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Switching Tropica Premium to TNC

brokeLad

Member
Joined
16 Feb 2020
Messages
56
Location
Brighton
Hi all, just a quicky....hopefully! I’ve just switched from Tropica premium to TNC to try and help my java ferns which are turning black. Reason being I believe the TNC has nitrogen unlike the Tropica and that deficiency could be caucusing the poor java fern growth. Thing is....I’m now getting algae on my stem plant leaves....so could the change be the cause? Cheers peeps
 
I changed about a week ago, pic below shows it, browning on leaves
 

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cheers for reply’s....

I did start a journal

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/here-we-go-in-the-deep-end.60343/

tank is about 7 weeks old,

140L

no co2,

lights 5hrs a day not sure of power but taped over half the leds a few weeks ago and that seemed to reduce algae well

2ml of premium a day up until about a week ago

now 2ml of TNC a day

2ml of easycarb a day

4xjulii Cory added about 2 weeks ago

4x cherry
4x amano

50% water change weekly

i do have some premium left maybe I should revert back to that, as I said I only made the fert change to try and save the java fern....I will post up a shot of the fern.... I think they are shot!!

cheers Craig
 
i do have some premium left maybe I should revert back to that, as I said I only made the fert change to try and save the java fern....I will post up a shot of the fern.... I think they are shot!!

Java fern definitely likes a fert with nitrogen so don’t stop the TNC (fixing my yellow leaved java fern is how I learned to dose NPK). If you still have Tropica premium left I’d dose that too, but not at the same time - then you know all the traces are covered too. If you look at the heart of the fern are there tiny new leaves starting to unroll? How do they look? It’s the new leaves that tell you if the dosing is right. If they are coming (and it is slow) you can snip off the worst of the old leaves as they will never recover anyhow.

Here is my Microsorum pteropus ‘narrow’ in a 25l low tech tank dosing just Easycarbo and an NPK fert exactly like you are doing now - so I’m confident you will get there!

1ed31e243c84780e804fe37f2193a727.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Oh, one other thing - don’t dose the TNC daily - put the full amount for the whole week in right after your weekly water change. That will give you higher nutrient levels in the water which is easier for the plants to take it up.

If you can afford the £ could be worth double dosing the TNC first few weeks until you see things starting to improve.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hers a cost comparison of commercial ferts and DIY ferts for 100 litre tank
(also showing the 'Clone Wizard')

1590221370564.png


and the cost comparison of making your own DIY clone of TNC complete

1590221444577.png


Comparison of TPN and TNC complete

1590221730880.png


TNC complete and TSN
1590221881058.png


(above are upcoming features of Fert Calculator V1.9)
 
Oh, one other thing - don’t dose the TNC daily - put the full amount for the whole week in right after your weekly water change. That will give you higher nutrient levels in the water which is easier for the plants to take it up.

If you can afford the £ could be worth double dosing the TNC first few weeks until you see things starting to improve.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks again for everyones I put, I appreciate you all taking the time to reply 👍

I’m quite surprised to hear that I should dose once a week, I was following George Farmers tip to dose daily.
 
I’m quite surprised to hear that I should dose once a week, I was following George Farmers tip to dose daily.

I would say dosing daily is better as it keeps all levels more constant - as it would be a a large body of water where changes happen slowly. Think dosing weekly is fine esp when tank is well established. @Witcher was on about this the other day about balance and keeping things as constant as possible is better for the plants. Which is why using RO water has the advantage as you add the same thing every week, water with nothing in it till you add it, are tap water varies with what it has in it over the year some folks more than others.
 
Ive just realised I had used the Tropica dosing to 2xpumps a day which is 4ml a day......Ive only been putting 2ml a day of TNC......I think I should up to 4ml?
 
I would say dosing daily is better as it keeps all levels more constant
More of a topic to debate over a beer than on a forum, but I'd hypothesise it is better to have the nutrients in the water column where the plants can get them. I doubt plants care about fluctuations once the nutrients are plentiful enough, which is our objective (assuming you subscribe to EI dosing principles, not lean dosing principles). That's especially the case for @brokeLad where levels are almost certainly lower than they need to be right now and his mosses and ferns can't substrate feed - they need it all in the water column, so we need to get the nutrient levels up quick.

Ive just realised I had used the Tropica dosing to 2xpumps a day which is 4ml a day......Ive only been putting 2ml a day of TNC......I think I should up to 4ml?

TNC say here on their website:

1ml per 10 litres of tank water per week.
Dose can be increased to 2 or 3 times per week depending on plant growth, water changes etc.

1ml per 10 litres of tank water 3x per week will give a dose similar to the Estimative Index levels – Be sure to change 50% of your water once per week to remove organic waste from the plants.

So I would go full EI and dose 42ml/week after water change and after the following water change go to 14ml every other day.
 
Adjusted the settings to suit your tank 14l :thumbup:

1590252340004.png


To have TNC complete get to EI levels you really need the 'double triple' dose aka x6. Which does start to get a little expensive

More of a topic to debate over a beer than on a forum

Beg to differ, forum much better place as everybody can hear what we are debating and chip in :D


So I would go full EI and dose 42ml/week after water change and after the following water change go to 14ml every other day

So if my tank had a similar issue you would advise me to dose my weekly dose straight after WC (which I would add my tap water has 20-30ppm NO3) then no ferts for rest of week :eek:

Just gives the bacteria in the tank more time to mop up all the excess ferts 'NO3' esp before next WC/ferts are due. Classic EI dosing is 5 or 6 times a week. I dose my tanks 7days a week as its effectless with auto doser. My low tech get an DIY AIO once week (most weeks :lol:)
 
Beg to differ, forum much better place as everybody can hear what we are debating and chip in :D

Ok then.
As per your chart TNC Complete adds 6.64 ppm NO3 for 1ml/10l/week.
@brokeLad has been dosing 2ml of TNC Complete/day to a 140l tank.
So each 2ml dose increases the NO3 in the tank by 0.95ppm.
Lets look at 2 scenarios:
1) Dose 2ml TNC complete/day
2) Dose 14ml of TNC complete/week after water change.

Blue days are 50% water change days and dosing is assumed to take place after the change.

1590256559824.png


Or as a graph like this:

1590256676371.png


So weekly dosing immediately after water change:

a) Is smoother over the course of the week - which we all agree is desirable.
b) Leads to higher levels of NO3 at all times which means it is less likely to be a limit on plant growth.
 
What about the NO3 uptake from plants and bacteria? your graph doesn't account for them.

If he isnt dosing enough NO3 as its gone by the end of the day at least some is available for some off the day, with your once a week dose after a few days it will be all gone! the plants will take it up and the bacteria in the filter and substrate, so the plants will be without for a few days.

Limiting the NO3 to daily dosing the Bacteria will be NO3 limited as well as the plants so they will multiply less so they will be a net less uptake of NO3 by the bacteria over the week so more NO3 over the week for the plants.

Your graph would hold true for an newly planted tank, after a couple weeks it would not, after six weeks it would be well off.
 
OK first point: I am highly skeptical that in a normally set up and established planted aquarium there is anywhere where anaerobic conditions prevail and heterotrophic bacteria are using NO3 to respire in any significant quantity. I think we can assume the only consumer of NO3 in the tank is the plants.

What about the NO3 uptake from plants and bacteria? your graph doesn't account for them.

Your graph would hold true for an newly planted tank, after a couple weeks it would not, after six weeks it would be well off.
Correct, because we don't know what the plant uptake is without measuring it. In a newly planted low light tank like this one it isn't much. This is not a high tech Dutch aquarium. I re-did my graph to account for plant use and assumed the plants are using ~50% of what is being dosed at 0.5ppm/day. Note the weekly dosing graph is still smoother than the daily because it eliminates the fluctuation caused by your 50% water change. Also note more NO3 is available to the plants at any give time. Of course, my model is limited - over the course of months plant mass will grow and NO3 consumption will increase, but I don't think we can easily model that!

1590311294434.png


If he isnt dosing enough NO3 as its gone by the end of the day at least some is available for some off the day, with your once a week dose after a few days it will be all gone! the plants will take it up and the bacteria in the filter and substrate, so the plants will be without for a few days.
Either way our plants would exhibit nitrogen deficiency. But at least with weekly you could measure and say "hold on - on Monday I dosed 6.64 ppm and now on Friday I have none - I need to add more!". This is basically making the case for EI - throw more than you need in there, stop worrying about macros at all and count on the regular water changes to put a ceiling on the amount.
 
@brokeLad myself and @Ray are just discussing the finer details of our fert regimes ;)

@Ray your graphs don't account for the drop in the concentration during the day so IMO dont give a true image of whats happening.

I will use Zorfoxs calculator to show what I believe

First of all we have to make some assumptions and adjustments to allow me to explain using Zorfoxs calculator and applying a few conversion ratios

1.we will use NO3 for convenience
2. NO3 uptake is constant throughout the day (which it probably isn't)
3. we will say the daily dose is 7ppm, and weekly dose is 49ppm for ease
4. A day will be 7 days in Zorfoxs calculator
5. a week will be 49 days in Zorfoxs calculator
6. 10 weeks is 490 days in Zorfoxs calculator

so 7ppm every seven days (daily)
1590317553689.png


compare with your corresponding dose regime 49ppm every 49 days (weekly)

1590317657824.png


Who's regime has the biggest peaks and troughs

(Obviously Zorfoxs calculator isnt designed for this fine tuning and it doesn't handle it well when the plants uptake is greater than the dose, its something I will add to the Fert Calculator thats being worked on for the future)

Obviously if the uptake is less than the dose will be be fine as the NO3 will always be in excess.

However if the weekly uptake is greater than the weekly dose, the plants will be hungry for a few days at a time between dosing, where as daily dosing limited NO3 arrives every day (runs out during day)

So IMO daily dosing will have less daily fluctuations than weekly dosing as the results shows above.
 
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