly written that I'm using the hydrates and others should be aware of that when buying the salts. I'm using calcium-tetrahydrate and magnesium-hexahydrate. When we assume that all Urea will be mineralized (which will not happen, but to see it more clearly) we dose 0,2 ppm NO3 from Urea coming when adding 1 ml to 50 l tank water. 0,8 ppm NO3 are coming from calciumnitrate, magnesiumnitrate and potassiumnitrate.
So you are right... about 20% of the NO3 is coming from the Urea part. But if you just toss the Urea out of the recipe it will still be better than using just KNO3. The Urea of course gives an additional nitrogen source. And when just using Urea it will be better than just using KNO3 but put those two together and it will somehow be even better.
In Germany it is very normal to dose NH4 or Urea for example. For us it's no secret approach that maybe one guy here and there tries and the plant geeks chitchat about it in one thread. Especially in the German "normal" aquarium scene it's common to use nh4hco3 for nitrogen fertilizing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker's_ammonia
You can get that stuff in nearly all supermarkets (especially during winter time). Many want to DIY and go cheap ... that's why it's so common. The majority has good results with it. But somehow not as good as this recipe. I've fertilized too a long time with NH4HCO3.
And I do not have hard water in my tanks. I do have in ONE tank, my others have very soft water (KH ~1°dKH and 4-5° dGH).
Regarding your conclusion about K+ and NO3 uptake you are totally wrong. Please get good test kits. Alot of people test K+ here in Germany very precise. We've always read that K+ would not accumulate, but this is not true. You have more an uptake of 5 parts NO3 to 1 part K and not around 1:1. If you dose only with KNO3 and KH2PO4 you will end up with skyhigh K+ levels. No matter what.
And besides we in Germany do have nearly nothing of K+ in our tapwater (1-3 ppm is normal).
I think you have to get out of your books and get into some real testing
😉. I wasn't believing it myself that K+ will accumulate just with KNO3 but many hobbyists here showed me how wrong I was. So we learn and consider that in our new approaches.
Yes that's fine but I care. The reason I care is because it's very easy to see something work and then use any explanation for why it works. The fact that it works cannot validate the explanation.
That's right, but due to that I've told before that when you change ONE variable in the same setup you will again see the exact SAME results. And not in only one tank.
During the time we chitchat about this I think around 100+ persons are using this new fertilizer. They all have been using KNO3 before, some (~40%) have used Urea or NH4 or a combination of NH4, Urea and KNO3 before. But all have not had this growth.
That's the funny part
😉. And the other commercially available nitrogen fertilizer which adds: 0,20 ppm Urea, 0,07 ppm NH4, 1,36 ppm NO3, 0,4 ppm K+ and 0,1 ppm Mg with 1 ml to 50 l does not work the same. Both recipes seem to be very similar. But he uses no magnesiumnitrate nor calciumnitrate. He just uses magnesiumsufate, nh4no3, urea and kno3.
And at all ... I've not said that K+ is the problem. I said K+ can possibly lead to problems. But I've also said that other nitrogen ferts with less K+ do not work the same as this fert. So I for myself am not sure that K+ is the problematic part. I know for sure that K+ accumulates when dosing just KNO3. Even in the best growing tanks.
And I know that when adding alot more K2SO4 to my tanks when using this fertilizer I'll again have some grow problems. No other variables changed again.
I wanted to falsify those people nagging about K+ be the problem, just added 30 ppm of K+ and *bam* ... same problems like before with just KNO3.
Nitrates, PO4, CO2, micronutrients all unlimited during that time. Maybe even K+ was never limited in that tank... but after adding much more the problems occured again.
And when talking about botanists I mean those who are big into waterplants. Those who write books about waterplants and water chemnistry and whatever else. We have one meeting for example here in Göttingen, Germany, where some waterplant enthusiasts come together once a year and meet in the botanic garden of Göttingen. Claus Christensen from tropica for example is also attending this meeting regularly.
For example some people coming or came to that meeting are Dr. Gerd Kassebeer (chemnist, invented the Dupla water tests for example), Hans-Georg Kramer (very well known waterplant enthusiast in Germany), Dr. Helmut Mühlberg (very well known botanist), Dr. Andreas Kremser (chemnist and also producer of waterplantfertilizer) and I can go on and on...
Very intersting speeches you can hear there and besides that you can chitchat after the presentations with a beer in a pub with them.
But ... I've made some preperations that some of you in the UK can test that fert and report back
😉. So stay tuned. Even if I cannot say exactly why this fert works that well, I can show it repeatedly and many users of that fertilizer report back the same.
Best regards
Tobi
