# Nitrate is 2-5 ppm, phosphate is 10 ppm. Hard green algae all over glass. Why?



## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

Let me start by giving my macro solution recipe.

My macro solution is- 2.5 ml per day*
1000 ml water
16 tbsp potassium nitrate
2 tbsp monopotassium phosphate
4 tbsp potassium sulfate

My micro solution is also dosed 2.5 ml daily. It is:
250 ML Fluorish Iron (liquid)
250 ML water 
4 TBSP Plantex CSM + B


It's pretty concentrated. My test kits are calibrated and I tested to find my nitrate is too low (seachem test kits are hard to read, but my levels are between 2 and 5 ppm of nitrate. I'll be very generous and say 5 ppm, but it's almost mpossible for me to read the seachem nitrate test kit. API phosphate kit clearly reads 10 ppm for phosphate)

I have .5 ppm of nitrite, so my cycle is almost over. At water change time (once per week, 50% or 7.5 gallons) I add a quarter tsp of Barr's GH Booster to the new water as well as 1/8 tsp baking soda. I only add these for peace of mind. 


I don't feed the fish or shrimp much at all. Occasionally I'll throw in half an algae wafer. Inhabitants are fifty red cherry shrimp and five Otocinclus. I feed so little that I know fish food isn't the source of the phosphates.


Co2 is as high as it can be without suffocating the fish and shrimp. Im running 1.8 bubbles per second and the drop checler woth 4 dkh solution stays light! Lime green. Plants are all doing great and have no noticeable algae on them. The walls of the tank are covered with a dusting of green algae. I wouldn't call it green spot algae but It doesn't brush off at all so it's not green dust algae. Maybe it's just a lot of tiny green spot algae that is young? 

My lighting is an ADA Solar I HQI that's 18 inches off the tank. I'm not going to raise it more because amano suggests raising it only 30 cm. If I raised it any more the tank would look darker than I prefer, so I'm going to make this work come hell or high water lol. 

Anyway, that is all the info I can think of to share. Why is my phosphate so high when the dosing solution I made is so rich in nitrate and potassium but so low in phosphate? my tap water contains .25 ppm phosphate, and like I said all test kits are calibrated yet I have 10 ppm of phosphate and hard green algae covering the glass. Not aure if it's green spot algae, but still the plants are thriving.

What's the deal? What is wrong with my dosing?


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

You didn't say how big the tank is, but my rough calculations say your 2.5 ml of macros contains: .05 grams of phosphate, .36 grams of nitrate, .33 grams of potassium. That would be, for 10 gallons of tank water, 1.3 ppm of phosphate, 9.5 ppm of nitrate, and 8.7 ppm of potassium.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

Sorry lol. It's 15 gallons.

I just don't understand? I calibrated my kits according to the instructions on this forum (I think it was your helpful guide, actually.) 

I suppose it's possible that the nitrate level is 10 ppm, but the little well that my seachem nitrate test comes with looks like it says between two and five. I would post a pic but that doesn't do good because everyones monitor is different, camera might not get the right color, etc. The phosphate test is very very dark blue, though. 

According to the levels you posted, those are good levels to be at, I believe. 

I have 24 root medic fertilizer capsules evenly distributed along the tanks bottom (12 " wide, 24" long) and covered with Fluorite that varies in depth from 1 inch at the front to 2.5 inches in the back. If that is way too many root capsules and I have overdosed the substrate, I guess that could explain the high phosphate levels, but i would expect to see very high nitrate levels as well. 

I will take a pic of my nitrate result after playing with my camera to try to get the best accurate color photograph I can, even though everyones monitor is different.


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## hbosman (Oct 5, 2006)

Is flourite the only substrate you are using? The reason I ask is, I used Profile on a tank once that gave me about 6 ppm phosphate. It didn't hurt anything though, it would take an awful lot of phosphate to cause problems.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

Yep, it's pure fluorite. 

I am still trying to get rid of the "excess phosphates cause algae and are bad!!!" line of thinking that was so very well ingrained into my head for the past decade. With the help of psychiatric medication and weekly therapy sessions, I'm slowly making progress.


Jk about the meds and therapy lol. I don't even know if 10 ppm of phosphate is a bad thing, I just know that most people keep it around 1-2 ppm. I know my tank has not achieved balance though because there is algae (if I HAD to classify it, I'd say green spot algae, but there is so much of it, it's so small, and it's so evenly distributed on the glass I'm not sure if that's it. I cleaned it off today and it came off easily with a coarse sponge wiping it off, but something soft like my hand won't remove it so I don't think it's green dust algae.)

I want to reiterate that all the plants are algae free and seem to be thriving.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Green spot algae usually takes something hard and sharp to remove, like a razor blade. I can get it off with a plastic credit card, but I have to really push the card hard against the glass, and make several passes with it. That makes me think your algae isn't GSA, but some other kind.

Given how much ferts you dose *per day*, it is hard to believe that you are under dosing. And ADA lights tend to be lower in brightness than we would normally assume, so I doubt that you have too much light. I'm stumped! Send in the "A" team.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

You're the first person who hasn't chewed me out for using the ADA Solar I. Thank you. I could cry tears of happiness. 

The algae isn't difficult to remove with a coarse sponge, I just wipe the sponge back and forth a few times with light pressure and it comes off. No elbow grease or hard scrubbing required. If I try to gently wipe it off with my hand, it won't come off however. The coarse sponge I used if even less abrasive than the blue eheim coarse sponges to give you a good idea. 

It's also uniformly distributed on the glass, and my understanding of green spot algae is that it isn't uniformly distributed. It reminds me of a hybrid between green spot and green dust algae. 

Can you please confirm that I AM dosing enough macro and micros? You put "per day" in bold.,,, am i dosing too much? I thought this was the right amount to dose if ichoose to dose daily? 

It took me a few attempts to get my fert solution and dosage right and tweaked it for my individual aquarium to meet me needs. I tried to go low on the phosphate since my tap water (well water really) has .25 ppm of phosphate in it already.

I am trying very hard to do everything right. I enjoy the maintanece to make things look good, but some people prefer less light, less speed, less work, etc. Originally people made me feel bad and think I couldn't make it work with my Ada light unless it was three (yes I was told three) feet above the tank, but so far I am successful I think. The way i see it, if Amano sells the solar I and reccomends hanging it about a foot above the water, then 18 inches is perfectly fine if i am diligent with tank maintenance and co2 titration.. 

I'm looking at weird things like this as learning experiences and try to take lessons from them to have a better tank in the future.


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## wearsbunnyslippers (Dec 6, 2007)

you need to have a ratio of about 15-16:1 of nitrate to phosphate. yours is 2-5:10 way too much phosphate imo.

it just goes to show that using a calculator is not always best. it is just meant to get you in the ballpark. with your macro solution it should have been 16 tbsp kno3 to 1 tbsp kh2po4. it is a good thing your are testing though...

this is why i dont like making stock solutions either, coz in your tank it seems like you are not using as much phosphate as normal, so you would want to dose this even leaner than 16:1 to reach a 16:1 ratio in your tank. now you have made up a solution, you will need to tweak it a bit or throw it away. maybe you are feeding food that is high in phosphate or have phosphates in your tap water already.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

I'm barely feeding... Like half an algae wafer twice a week. 

I could always add another liter of water to the liter I have and add 16 more tablespoons of potassium nitrate and four more tablespoons of potassium sulfate... Which would give me two liters of solution with 32 tbsp nitrate, 2 tbsp phosphate and 8 tbsp potassium...

Which would last me the rest of my life if I use 2.5 ml per day. Or I could pour it all out and just use dry ferts and stick to the e.I, dosing regimen and not try do change anything to make it easier for me. It seems like every time I try to make things easier by altering the directions, it gets a lot harder. I just hate knowing that I wasted that much potassium nitrate with this failure in making solution for fertilizing. I'll try to think of this as a learning opportunity and not a failure....lol. It's frustrating.


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## wkndracer (Mar 14, 2009)

I'm no math wizard and I use a gram scale instead of spoons.
My ferts are purchased from Rex Grigg. Switched to Edwards PPS system last year doing daily dosing. With your PO4 so high I'd try a phosphate free solution and see if the numbers dropped into balance.
In a 500ml container the phosphate free mix
NO3/PO4/K = 0.75:0.00:1.00 
NO3 - 20.38g
KH2PO4 - 0.00g
K2SO4 - 19.56g
Depending on how much moisture your material contains can change the weight some but the ball park is generally 1/2tsp (leveled) = 2.28g, 1 tsp = 4.7g (on my scale)
This dose is pushing the potassium ratio higher then your mix.

To maintain NO3/K solution ratio (based on Chucks calculator) 500ml
NO3 - 45g 
K2SO4 - 24g 
each ml added to a 15g tank according to Chuck adds NO3 .97ppm, K .99ppm

Having a heavy fish load I find I'm needing phosphate not nitrate and dose nitrate free and trace.

Hope some of this blah blah blah helps and or you figure out your tank.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

wearsbunnyslippers said:


> you need to have a ratio of about 15-16:1 of nitrate to phosphate. yours is 2-5:10 way too much phosphate imo.
> maybe you are feeding food that is high in phosphate or have phosphates in
> 
> your tap water already.


Where did this ratio come from and why is it even remotely an issue?

I dose 5ppm PO4 and 15 ppm NO3 3x a week to this tank:










Roughly a 3:1 NO3; PO4 ratio, not that the ratio matters in the least, rather, absolute nutrients based on Liebig's law of the minmum.

Liebig, not misapplied monkey business with ratios as is often the case with the abuse of Redflied's ratio, is what folks deal with in planted tanks, not "limiting algae".

GSA is not merely a function of PO4, it also includes poor CO2.
You need both good ample CO2 and good high PO4 to resolve the issue, if you hold nutrients as the only dependent factor and ignore both light and CO2, well..........you make some hoo daddy assumptions that will lead to many incorrect conclusions.

So explain to me why I add high levels and I know I do........but never have any GSA issues, nor have had any for a decade on many different tanks?
If it really was only the PO4 card.........I should have/would have seen some relationship.

I've long explained that it was both CO2 and PO4 at poor lower ranges that is a cause, it could be CO2 or PO4, but adding more PO4 quickly fixes that possibility, leaving CO2.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

wkndracer said:


> With your PO4 so high I'd try a phosphate free solution and see if the numbers dropped into balance.
> In a 500ml container the phosphate free mix
> NO3/PO4/K = 0.75:0.00:1.00
> NO3 - 20.38g
> ...


Again, why, in terms of basic plant physiology, can you or anyone offer me any reasonable basis for why a ratio is important as long as the absolute ppm's are not below a limiting level?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig's_Law_of_the_Minimum

If we limit anything or add too little, then it does not matter how much waste we add of light, other nutrients, we will never get more growth.

Thus ratios in and of themselves will make little difference, Dr Bloom also states in this in the Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants text book he and Dr Epstein co wrote now in the 2nd edition, maybe the 3rd? Same for Soil Fertility and Fertilizers now in it's 7th edition from Halvin et al.

Ole and Troels both used non limiting, thus independent nutrient ppms for their test on CO2 and light interaction. Why would they do this? Gerloff and Paul Kromboltz also explored non limiting nutrient levels.

Since no one is even bothering calibrating or carefully measuring CO2 in the hobby, how can anyone know if they have stable or independent CO2????

You can do this indirectly and falsify the ratio mumbo rubbish.
I've been falsifying this myth going on 15 years and yet folks still believe in the myth.

Where's my algae if this is actually true?
I mean there's a 1001 way to mess a method up, but I think I've tried every ratio and run a number of tanks without any algae success to date. Does not say what causes algae, but it certainly says what does not cause it.

Where my algae and what ratio induces algae or enahnces the risk thereof in and of the ratios solely?

I've got tanks that have ran from 1:1 to 100:1
No issues.

Pretty wide range I'd say and I've run dozens of tanks over long time frames.
Where's my algae?






regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

justlikeapill said:


> I'm barely feeding... Like half an algae wafer twice a week.
> 
> I could always add another liter of water to the liter I have and add 16 more tablespoons of potassium nitrate and four more tablespoons of potassium sulfate... Which would give me two liters of solution with 32 tbsp nitrate, 2 tbsp phosphate and 8 tbsp potassium...
> 
> Which would last me the rest of my life if I use 2.5 ml per day. Or I could pour it all out and just use dry ferts and stick to the e.I, dosing regimen and not try do change anything to make it easier for me. It seems like every time I try to make things easier by altering the directions, it gets a lot harder. I just hate knowing that I wasted that much potassium nitrate with this failure in making solution for fertilizing. I'll try to think of this as a learning opportunity and not a failure....lol. It's frustrating.


Back up and look at the 2 other factors here and think about how a plant grows, what causes a bottle neck etc.

Light is where growth starts right?
This causes NADPH and ATP production.
This is now used to fix CO2.

So light drives => CO2 demand.
More light= more CO2.
More CO2= more efficient light utilization also.

So plants can live with even less light using CO2 enrichment than without.

Now the plant has fixed CO2, it needs some nutrients to make other side chains from these carbon "skeletons' or frame work.

So CO2 demand drives further nutrient uptake and demand.
So we have light=> CO2 => nutrients = growth

If we want to slow growth, less light is the obvious starting point.
then we have less CO2 demand and it becomes much easier to mange and much more wiggle room dosing that.

Once you get to nutrients.........now things are extremely easy and highly variable since demand is low. If you still want more faster growth than this, well......add more light and add more CO2 and add more nutrients.

Algae is not CO2 limited nor nutrient limited in any aquarium relative to any plant. So the only limiting factor algae is really light somewhat. 
The dog should wag the tail, not the other way around, look at this holistically and do not get caught in the micromanagement trap.

See where the root of the issue is and go from there.

Most all of my own personal tanks are low light, good flow, stocked very well, well feed, breeding and plenty of plant sales, good CO2 and dosed fairly richly. I also have ADA AS in some tanks so that's another source of ferts as well as the water column. To clean off the GSA, use a credit card, it will come off very easily, then do good water changes, dose(liquid or dry, will not matter, whatever is easier for you) and focus more on CO2 and using less light.

You need no more than a 24" w T5 over this tank to grow any plant.
I use 4x24W over a 60 Gallon tank and it's about 14" above the tank:










1.5W a gal of t5 from over 32" to the tops of the foreground plants.




Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

I was given a $500 ADA light. I realize I don't need to it grow plants, but I am going to use it. No offense, but your tank looks very healthy but shady and dim. I want a brightly lit tank using the $500 ADA light that was given to me. I realize all I need is a single T5HO, but that looks very dim. 14 inches away, even 4 t5HO's look dim compared to my 150 watt HQI, and I get shimmer. 

If someone gave you a Solar I, and you didn't need money for an operation, to support your drug habit, to pay off you a mafia boss, or some other dire situation, you'd be a fool not to use it.

I refuse to believe that a tank with very high light can not become balanced. I realize it is very hard to maintain that balance, but that is what I want to do. My light is already 18 inches away from the water, and I can't move it any higher. If I do, things start to look dim, I'd have to get a longer light bar, etc. Amano recommends at least one foot above the water, and I am at one and a half feet. 

I should note that I keep the light on 8 hours a day. If I should turn it down to 6 hours per day, I am willing to do that but that seems like too short of a photoperiod. 

I don't understand. I HAVE high co2. I do not have access to scientific instruments to measure it and tell me exactly how much I have, but I know I have flow good enough to distribute the co2 well, my method of dissolving it is efficient, and my drop checker which is placed in great flow (there ia turbulence on the bottom me of drop checker's air pocket) 

My micro nutrients cant be limited because of the amount I'm dosing. My phosphate obviously isn't limited. I'm adding more potassium that your estimative index fertilizing method calls for. I am dosing quite a bit of nitrate but for some reason it's getting sucked up disproportionately to phosphate. 

I have a very nutritious substrate.

My plants themselves are very healthy and algae free. The only plant giving me problems is HC which is recovering from initial die-off it experienced during the initial planting. Plants are growing great and fast, just like I like it. The problem is me wanting to know, based on the solution I use and the amount I dose, why my phosphate is 10 ppm and nitrate 2-5 ppm (for convenience let's just say 5.) Based on my solution recipe, WTH is going on? 

I have ordered an API nitrate test kit since I needed to order a gh and kh test kit anyway. This seachem test kit is too difficult for me to read, even though it's calibrated and is accurate. If anyone wants it, let me know and you can have it for the cost of shipping.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Is this the light you have? http://www.adana-usa.com/index.php?main_page=afa_product_info&cPath=9_38&products_id=23 If so, I can't offer anything about that light, since I have almost no PAR data taken with HQI lights. I do know that Tom Barr measured the light in some of the display tanks at this place and the intensity was much lower than I would have guessed it to be, so I'm also guessing that the HQI fixture doesn't produce quite as much light as we might expect. On the other hand your comments about lighting do make me suspect that you may have too much to easily live with. This is where owning a PAR meter could pay off.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

That's the one, except mine has the normal ada HQI lamp inside and not the one with the added green tint. That said, it's heavy on the green anyway. 

Can I ask what comments I made that indicate I have too much to easily live with? It is working out so far, or so I thought. I'm sort of confused by that statement. If it was the comments about how hard it is to maintain a balance with hard light and I'm willing to do all I can to maintain that balance...

Those were said only because everyone, everywhere, says high light levels are a recipe for disaster and it's almost impossible to keep a balanced, successful tank if you are using this high level of light.... yet Amano makes these lights for the 60-P and people use the Solar I with the 60-P and have great looking tanks... the tanks in the ADA gallery are under Solar I units... they look great. 

I have been told by people on this forum that I must raise that light to a minimum of TWO FEET!!! off the tank, but THREE feet was even better and recommended! This is ridiculous in my opinion. I consider my tank to be going smoothly and successfully, except for this weird nutrient imbalance. Today I wiped all the algae off the glass, and the tank looks fantastic! No algae on any plants, it looks very, very nice. Clear water... etc yet it is under light that others would consider almost suicidal. 

I just don't get it... I'd like to lower the light to one foot above the tank just to make things even brighter. I love that blindingly bright look lol. I saw this very light hanging over a 60-P on the ADG facebook page, and when I asked how high it was I was told.... surprise... only one foot. 

I think that the ADA lights are, perhaps, very bright to the human eye but pretty inefficient and maybe thats why they seem to be "safer."


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

justlikeapill said:


> That's the one, except mine has the normal ada HQI lamp inside and not the one with the added green tint. That said, it's heavy on the green anyway.
> 
> Can I ask what comments I made that indicate I have too much to easily live with? It is working out so far, or so I thought. I'm sort of confused by that statement. If it was the comments about how hard it is to maintain a balance with hard light and I'm willing to do all I can to maintain that balance...


Oh it can be done, just the room for error becomes smaller and smaller and the levels required of CO2 also go up and make keeping fish much harder and more stress is placed on them.

I have a tank from the past that has somewhat similar light:










But it was a weed choked fest and required lots of trimming.
Do you really want such high rates of growth?

More light = faster growth and more work.
Most want some nice growth, but manageable so they can garden easily and not risk algae and fish stress.

It's like the car example, 2 cars, one driving at 120mph and another at 30mph, both will still get to the same destination, but one will be there 4x faster but waste 5x more gas and if anything happens.........will likely lead to a wild crash of death. 30mph is safer.

Why not dump 100ppm of NO3 and 20ppm of PO4 also?
Why is that "bad" but adding 10x more light than required "good"?
Same thing can be used for CO2........




> .... yet Amano makes these lights for the 60-P and people use the Solar I with the 60-P and have great looking tanks... the tanks in the ADA gallery are under Solar I units... they look great.


Have you seen the height they adjust the lights to? Yes, 14-24" off the surface.

You are wasting the light.



> I have been told by people on this forum that I must raise that light to a minimum of TWO FEET!!! off the tank, but THREE feet was even better and recommended! This is ridiculous in my opinion. I consider my tank to be going smoothly and successfully, except for this weird nutrient imbalance. Today I wiped all the algae off the glass, and the tank looks fantastic! No algae on any plants, it looks very, very nice. Clear water... etc yet it is under light that others would consider almost suicidal.


They have the lights about 18" or so at AFA in SF for most HQI systems, and the readings with the light meter are about 40's along the bottom, which is about 3ft from the bulb.

Glass algae is a PITA, stop thinking about imbalanced nutrients, think limiting nutrient instead.

This is a far more applicable concept.



> I just don't get it... I'd like to lower the light to one foot above the tank just to make things even brighter. I love that blindingly bright look lol. I saw this very light hanging over a 60-P on the ADG facebook page, and when I asked how high it was I was told.... surprise... only one foot.
> 
> I think that the ADA lights are, perhaps, very bright to the human eye but pretty inefficient and maybe thats why they seem to be "safer."


Yes, true, but you still do not need to use this much and could have a much easier time managing all aspects, with time, those over lit tanks are not as bright as you once thought.

Why waste light but then limit nutrients?
Why not limit light and then all downstream effects are much easier and the cost and general care is far less?

Then you can focus on gardening a lot more.
Which is much more the goal than having more light than you "need".

Folks love to apply this waste, need, just enough, imbalance idea all over the web.....but then have to have the Hummer of Lighting and "more is better", this is entirely counter to the concept how a plant grows and what is good management.

Can you do it? Yes, should you? Not likely.
Can you do it better and easier? Certainly.

I've done it, but I can also do it with 3x less light. So simply because you can, does not imply you should.

Depends on your goal, and you need to be honest with that and the trade offs involved. Newer folks often get more light than they should, old timers?

We use the min amount.

HQI pendents look nice, but so do T5 pendents also.
If someone gave me the light, I'd sell it to an ADA fanboy. Then go buy a Tek with 2x24:hihi:

The light at the surface was 150 for the ADA, 320 for my Coralife HQI over the same height, 40-50 on the bottom for ADA, and 60-70 for Coralife.
This was on the same sized 180 Gal rimless, so 18" or so above a 24" deep tank.

At 12" this is about 200 and 80 for a 60P I'd say, a lot, but less than I've had.
I ran 450 and 200 before.



Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## wearsbunnyslippers (Dec 6, 2007)

plantbrain said:


> Where did this ratio come from and why is it even remotely an issue?



its the redfield ratio as you know...

yes i know the ratio applies to marine phyto plankton, 

i agree that absolute ratios are not as important as non limiting nutrients, but it gives people something to aim for.

even in your tanks you have a ratio of more nitrate to phosphate, so having it reversed with so much light is bound to cause problems.

the fact that it comes from limiting nitrate and not specifically a ratio really makes no difference, in essence i was saying, up your nitrates, decrease your phosphates...


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

wearsbunnyslippers said:


> its the redfield ratio as you know...
> 
> yes i know the ratio applies to marine phyto plankton,
> 
> ...


Why bother lowering PO4?
Is it not just the NO3 alone that are limiting here??
Maybe it is CO2???

Why would it be "bound" to cause problems?
I'm curious how and why this could possibly be.
Liebig's law says that it is only a limiting factor, the most limiting, and in either case, in all the examples..........that has not occurred.

It is only when the levels of ppb are reached for algae..........that this may occur and they might be limiting, for FW periphyton algae, the types that bug us..........limiting levels are under 10 parts per Billion.

We, I, you..........do not have a test method that can accurate measure such low levels of PO4 consistently. Even research facilities would have trouble getting these ranges from water samples with decent accuracy and error. We can do these very low limitation studies in a device called a Chemostat, but not measuring water samples directly.

Some PO4 limited adapted macrophytes are able to handle about 50ppb, but not much lower. So regardless of the ratios, adding more or less does not matter over an extremely wide broad range.

Would not matter if the NO3 was 5 ppm and the PO4 was 20 ppm.
You are still not limiting PO4. If you add 20ppm of NO3 or 200 ppm NO3, you still are not limiting NO3.

Excess? Adding more is not going to do anything to improve the rates of growth for algae.

This is the crux of the issue that many aquarist have trouble with.
It sounds nice, but it is false. Adding excess is never going to lead to more growth of algae.

It cannot by the very definition of the a non limiting ppm/ppb level.










As we add more and more nutrients, the yield never goes up after you hit the C range. Adding more does nothing to the growth rates of yield of algae.

This is excess dosing, it does not increase the biomass.
Redfield ratio is the most abused ratios and concept in the hobby if not in aquatic Biology.

This is not just me saying, but noted by Phycologist Robert Sheath/John Wehr.

You could potential get a negative effect if the nutrients are too high, the D range on the graph for some algae. So adding more would harm them.
This is more likely than the latter range C.

Plants? Many are grown hydroponically and studies use Hoagland's solutions, these are 200+ ppm for N, K+ and about 50+ ppm for P.

Pretty rich and not likely to cause issues 10X less that we use, thus our bounds are more for the fish/shrimp. But if it was just plants, then adding 10X as much should not cause issues, this is what many/most commerical horticulture operations that grow aquatic plants use, or a modified version thereof.

In otherwords, this is agriculture/horticulture, not aquatic Ecology of natural systems which are often limiting, thus ratios can influence things since the inputs are limited/regulated by natural processes(or man can mess this cycle up good as well-cause problems etc). Horticultural Ecology and management is very different than Mother Nature.

In horticulture at the commercial level, the cost of ferts is an issue, so adding just enough of N or P is critical, but the cost of ferts for the aquarist is nil. Light energy cost and heater cost are far more relevant for us. 

Florida is an excellent example where there are many lakes, rivers, and swamps rich CO2 systems where a good deal of plants and algae co exist in a tropical to subtropical temperature range. There's no correlation to speak of as far as ratios, nutrients and algae vs plant dominance.
There are examples all over the board.
Likewise, the same is true in aquariums.

So, this suggest that some other factor/s is/are the root issue/s.
Like CO2.........adding more NO3 is easy enough to rule out.

CO2 is not nearly as easy.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## Carson Albright (Apr 1, 2010)

I'm not going to pretend to be in the same league as Tom Barr or Hoppy in regards to planted tanks, but I thought I might add my two cents about your photoperiod. When i lowered mine from 8 hours a day to 6 it made all the difference in the world. I also have a problem with nitrates being sucked up faster than they should be, and I dose twice as much as suggested and this has been working wonders for my tank. To add to this I had my lights a foot off the tank with 8 hours a day, and now the lights are right on the water's surface at 6 hours with barely any noticeable algae growth.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

You never said what your light was, Carson. 

So, Tom, keeping in mind I am not an aquatic ecologist. Don't read scientific journals on a regular basis, etc, are you saying that it is perfectly fine to have a phosphate level of ten and to not worry about it? That just seems... Wrong. I grew up trying to limit nutrients and I'm sorry but I am learning.. It just seems counter i intuitive.

So you are saying phosphate level of 15 ppm is not going to harm anything or cause any extra algae growth with a nitrate level of let's say 10 ppm. What about A nitrite level of, I dunno, 50 ppm and a phosphate level of 3 ppm. They are both sufficient in both cases, so are you saying it doesn't even matter as long as there is sufficient nutrients?

In that case why worry about dosing too much at all? Raise the lights, turn up the co2 as much as you can and fertilize macros and micros as high as you can without killing anything... You won't have algae and your plants will grow great because the light is limited and you have non-limiting co2 and ferts. This is the message I'm getting from your post... That high ppms don't even matter.

This just seems wrong... A phosphate level of 10 ppm just seems 5 times higher than it should be. The impression I am getting is that... Why even bother to use measuring spoons? Just dump some in there because, after all, it'll be high and not limiting so it's ok.


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## Carson Albright (Apr 1, 2010)

I just have regular plant and fish bulbs from lowes, but its 3.8 wpg


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## csmith (Apr 22, 2010)

justlikeapill said:


> You never said what your light was, Carson.
> 
> So, Tom, keeping in mind I am not an aquatic ecologist. Don't read scientific journals on a regular basis, etc, are you saying that it is perfectly fine to have a phosphate level of ten and to not worry about it? That just seems... Wrong. I grew up trying to limit nutrients and I'm sorry but I am learning.. It just seems counter i intuitive.
> 
> ...


The "ratio" doesn't matter. The amount doesn't matter (to a degree), either. It's adding non-limiting amounts of each that make the difference. Sure you can add 50 ppms of N. If you want to waste it.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

When you add a lot more than the plants consume, and don't do regular big water changes to get rid of the excess, the amount in the water can eventually build up so much that it does become a problem for the fish, and eventually even for the plants. But, dosing per the EI recommended amounts, and doing a 50% weekly water change prevents that. Look at the tables of dosage recommendations here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fertilizers-water-parameters/21944-_dosing-regimes_.html and the first thing you should notice is that the range of acceptable dosages is 2 to 1, from 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp, for example. That should tell you that it isn't necessary to dose any of the nutrients accurately, just try to be roughly in that range of dosages. I used to double the phosphate dosage, and did that for a long time, with no consequence that I ever saw. So, for that one the usable range would be 4 to 1. This is why obsessing over dosing methods isn't fruitful - just dose about what the table says, and go on to work on the CO2 system, which is the really hard one to get right.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

So what you are saying is that my level of phosphate may be 10 ppm, but that it's not a problem and I'm worrying about nothing? 

why do I see others on this forum talk about E. I. and how they like to keep their phosphate at like 1 ppm or no higher than 2 ppm in the same post then? Are they not getting it either? 

I'm sorry if I'm frustrating you guys... I thought I was doing great, then my test kit says I have 10 ppm of phosphate then I start freaking... I guess that's why I shouldn't test lol. 

I have started dry dosing strictly in accordance to the fertilizing regimen sticky by the way. No more mixing solutions and dosing in pump bottles... I tried to make things easier for myself but they just got harder. I'm going to KISS (keep it simple, stupid.)


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## csmith (Apr 22, 2010)

justlikeapill said:


> I have started dry dosing *strictly in accordance to the fertilizing regimen* sticky by the way. No more mixing solutions and dosing in pump bottles... I tried to make things easier for myself but they just got harder. I'm going to KISS (keep it simple, stupid.)


The bold section is where you're going wrong. EI isn't a "strict program". In fact, it's probably the most malleable method you'll ever see. EI is based on one thing, and that's not limiting ferts to the plants. What does this do? Allows you to focus on CO2 and lights, the usual culprits when things go wrong.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

justlikeapill said:


> You never said what your light was, Carson.
> 
> So, Tom, keeping in mind I am not an aquatic ecologist. Don't read scientific journals on a regular basis, etc, are you saying that it is perfectly fine to have a phosphate level of ten and to not worry about it? That just seems... Wrong. I grew up trying to limit nutrients and I'm sorry but I am learning.. It just seems counter i intuitive.


*Seems *wrong or *is* wrong?
there's a massive difference between what we'd like to believe and percieve, vs what is reality/fact/ testing our assumptions.

Here's my own tank as an example where I add 15ppm of PO4 per week as well as having ample sediment supply of PO4 to boot:










I also have a high fish load and drum roll...................low light.
About 1.8W/gal and the light is 14" above the 2ft deep tank.

I could lower the light, I could add 450W more light and waste a ton of electric energy, have more trouble gardening, and I could do it.......but this is far far more efficient on every level, from my own labor down to the energy added and electric bills, to the fish health/growth, to the stress of me even.



> So you are saying phosphate level of 15 ppm is not going to harm anything or cause any extra algae growth with a nitrate level of let's say 10 ppm.


Yes, exactly.



> What about A nitrite level of, I dunno, 50 ppm and a phosphate level of 3 ppm. They are both sufficient in both cases, so are you saying it doesn't even matter as long as there is sufficient nutrients?


Been there done this:redface:
Many folks on this and other forums have hit both of these ranges I'd say and without issues. I am not suggesting you target these ranges, but if they hit them.......no big deal either.

I shoot for about 2-5ppm PO4 and about 20ppm for NO3.

But...........CO2, light, and other factors are involved with growth, algae etc.
NO3/PO4 play little role *till they become limiting*. 



> In that case why worry about dosing too much at all?


Wasting ferts for no good reason when it's easy to manage?
Hitting algae target like 10-30ppm of NO3 and 2-5ppm of PO4 is pretty easy, few tanks will gobble more than this per week. I do not advocate excess really, just an easy amount for us to dose/manage that keeps it at just non limiting.

Not too little, not too much, but also not too hard to do:wink: 



> Raise the lights, turn up the co2 as much as you can


CO2 is more complicated.



> and fertilize macros and micros as high as you can without killing anything... You won't have algae and your plants will grow great because the light is limited and you have non-limiting co2 and ferts. This is the message I'm getting from your post... That high ppms don't even matter.


Well, within reason, no need to go hog wild over dosing either, I've never told folks to do this except if they wanted to experiment and test and knew the risk to livestock.



> This just seems wrong... A phosphate level of 10 ppm just seems 5 times higher than it should be. The impression I am getting is that... Why even bother to use measuring spoons? Just dump some in there because, after all, it'll be high and not limiting so it's ok.


Should be?
Folks can and have and do grow plants well at less than 2ppm, many do.
Can you grow them fine at 0.5 ppm but some more frequent dosing and/or some GSA might be an issue. However, with lower light, there is less demand, so high light vs low light, 0.5ppm of PO4 will be much better with lower light and less incident of algae.

So in all cases where "less is better", less light is the best place to start and would offer the widest wiggle room for a ratio and for dosing management.
If you used sediments, then the ratios in the water column can be even wider, and you still have the same relationship with the light intensity as well no matter where the nutrients are.

So low light + sediment ferts, good circulation/O2 make ....CO2/fert dosing and gardening in general much easier.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

justlikeapill- I think *many*(most?) folks think the same thing and think it seems wrong.

FYI, I did myself. That was in the mid 1990's. I had little clue, but I kept doing it because my plants where growing and looking better than anyone else's. Steve came over and we started testing and pondering whether PMDD had it correct or not.

Seems it was not correct.
We'd all bought into that algae was limited and that excess must be bad.

This I think was a poor, but understandable...........conclusion at the time. Commercial aquatic growers where not looking at this as an aquatic system that can only be manipulated via nutrients, they have CO2(emergent growth) and light(shading, grow lights) and dose for plant growth yield. 

This is more like agriculture, not "nature".
Liebig, not Redfield applies to our systems.

The reminding questions are more about the fish tolerances from there.
Many suggest that it is bad, more stress for aquarist to expose fish to NO3.
What about NH4? Lots more toxic. Plants mop this up great.
CO2? again, far more toxic. But many turn a blind eye to this.........and how light drives more demand for CO2.

Which in turn............=> more stress to fish.
Do we care about fish? Shrimp etc?

Maybe.........some do. Some care less and more about plants.

A good article addressing both light and CO2:

http://www.tropica.com/advising/technical-articles/biology-of-aquatic-plants/co2-and-light.aspx

Ole, Troels and Claus are my friends and we have talked plants going way back now. Claus will be at this years AGA in Florida, BTW. 

It's a good read, but notice they also used non limiting nutrients for this test. Why? So that they are independent and have no confounding impact/effect on light or CO2.

This same a approach is why I chose the upper max bounds for nutrient dosing. I do not suggest folks waste much, rather, slow and progressively reduce dosing till a negative response is noted, then bump back to the next highest dosing level. That is the min about for non limiting fert dosing for any tank.

Still no test kit and still easy to do if you watch and are patient.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

The more I read the easier this gets, thank you for elaborating and I appreciate it but you said one thing that confuses me a little. You said CO2 is more complicated. 

What else can I do to provide more co2? I have got good flow (eheim 2215 on a 15 gallon, and my 60-P should be here tomorrow. I actually would like to add another canister for even more flow) and am using a drop checker that shows light lime green (green with a slight tint of yellow) and have the lily pipe adjusted so that is it under the water and there is no turbulance on the water but the water's surface is not still, either. The fish and shrimp show no distress to my levels of co2, which I would think are on the high side of safe going by my drop checker and flow. 

What else can I do to to improve my co3 injection? I inject via an inline diffuser into my canister. No bubbles ever come out of the canister even at the end of the 8 hour photoperiod so I'd imagine I'm dissolving the co2 petty efficiently. I've spent days slowly titrating my co2 doseing and lily pipe level to try to find that sweet spot that provides high level of co2 without killing everything... what else can I do?

Thank you, I guess I'm worrying for nothing.

Clint


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Don't forget that a drop checker is only a crude indication of how much CO2 you have in the water. At best you will have between 15 and 45 ppm when the color is green. It just keeps you from having 5 ppm while thinking you have 50 ppm. Once you get the drop checker green, then you need to increase the bubble rate slightly, wait a day or so, watching the fish often to be sure they are not clustering at the top, usually in a corner, or losing their colors, or laying on the substrate, all signs of too much CO2. Once you know that the fish are ok, slightly increase the bubble rate again and repeat the observing of the fish. Do this until you either get good pearling from most of the plants a couple of hours after the CO2 comes on, or the fish show distress. If the fish do show distress, drop the bubble rate back to where it was when then didn't. Then, you know you have the most CO2 you can use, and for high light you need to have that. Now you should have a good feel for what bubble rate works best, so next time you can get a lot closer to that value much easier.

It is a good idea to have the water surface rippled too. You do lose some more CO2 that way, but that is an advantage, because it makes the water at the top of the tank be a bit lower in CO2 compared to lower down, giving the fish a place to go when they need a break from the CO2. And, better still, it helps in getting lots of oxygen into the water, which helps the fish tolerate the CO2 better. I like having the filter outlet aimed a bit towards the surface, or better yet, a powerhead aimed a bit towards the surface to get that ripple. The powerhead also improves water circulation in the tank, which helps in getting CO2 enriched water to all of the plants.


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## csmith (Apr 22, 2010)

Here's something Wet wrote up on a 2 drop checker setup to get closer to the optimal 30 ppms.

http://www.barrreport.com/showthrea...wo-are-better.-(or-wet-killed-a-bunch-of-fish


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

I played around with using two different KH solutions in drop checkers, too, but had to finally conclude that the accuracy improvement that way isn't very much. Certainly not nearly as good as his post indicated. And, even if it did work, it would just give an average of the CO2 concentration at that point over the past 2-3 hours. The actual CO2 concentration varies widely as you check various locations in the tank, and with time, plus varying as the plants grow bigger, or after a pruning of some size (it will vary with size of pruning, too) I don't believe there is a magic bullet to be found, short of spending about $2000 for a specialized, lab quality pH probe - but that will just verify that the range of CO2 concentration around the tank is beyond what you would intuitively expect. I believe the best we can hope for is a device that gets us in the general ball park for optimum bubble rate, from which we have to go the rest of the way the old fashioned way.

The real fix for this problem is using lower light intensity, where using the maximum allowable CO2 bubble rate isn't necessary, where anything between 10 and 40 ppm will work fine. The hobby becomes a lot more fun then, I think.


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## deleted_user_7 (Jul 7, 2003)

This is an unrelated (sort of but not really) question.

In a normal sized tank, like around 20 gallons or more (In other words, not a nano tank) is it acceptable to use a nano-so zed drop checker? Or is it better to use a normal sized drop checker?

It seems like if it was OK to use a nano sized drop checker and it works just as well as a normal sized drop checker in a normal skied tank, then it would be a goos idea to have several nano sized drop checkers at various places around the tank, this way you could use several drop checkers but they would be nano and thus not nearly as obtrusive as the large nano drop checkers. 

So is it just as good to use nano drop checkers in a normal sized tank (in my specific case, an 18 gallon tank)?


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I do not even use or rely on DC's.
You sacrifice pH measurement accuracy a great deal, for KH accuracy.........you also have a longer time delay.

Good part: they are cheap/easy to view. 
But what good is that if they take a long time and are not accurate?

Dupla made these things going back to about 1986 or thereabouts.

Most of us went with pH and measured the KH.

One thing you can do is use some high grade RO/DI water in a 5 gal bucket.
Then make the KH say 3 degrees. Since it is entirely HCO3 that comprises the alkalinity in this case, the KH is accurate and the pH/KH/CO2 chart should be accurate.

Now bubble the CO2 and measure the pH for say a target of about 10ppm, 30ppm and 50ppm.

See how that compares the DC's including lag times in these 5 gal buckets.
All you need is the bucket, standard RO/DI reference water, and a small powerhead that bubbles the CO2 into these buckets.

I use a nice high grade lab pH meter.
This should get you to within about 2-5ppm I suspect or a tad less if you are careful. Fine for our purposes where we enrich CO2.

As long as the rate of CO2 being added remains the same, you should be able to siphon out the reference 3 KH water and add your tank's water to this same system, then compare the difference off set.

So if the bucket had say a KH3 and a pH of 6.8 and a CO2 of 14 ppm.
Now with tank water, it has a KH of 6 and a pH of 6.8 and a CO2 of actually 14ppm, but the chart predicts otherwise......around 29ppm.


Now you have a good idea how far off the chart is for the tank's water (the off set might change week to week etc also though, so be careful in assuming this difference is stable/always the same, it's likely not the case) at this point and time.

If you wanted to test at a higher CO2, try say the upper ranges, say a KH of 3 and pH of 6.2 or a CO2 of 57ppm. Then flush the bucket with tank water, wait for the pH to stabilize, say 30 minutes if the CO2/current in the bucket is very well mixed.

Now the KH is again 6 and the pH is 6.2 or so.........you think all the fish should be dead, maybe a few are stressed etc??

In almost all cases(I cannot think of any where it overestimates), the actual tank water UNDERESTIMATES the actual CO2 concentration. So we think there's more CO2 than there really is.

Few people have ever bothered to verify CO2 like they do pH calibration solutions, KH calibration solutions or NO3, PO4 test kits etc etc.......so they have no way of confirming the CO2 is some specific ppm. We can assume the CO2 is "good" by watching plants, fish etc and adjusting things slow and patient and methodically however also. So biological test vs chemical test. Our question is biological though..the chemical part adds more quantitative bound to the target in that specific tank that is doing well(thus a decent reference to compare to if we know the light/PAR/nutrients are independent etc).

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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