# Dwarf Sag, Metricide/Easy Green Dosing, and Lighting



## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

New on here!! Been reading many posts for some time and finally joined. 

My dwarf sag is melting and I know some melting takes place when newly planted, but my other plants as you'll see are doing much better. Tank was cycled and currently been running 11 days with fish and plants. Just did 12g water change yesterday. 

Tank details: 40g breeder, 40+ lbs. CaribSea eco-complete planted substrate on top of 20 lbs black sand, Finnex planted+ 24/7 light on 24/7 cycle and it's 16 inches above substrate, easy green liquid fertilizer 2x weekly, Aqueon quietflow 30 and aqua-tech 10-20 filters, 13 zebra danio, 5 tetra glofish, 4 green cory cats, 4 amano shrimp, 1 mystery snail, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 20-maybe 40ppm nitrates from api test kit, 7.6 pH, kH is 80, gH is 180. I also just ordered Metricide 14. I threw out activator and calculated what to dose based on excel chart. 

Questions I have are as follows:
1. Why are dwarf sag melting as in pictures? I had 23 healthy plants and they look like crud now.

2. I plan to dose 2.75mL of Metricide after water changes and then 2.2mL other days of week with 1 day of no dosing. How does that sound?

3. What instrument should I dose with? Should I get a dropper from the store? I have 1g bottle of metricide. 

4. Are gloves necessary and will it hurt my anacharis still if I dose at other end of tank?

5. Are my other parameters and liquid fertilizer dosing good?

6. How is lighting on the 24/7 cycle? Is it too much light?

This is a loaded post, but I know these things are all woven together as is many things in an aquarium. Fish, shrimp, and snail are active, healthy, and happy. 

Thanks Everyone!!!


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## Raith (Jun 27, 2014)

I have never had success with dwarf sag, or anything rooted for that matter in eco-complete, I have used it for a number of years and while stems may root, and you'll need root tabs -- it all eventually goes awry. I have new, lush growths of dwarf sag from my dirted/sand capped tank to my EC tank, and while it's surviving, it hasn't thrived.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

I have Caribsea Peace River on top of Caribsea sand (both completely inert) and I have to prune my exploding dwarf sag weekly. I have it penned-in, with edging, to prevent it from spreading and overtaking my tank. I also have a high tech tank, which helps immensely. So, your substrate is fine and you need no root tabs (all nutrients can be supplied in the water column). It does take a while (month or two) for Darf Sag to get going.

From what I can see, your nutrients are fine with the possible exception of iron. The melting may be the initial transplanting shock. Although the dwarf sag will melt some when newly planted, I do see some possible iron deficiency and DS seems to like plenty of iron, IME. Some of your other plants appear to have the yellowing/transparency developing. It won’t hurt to increase iron a little. Easiest way may be to buy a small quantity of Seachem Iron and dose according to their instructions. Once plants are growing well, you can withdraw it to see if it makes any difference.

I also see no calcium in the ferts but, with your GH as high as it is (about 10 dGH), it seems unlikely that you are lacking it. However, do I see some leaf tips curling down? That’s usually a sign of calcium (sometimes magnesium) deficiency. Are you sure about the GH level being 180 ppm?

The Planted+ should be plenty of light for a low tech setup. It is best to place the light directly over dwarf sag. Since I don’t see any algae, I’m assuming that your light is either perfectly tuned or that it isn’t sufficient (doubtful). In fact, although we don’t want algae, it seems odd that you haven’t noted any and none seems to exist. Have you had any algae? 

The Metricide should help a lot. It will cause your Anacharis to struggle, but it may adapt. I now use it only as an algaecide, since I have pressurized CO2, and have it in a pump bottle so that I can simply pump the desired amount into the tank without spoons, caps or other measuring approaches. I think it best to rinse your hands if any contact is made with it, but gloves aren’t necessary.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Thanks Raith!!! Thanks Deanna!!!! Love the responses. Deanna, I was using a test strip for KH and GH. I should have known better, but I didn't know pH, KH, and GH are intertwined until more research today. Now I know. I have api test kit for pH and ammonia, nitrites, nitrates. Ordered a proper GH and KH test kit. Also ordered Seachem iron and iron test kit. Bought some bottles with pumps on them that do 2ml per pump so I won't have to worry about 1ml unused cat medicine syringe to dose anymore either. Everything comes in Thursday by 8pm so I will post some pictures once things start doing their jobs. Thanks!


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

Yup; test strips aren't very accurate. Reagent kits are much better. Be careful with the iron test. Seachem iron is in what is called a gluconate form. It is consumed very quickly. When you test, test within an hour of dosing.

pH and KH are intertwined. GH is not, but is more important. As you get deeper into the hobby, buy yourself a TDS pen (~$20). It measures all dissolved solids, such as what are in GH, KH and all other minerals in your tank. It will be useful in helping your fish. TDS is much more important than pH. A level below 300-400 is best. Many of us are down in the 100-200 area. Rare to be below 100, because you do need a minimum level of balanced minerals in your tank.

Most of us don't bother measuring ammonia or nitrites once our tanks are established, unless we anticipate a potential disruption. So, once you get a stable tank, you can leave those out of your regular testing.

In addition to GH. We do measure nitrates and phosphates (API kit ~$10) regularly.


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## Kaiede (Sep 11, 2017)

Funny that you mention Phosphates, Deanna. The thing that I didn’t learn until recently is that Easy Green is pretty low in the stuff. Not sure why they went that way with their mix, but it’s what they did.

Some of my plant issues were due to a lack of Phosphates, which a test helped me identify. I would personally recommend getting one if you are using Easy Green and having growth issues, IMO. It may not even be the issue, but it is worth checking and the test will be useful in the future. 

That said, how long have the plants been in the tank before the fish were added? I’ve had plants melt before bouncing back, but if they are getting the right nutrients it should be pretty clear if they are recovering.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

I have had plants in the tank for a day before adding fish. Cycled tank, water change and planted plants, then refilled tank. Put in fish in 2 stages over the next day and about 4-5 days later.

Thanks for all the information. I definitely will be investing in a TDS pen down the road. I will also get a phosphate test soon too. With it at 0.1% in the Easy Green, how could I calculate what my ppm of phosphate would be in my 40g breeder? I read to test iron within an hour, so thanks for the reminder. I also found this really cool looking planted tank, I'll attach picture to and was curious how long something like this takes and what might some of the plants might be? I know the carpet is monte carlo which I'm thinking of getting and making dwarf sag eventually a mid ground plant. Thoughts? I will post updated tank pic soon.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

I also read that plants will only grow as good as your weakest fertilizer so if I am low in phosphates, plants will stop using nitrogen and potassium until more phosphates are added. How true is this?


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Deanna,

I have not noticed any algae in this tank yet. I got GH and KH kit in and here's what I found. GH of tank water is 143.2ppm or 8 dGH and KH is 7 dKH. My tap water is 125.3ppm or 7 dGH and 5 dKH. Are these numbers good? Checking pH of water in tank and tap....back with results soon. Also, I ordered Flourish iron, and test kit, Flourish, and Flourish Phosphorus. I'm hoping to get missing elements from the Flourish and up the iron and phosphorus. I'll add in other water parameters along with my dosing schedule to see if it makes sense. Thanks again!!


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Deanna,

The following is the rest of my tank parameters: pH of tap water is 7.0 and tank is 7.8. Ammonia in tank and tap water are 0ppm. Nitrites are also 0ppm for tank and tap water. Nitrates are 80ppm for tank water and 0ppm for tap water. As I was gone for a few days and had a 2 plants die and a few others have older emersed leaves die, I think contributed to nitrates. I will be doing a 50% water change tomorrow, fill with conditioned water about 3/4 full and then do 50% change of that about 30 minutes later. Will then refill and check nitrates. If they are not 20ppm or less, I won't dose Easy Green tomorrow aka Saturday as it's past midnight by me. I also added more hornwort of 6+ stems that I have towards bottom from loosely tied on fishing weight as to not block light.....I have 3 bunches of it now: original bunch, original cuttings about 5 stems a week old or so, and new bunch in addition to all my other plants. Doesn't hornwort suck up nitrates well if you know? Thanks again for your thoughts on these things. I'll take any advice I can get to be better.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Here's dosing schedule. My day 1 will be Saturdays and will change water on day 7 aka Fridays. However with high nitrates, I will change water this Saturday and dose everything after water change and resume Friday changes as normal. 

Easy Green 4mL day 1 & day 4, Metricide 2.75mL day 1 & 2.2mL days 2-6, 4mL Flourish Iron days 1-6, Flourish 3mL day 1 & day 5, Flourish Phosphorous 2.5mL day 1 and day 4


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

Pwilly07 said:


> how could I calculate what my ppm of phosphate would be


You don’t have to calculate the phosphate level in your tank, the test kit will tell you what the level is. The problem with an all-in-one fertilizer is that, in order to reach desired levels of specific macro ferts (N, P or K), such as PO4 in this case, you will increase all other ferts to reach it. That’s not necessarily bad, unless you reach toxic ranges of the micros. We generally look for targeted ppm levels of the macros. NO3 usually ranges anywhere from 5-60 ppm, PO4 from 1-10 (I prefer >5 to inhibit GSA, but I have a different setup) and K in the same area as whatever your NO3 is (usually in the 20 ppm area). Keep in mind that you want to maintain a minimum level of these throughout the week (see below).



Pwilly07 said:


> I also read that plants will only grow as good as your weakest fertilizer so if I am low in phosphates, plants will stop using nitrogen and potassium until more phosphates are added. How true is this?


This is true. It is called Liebig’s Law of the minimum. Plants need all of the key nutrients they are designed to use. If one nutrient runs out, the plant stops, no matter how much of any other nutrient it gets. So, the objective, in fertilizing, is to make sure that there are enough nutrients floating around to avoid any one of them from running out. If you study the EI and PPS systems, these are designed to ensure the minimum levels, EI more than PPS when CO2 is injected.

This also applies to light and CO2, which are more important than fertilizers (assuming the minimum ferts are there – which is easy). Light drives the need for CO2 and ferts. If there is too much light (yours may be fine) in a low tech tank, such as yours, the little CO2 in there is consumed rapidly. So, the plants stop growing and become unhealthy, which is the perfect environment for algae. Add CO2, and the growth and health resume. Of course, with increased CO2, you now need to increase ferts to maintain a now-higher minimum requirement. The Metricide will add carbon that is usually derived from CO2. It won’t be nearly as plentiful as when you use pressurized CO2, but it is better than nothing.



Pwilly07 said:


> how long something like this takes


The tank image you showed is likely using pressurized CO2 and you could get growth like that within about a month or two. Without CO2, it would be very difficult unless knowledgeable balance of parameters is employed and the correct low tech plants are used. If that is your goal, I suggest that you begin considering getting a pressurized CO2 system.



Pwilly07 said:


> GH of tank water is 143.2ppm or 8 dGH and KH is 7 dKH. My tap water is 125.3ppm or 7 dGH and 5 dKH. Are these numbers good?


You also have to consider your fish. Do they like GH in the 8 dGH area (most will be fine)? The pH is a function of the KH and it is what it is, given your tap. The fish will contribute nitrates and phosphates from the food they eat and, yes, dying plants do as well. However, they do it differently than fertilizers do. You can add Purigen to your filter, which will help to dramatically reduce NO3 and PO4 that is the result of fish and plants. It will not affect any fertilizer you add. 

I wouldn’t do two 50% changes in a day. It may be too much for your fish. I’d do one 50% change two days in a row. 80 ppm NO3 won’t harm anything.

PS: use the edit link to put all your posts into one, rather than several in a row. It helps with clarity.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Yea I realized I was making too many posts haha so thanks for the heads up. Thanks for the detailed responses. On some responses, on other forums, I get random answers that do nothing to help me.
After one at least 50-60% change nitrates were down quite a bit to 20ppm so I take it that's fine. I ordered dry fert kit from GLA and plan on dosing them with EI method once my liquid ferts are gone or if more deficiencies come up. The website says you can just dose right into the tank. I wanted to know if that's accurate and if I should dose what's recommended since I have to save for pressurized CO2 and learn more about it. Should I dose more Metricide when dosing EI method? Should I use half the amount on the EI method on their website? Finally, 2 last things, I should keep dosing iron correct and should I dose micros and macros on different days like every other day? Appreciate the help!!


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

Yes; you can dry-dose those. I dissolve mine into pump bottles for easily measured dosing. All of the macros can be dissolved into one bottle and all the micros in another bottle. We all have different approaches to dosing frequency. I dose my PO4 and K weekly, right after my after my water change (I don’t need NO3). I dose my micros daily. Whichever way you go, try to keep the iron dosing on a different day than the PO4. This is why they generally recommend alternate-day dosing of macros and micros.

Now that your getting more sophisticated in this, go to this website: Rotala Butterfly | Planted Aquarium Nutrient Dosing Calculator

You can use it to determine your dosing levels based upon many options of your choosing. I just noticed that they’ve added a low-light/weekly regimen, so I would use that. Two things to consider when using this: 
1) Your tank does not contain the rated gallons of water due to other things in it that displace the water. Usually, taking 80-85% of the rated size is a good number. In your case, that’s ~32-34 gals.
2) After determining how much you will use, go to the “Accumulation Calculator” to see how it builds up, given your water change schedule. You may need to adjust the dosing based upon this.

I’d keep the Metricide at recommended levels. These are designed for the maximum growth that can reasonably be expected with low tech setups, regardless of how much fertilizer you pour in. remember that adding fertilizer does not increase growth once you reach the minimum level needed by the plants.

Keep the iron dosing going according to RotalaButterfly website levels.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Thanks for the help!!! I wanted to know how much approximately my plants will use up for each of the nutrients. Also, dry ferts just came in so I wondered if I should switch to them or not with just using metricide? I would like to dose macros and micros alternating days, but living in apartment, I flooded bathroom on last water change so 25%-30% is all I really can do unless it's necessary for 50% every week. I have a few plant identity questions so if you know what they are great! Also, very minor brown algae on a few amazon sword leaves. Nothing else, glass is spotless as is water. One thing I've noticed is I'm going through filter cartridges every 10 days or so, but they should last a month. Any reason for that? Here's the plants I know and pictures of a few I'm not sure about. 

I don't know what the one plant is. It's the plant between the moneywort 12-15 stems and hornwort 12-15 stems and not the anacharis to the left 3 stems. This is an older picture about 2 weeks ago as my wife is sleeping and tank is in bedroom. It may be rotala indica and there's about 10 stems. I also have anubias (2), java ferns 1 bigger plant and 3-4 small offspring around tank, red ludwigia(much healthier and growing better with current ferts and lighting) 3-4 stems, red flame sword 1 big plant, dwarf sag which is recovering from melt because of iron deficiency 6-8 plants, and these last two in the 2nd and 3rd picture that I'm unsure about.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

Pwilly07 said:


> I wanted to know how much approximately my plants will use up for each of the nutrients.


No one knows, with certainty, the uptake rates of plants on a generalized basis. Additionally, each nutrient is consumed at different rates. Just too many variables to give you anything useful. Best to use your test readings as a guide. 



Pwilly07 said:


> dry ferts just came in so I wondered if I should switch to them or not with just using metricide


Dose fertilizers as discussed above. Metricide is not a fertilizer. However, the Met may increase plant growth, which may require increasing the fertilizers (not highly likely in a low tech tank). Just keep your eye on the NO3 and PO4 readings as guide and index for the the non-testable ferts.



Pwilly07 said:


> I flooded bathroom on last water change so 25%-30% is all I really can do unless it's necessary for 50% every week.


Take a look at the Python water changing system to see if that would work in your situation. No, it’s not necessary to do 50% weekly. If you see your ferts rising too much, you may want to add a w/c during the week on occasion.



Pwilly07 said:


> One thing I've noticed is I'm going through filter cartridges every 10 days or so, but they should last a month. Any reason for that?


I assume that you mean the mechanical part (floss-type component getting dirty). May be plants sloughing of more detritus than they do when they are fully established, maybe overfeeding, etc. Hard to tell, but they seem to be doing their job. They do get dirty, but shouldn’t slow the flow down within reasonable limits. Are you changing them because they look dirty or are they actually clogging to the point of slowing the flow significantly?



Pwilly07 said:


> . It's the plant between the moneywort 12-15 stems and hornwort 12-15 stems and not the anacharis to the left 3 stems.


I’m not really sure what I’m looking at, but the stems to the right of the Bacopa look like Rotala (maybe Rotundifolia, not Indica, because the leaves seem too long)



Pwilly07 said:


> these last two in the 2nd and 3rd picture that I'm unsure about.


I don’t want to hazard a guess on the 2nd picture. It’s not formed well enough for my guesswork. I’ve never liked large-leaf plants so, without looking it up, I can’t comment on the 3rd picture. Perhaps another member can identify them.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Thanks for more help!! You've posted more than everyone else together on anything I've had questions on. The blinking red light came on so I changed it the next day and it was dirty and reducing flow a bit. I should have just ran it through some tank water in a bucket and put cartridge back into filter. A least I change cartridges about a week to 10 days apart so I don't lose my cycle. I think it is Rotundifolia and the other two I will have to send better pics when they grow more. Noticing some tiny holes on a few plants here and there so I'm starting dry ferts tomorrow after water change. My biggest issue with water changes is my faucets in apartment don't have threads so I couldn't attach anything to hose that would attach to faucets to work. Found a thing called a water bandit that will hold to threadless faucet and has other end to hose. Picking up from Walmart Monday. Only 4.29, but I'm hoping it's going to work. Hornwort is growing like mad which I'm wondering how much faster it will grow with no potassium deficiencies. I'll let it grow nice and large to filter water until other plants grow and then trim back. Also growing some plants emersed from seeds as a foreground plant. Will update on those too. 
Here's a picture of what they will look like. Any idea what it could be? It's supposed to be a ground cover. Thanks again!


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

Here's some pictures of the plant from seeds I'm growing. How big until they go into aquarium? Any idea what they are yet?


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## Letsfish (Jul 11, 2017)

I went to Amazon looking for Metricide and found it 1/gal $22.and some change.Someone in the replies mentioned that it needed some sort of catalyst that didn`t come with it.


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## Pwilly07 (Aug 3, 2018)

What are plants that are good for lowering nitrates in plants tank? I have hornwort growing well, will it help? What others are good or better as I already change 30-50% water weekly and the nitrates still creep up to borderline high/ high. Thanks!!


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