parotet
Member
I've just prepared my homemade liquid ferts, both a bottle of macro and micro... well, I use also a bottle with a pump, like the Tropica one. So it is also very comfortable to use.
The main difference to me is the price, probably 10x less... but there is also another important thing: when I began to use Tropica Specialized in my nano tank I read quite a lot about the dosing of this product. The best place to visit and understand what I mean is the Tropica website itself. In the layouts section some famous aquascapers (some of them in that forum) explain what they did, the equipment used and the dosing regime... and most of them are using much more than the recommended dose.
So, at the end, what is a recommended dose? A guidance just to know if you need half a bottle each time or just some drops, but you cannot use it a reference, at least in my opinion. The fact is that I'm dosing 3x to see my plants in nice conditions, that is what they need, that's all. It also helps to know the NPK content of this liquid. Several websites offer this information and you will see that, if you want to reach the recommended NO3, PO4 and K levels for example in the Estimative Index, you will need quite a lot more than the recommended dose. But again, what is the EI? Just a guidance to know more or less what your plants need that will obviously change depending on the conditions...
The main difference to me is the price, probably 10x less... but there is also another important thing: when I began to use Tropica Specialized in my nano tank I read quite a lot about the dosing of this product. The best place to visit and understand what I mean is the Tropica website itself. In the layouts section some famous aquascapers (some of them in that forum) explain what they did, the equipment used and the dosing regime... and most of them are using much more than the recommended dose.
So, at the end, what is a recommended dose? A guidance just to know if you need half a bottle each time or just some drops, but you cannot use it a reference, at least in my opinion. The fact is that I'm dosing 3x to see my plants in nice conditions, that is what they need, that's all. It also helps to know the NPK content of this liquid. Several websites offer this information and you will see that, if you want to reach the recommended NO3, PO4 and K levels for example in the Estimative Index, you will need quite a lot more than the recommended dose. But again, what is the EI? Just a guidance to know more or less what your plants need that will obviously change depending on the conditions...
