Garuf
Member
Any thoughts on what’s missing in my water? I assumed mg, but I was then told it looks more like fe shortage.
Plant is rotala green.
I dose 4ml tropica 2ml before bed 2ml before work in the morning.
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Tropica specialized dosing rules of thumb
- Thread starter Garuf
- Start date
Any thoughts on what’s missing in my water? I assumed mg, but I was then told it looks more like fe shortage.
Plant is rotala green.
I dose 4ml tropica 2ml before bed 2ml before work in the morning.
Hi all,
cheers Darrel
The older leaves, with the net interveinal chlorosis, look very much like magnesium deficiency. Magnesium (Mg) is mobile within the plant, so deficiencies <"show in older leaves first">. Iron deficiency also causes chlorosis, but in <"the new leaves first">, because iron isn't mobile <"within the plant">.
cheers Darrel
Garuf
Member
Hi all,
cheers Darrel
Probably both iron (Fe) and magnesium (Mg) deficiencies, which wouldn't be that surprising if you <"have very hard"> (calcium carbonate (CaCO3)) rich tap water?
I'd add them both separately, Epsom Salts (MgSO4.7H2O and 10% Mg) is good as a magnesium source but you would need a chelator for harder water . This is what I'm doing at the moment, in a <"hybrid Duckweed Index"> approach while I'm using <"Miracle-Gro"> as my fertiliser.
cheers Darrel
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Garuf
Member
Yes exactly, hard to very hard but also not much mg in the tap.
I was hoping to not mess about too much with powders, I’ve found pre mix rather liberating in keeping my tanks going 😬
I was hoping to not mess about too much with powders, I’ve found pre mix rather liberating in keeping my tanks going 😬
Garuf
Member
Mgso4 obtained. Say I want to do a mix to be able to dose 1ml daily what would a grams to litre ratio be roughly?
As for iron, I think I’ll get a generic pre mix from aquasabi, should I take the one with all the chelates’ in it or just the normal daily dose only one?
As for iron, I think I’ll get a generic pre mix from aquasabi, should I take the one with all the chelates’ in it or just the normal daily dose only one?
Garuf
Member
Sorry I think I’ve misunderstood you, Darrel, did you mean I need a chelation agent for the mgso4 or for iron?
Hi all,
Magnesium sulphate (MgSO4.7H2O) is soluble. Magnesium carbonate (MgCO3) isn't very soluble in weak acids, but it is <"slightly more soluble"> than <"calcium carbonate (CaCO3)"> so in hard calcium (Ca++), water which is at the carbonate ~ CO2 equilibrium point, Ca++ ions will go out of solution before the Mg++ ones do.
This is why the hard water in the <"Central USA"> remains fairly magnesium rich.
cheers Darrel
Just the iron (Fe) and a chelator that it is better in harder water, like <"FeDTPA or FeEDDHA">, rather than FeEDTA. Sorry that was my error, ambiguous and poorly written.
Magnesium sulphate (MgSO4.7H2O) is soluble. Magnesium carbonate (MgCO3) isn't very soluble in weak acids, but it is <"slightly more soluble"> than <"calcium carbonate (CaCO3)"> so in hard calcium (Ca++), water which is at the carbonate ~ CO2 equilibrium point, Ca++ ions will go out of solution before the Mg++ ones do.
This is why the hard water in the <"Central USA"> remains fairly magnesium rich.
cheers Darrel
@Garuf
Looking at some of those plant pictures, they do show some issues. Some of them are showing Mn, Mg, Fe deficiency, but these deficiency shouldn’t be happening if you are using Tropica, Tropica itself should handle these issues because it does contain HEEDTA and DTPA Fe which is much better than EDTA Fe. I doubt you are having a Mg deficiency because Tropica also adds decent amount of Mg as well. at this point the problems could be something leaching from the substrate or something in the water. Am not sure how hard your water is but HEEDTA and DTPA Fe should be good enough in the hard water. You can add little bit more Mg through MgSO4 if you like but I doubt that is the main issue here, because like I said there is good enough in the tropica to begin with. I would suggest trying Tropica Premium, you can split the dose between the Specialized and the Premium and go from there.
Are you adding any additional K, Ca, Mg at water changes? Any root tabs such as Osmocote in the substrate? If you are adding any potassium at water changes, then I suggest adding some Mg along with it.
Also, I do not recommend using EI dose to dose Tropica because both system works completely different and adds different amount of Nutrients, one of the major concern could be that you might be adding way too much NH4 if you were to dose EI with Tropica.
Looking at some of those plant pictures, they do show some issues. Some of them are showing Mn, Mg, Fe deficiency, but these deficiency shouldn’t be happening if you are using Tropica, Tropica itself should handle these issues because it does contain HEEDTA and DTPA Fe which is much better than EDTA Fe. I doubt you are having a Mg deficiency because Tropica also adds decent amount of Mg as well. at this point the problems could be something leaching from the substrate or something in the water. Am not sure how hard your water is but HEEDTA and DTPA Fe should be good enough in the hard water. You can add little bit more Mg through MgSO4 if you like but I doubt that is the main issue here, because like I said there is good enough in the tropica to begin with. I would suggest trying Tropica Premium, you can split the dose between the Specialized and the Premium and go from there.
Are you adding any additional K, Ca, Mg at water changes? Any root tabs such as Osmocote in the substrate? If you are adding any potassium at water changes, then I suggest adding some Mg along with it.
Also, I do not recommend using EI dose to dose Tropica because both system works completely different and adds different amount of Nutrients, one of the major concern could be that you might be adding way too much NH4 if you were to dose EI with Tropica.
MichaelJ
Member
That is very good advice. I believe (was told) that only Tropica Specialized contains UREA, which breaks down to Ammonium (NH4) ? And not Tropica Premium?
Cheers,
Michael
we are not certain weather Tropica Specialized use Urea or something else, there are several sources which can be used as NH4 without adding NO3, but its most likely that they use Urea. our test kits shows Positive for NH3/NH4 but shows 0 for NO3 when we tested Tropica Specialized. if you have Tropica Specialized then I encourage you to test for NH4 and NO3 and see what you find. am not sure if Tropica ever used NH4NO3 instead of Urea, but I do know that most companies are using Urea nowadays. some of the Nitrogen in Tropica is also coming from Chelation that is being used in both fertilizers, even Tropica Premium contain some Nitrogen which comes from Chelates but the amount is so minimum that they might not require to list it. I also recommended Tropica Premium because it will mostly cover Fe/micro issues if the Thread owner is seeing issue due to mainly Fe and Micros. plus it seems that most people who uses Tropica, they also use both in combination for best results.
I use to clone Tropica and used it for several years now, i have used both Urea, NH4NO3, NH4Cl, NH4So4 etc. and the best one were Urea and NH4NO3 and both produced great results. KNO3 alone never produced the great results unless the soil was enriched with NH4. I would highly recommend using Urea if you were to clone NH4 based Fertilizer. we also found that Urea does degrade to NH4 very slowly especially if you directly added it to the water, it will slowly goes from 0 to 1 ppm in the next few hours. the same thing occurred in the solution, the solution was made using Distilled water, we are still debating weather bacteria or Nickel is even needed to convert Urea into NH4, this might be true if it was used outside of the water into the dirt or soil, but we are still in question weather bacteria or Nickel is truly needed in the water to convert urea into NH4. like I have said I have used the Tropica clone with Urea and without adding any Nickel and it produced great results. made the same clone using NH4NO3 and it too gives positive results. made the same clone using KNO3 and it didn't give such a great results. plant like MC or HC grew very well under the first two.
I might be going off topic now, I think this should be good enough information for now
Garuf
Member
No, no additional anything, I just add 4ml daily. I do my water changes in the evening so add 2ml before bed and 2ml before lights on.
No root tabs or similar, though I do have some tropica ones. Substrate is Ada aquasoil old and new capped with new tropica about, 30%ada, and is now about a year old.
I have the same issue with all 3 of my high tech tanks so substrate and decor can be ruled out as they are from different batches and are different to each other. Which leaves water (from the tap) and the fertiliser either dosing level or it’s composition. I dose 1ml per 10l so 2ml 3ml and 4ml.
I’ve now ordered some of the aquasabi ferts (mikro eisen, mikro basic and macro basic npk) and have picked up some mgso4. I still have 3l+ of tropica but my line of thinking is these would help to fill gaps till I figure out what’s going on.
Garuf
Member
Started to dose 6 drops of micro eisen, 3ml of tropica, 1ml of npk and a pinch of mgso4 daily with 1ml of micro every other day.
I did some back of the envelope maths, I’ll post later to double check, chemistry isn’t my thing at all.
Growth has sped up but health wise, it looks much the same but I don’t expect any real change within a month.
I did some back of the envelope maths, I’ll post later to double check, chemistry isn’t my thing at all.
Growth has sped up but health wise, it looks much the same but I don’t expect any real change within a month.
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Micro Eisen is pretty much almost a clone version of Tropica, it is based on a EDTA, DTPA, HEDTA chelate. you should see similar results if you were to use Tropica Premium that I recommended earlier, give it a week or two and see if the plant will color up nicely.
Garuf
Member
New growth is perking up.
And talking of colouring up, the r. waynard has gone from the yellow green I’m used to to taking on a blush of red and copper, a first for me.
Garuf
Member
I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the necrosis. I have upped co2 and I’m now dosing 4ml specialized and 2ml of trace every day with a pinch of mg and 10drops of iron.
I assumed it was a po4 issue so started to dose extra npk but that made no over all difference.
Could it be snail damage? It seems most obvious in the greener rotalas.
I assumed it was a po4 issue so started to dose extra npk but that made no over all difference.
Could it be snail damage? It seems most obvious in the greener rotalas.
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If you are now adding specialised+fert+mg+iron and no result, maybe try an different approach?
Here's a thought - buy yourself a usb water pump (it cost me US$3.50 from China seller postage included, maybe shipping to Europe will be a few dollars more), install it at substrate level and see if it makes any difference. usb pumps are around 100l/hr so its very gentle flow.
When you have a small tank, it might seem that flow is not a problem - but I have a 16 litre tank with a 200l/hr HOB filter and I found I still needed to add a usb pump to improve flow.
Garuf
Member
Because the area of poorest health is perversely also the area with the most turbulent water movement which says to me something other than flow/water movement is at play.
