# Seachem Dosing Calendar



## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

In my medium light, medium CO2 120 gallon with lots of stems I found I had to end up almost doubling the dose of Seachem Trace. I also spread out trace and iron over each day of the week (same weekly volume as would be added with their instructed biweekly dosing, just divided by 7).

I forget the ppm their macros add, but nitrate and phosphate tests of your tank would be informative.


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## Busybeeerc (Apr 3, 2017)

Axelrodi202 said:


> In my medium light, medium CO2 120 gallon with lots of stems I found I had to end up almost doubling the dose of Seachem Trace. I also spread out trace and iron over each day of the week (same weekly volume as would be added with their instructed biweekly dosing, just divided by 7).
> 
> I forget the ppm their macros add, but nitrate and phosphate tests of your tank would be informative.


Hmm. My nitrate levels are really fixed between 10-20 ppm. Phosphate for the last 4 months is 2ppm (these parameters were tested with API tests)
I will give 1 more week before making any changes. In addition to the well growing Rotala Macandra there is a huge improvement in the dwarf baby tears (great health leaves and increase in the mass). I got these baby tears before seachem dosing and they were almost gone but now there is huge improvement. All over in my anubias, java fern and some other plants I got some holes brown black edges twisted leaves which mainly points out for some deficiency (potasssium?) since I use florish, flourish trace and flourish advance I believe I have the minimum amount to overcome some micro deficiency.

Will see. May be increasing the trace can be helpful as you suggested. Since nitrate and phosphate are in OK levels I thought to increase the potassium.

Images of some plants are:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/9...thesis-reflect-healthy-tank.html#post10182786


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Your nitrates and phosphates should be sufficient in that case. Hard to tell from the photos, but low potassium is possible. I find about 3 ppm daily from a supplementary potassium source alone (not counting the potassium from KNO3 & KH2PO4) is good. You can get a gauge of the ppm you're adding daily with each dose using the Rotala butterfly calculator.

I find Flourish to be a redundant product, as its components are represented in the various other Seachem products.


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## Busybeeerc (Apr 3, 2017)

Axelrodi202 said:


> Your nitrates and phosphates should be sufficient in that case. Hard to tell from the photos, but low potassium is possible. I find about 3 ppm daily from a supplementary potassium source alone (not counting the potassium from KNO3 & KH2PO4) is good. You can get a gauge of the ppm you're adding daily with each dose using the Rotala butterfly calculator.
> 
> I find Flourish to be a redundant product, as its components are represented in the various other Seachem products.


Thanks a lot for the rotala calculator. havent heard about it before. great tool but how accurate is it? According to that my main macros are way too short ) Looks like can double them. One question should I input the weekly amount I add to my tank to see how close I am to other dosing methods? I will ignore the EI results because they are way too much based on what I add and based on my 20% water change.

Thanks again


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Your macros are too short according to what? You can grow great plants with far less than EI levels. I get great growth maintaining water column levels of 5 and 1 ppm for nitrate and phosphate respectively.

When calculating/comparing dosing levels I prefer to look at a daily level. But such numbers are rough targets, not gospel. Pay attention to your plants. After you change dosing, do they look better or the same? Has pearling increased or decreased?


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Busybeeerc said:


> Thanks a lot for the rotala calculator. havent heard about it before. great tool but how accurate is it? According to that my main macros are way too short ) Looks like can double them. One question should I input the weekly amount I add to my tank to see how close I am to other dosing methods? I will ignore the EI results because they are way too much based on what I add and based on my 20% water change.
> 
> Thanks again


the IE levels are meant to take guessing out of the game(too much, too little??) and just dose so you will never have a deficency. Stick with EI and do a weekly 50% wc and you know you will be spot on and cannot have a nutrient deficency. As far as seachem goes I once used Seachem and found their dosing to be well just too much to remember and have to dose for my liking so I switched to nilocG EI ferts and could not be happier. Just dose micros and macros on alternating days each 3 times a week and done. DIY EI Liquid Fertilizer| Premium Aquarium Fertilizer | NilocG Aquatics No more of having to remember did I dose this or that and what not. To give you an idea of what it takes to have to dose Seachem products to ensure you have them all covered this is the schedule or something similar you need to follow. But like I said just follow EI and you know you will be covered as far as nutrients go and can then look at other factors like light and or co2 if using co2. 


Bump: One other thing to add usually brown and or black spots means too little or much light. What kind of light are you using? Keep in mind if you are blasting the light and not doing co2 well the plant cannot keep up due to the added fuel(light) as their just simply not enough co2 and therefore nutrient consumption will be minimal as well. In my mind the light is the most important aspect to look at before anything else.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

EI is great if your day job is planted tanks, but for the rest of us overloading your tank with nutrients is not the best idea if you would like to not get your hands wet for a few days without the tank crashing.


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Axelrodi202 said:


> EI is great if your day job is planted tanks, but for the rest of us overloading your tank with nutrients is not the best idea if you would like to not get your hands wet for a few days without the tank crashing.




Not following as my day job sure is not planted tanks and a weekly 50% wc to ensure nutrients get cleaned out seems to work for me. Agree that usually full levels of EI are not needed and like myself dose a little less say 2/3 EI as far as micros goes but not sure how dosing EI causes a tank crash if you are doing the weekly wc. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Busybeeerc (Apr 3, 2017)

clownplanted said:


> the IE levels are meant to take guessing out of the game(too much, too little??) and just dose so you will never have a deficency. Stick with EI and do a weekly 50% wc and you know you will be spot on and cannot have a nutrient deficency. As far as seachem goes I once used Seachem and found their dosing to be well just too much to remember and have to dose for my liking so I switched to nilocG EI ferts and could not be happier. Just dose micros and macros on alternating days each 3 times a week and done. DIY EI Liquid Fertilizer| Premium Aquarium Fertilizer | NilocG Aquatics No more of having to remember did I dose this or that and what not. To give you an idea of what it takes to have to dose Seachem products to ensure you have them all covered this is the schedule or something similar you need to follow. But like I said just follow EI and you know you will be covered as far as nutrients go and can then look at other factors like light and or co2 if using co2.
> 
> 
> Bump: One other thing to add usually brown and or black spots means too little or much light. What kind of light are you using? Keep in mind if you are blasting the light and not doing co2 well the plant cannot keep up due to the added fuel(light) as their just simply not enough co2 and therefore nutrient consumption will be minimal as well. In my mind the light is the most important aspect to look at before anything else.


Thanks for the suggestions. I am exactly following the chart (you posted) for the last 2 weeks. Already have all seachem products. I have a clear difference in plant growth. Since my tank is a 10G I guess they will last a long time. After that I will switch to Nilco (as you suggested). My lights are 72 led (60 white 12 blue) and I have them on for 8 h and the CO2 is 2 BPS. The light is i the middle of the 10G and 1.5-2 inc above the water level. Last week I also had the original aqueon top with the T8 floramax together with my led fixture. I taught that it could be too much light for the sytem and left the T8 and use the led only.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

clownplanted said:


> Not following as my day job sure is not planted tanks and a weekly 50% wc to ensure nutrients get cleaned out seems to work for me. Agree that usually full levels of EI are not needed and like myself dose a little less say 2/3 EI as far as micros goes but not sure how dosing EI causes a tank crash if you are doing the weekly wc.


I'm glad it works for you, but many (including myself) have spent years struggling with this method. Part of the problem is that many fail to note the part about adjusting levels to their tank as needed instead of blindly going with full EI. 

But even a 50% weekly water change is not enough to prevent nutrient buildup over time. And all those nutrients in the water make a ripe recipe for algae as soon as something goes wrong (dead fish, plants suddenly deteriorate in health for some reason, etc.). Notice how many EI users are constantly battling algae. Personally I prefer to focus on growing the plants and arranging them into a nice scape than pulling out hair algae every 3 days.


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## Busybeeerc (Apr 3, 2017)

Axelrodi202 said:


> I'm glad it works for you, but many (including myself) have spent years struggling with this method. Part of the problem is that many fail to note the part about adjusting levels to their tank as needed instead of blindly going with full EI.
> 
> But even a 50% weekly water change is not enough to prevent nutrient buildup over time. And all those nutrients in the water make a ripe recipe for algae as soon as something goes wrong (dead fish, plants suddenly deteriorate in health for some reason, etc.). Notice how many EI users are constantly battling algae. Personally I prefer to focus on growing the plants and arranging them into a nice scape than pulling out hair algae every 3 days.


Its a valid point. I also dont like the idea of 50% water change. Even 20% is sometimes a lot (even for my 10G  )

I saw a post on aquatic plant central by "Left C" he calculated the amount of Macros (Nitrogen , phosphorus and Potassium) as the same strenght as the seachem dosing to replace the macros with the similar amount as shown on the chart. Seachem Dosing Calculator/Chart - Fertilizing - Aquatic Plant Central (check third post)

According to his calculations:

The following dosing solutions will be practically the same strength as Seachem's macronutrient products according to the online calculators. You then go by Seachem's recommended dosing amounts on the calculator.

Dosing Solutions
- Add 62.2 grams or 11⅛ tsp of KNO3 to 500 mL of distilled water for F. Nitrogen Substitute
- Add 3.5 grams or ¾ tsp of KH2PO4 to 500 mL of distilled water for F. Phosphorus Substitute
- Add 51.0 grams or 8½ tsp of K2SO4 to 500 mL of distilled water for F. Potassium Substitute*

*(This amount approaches the maximum solubility of K2SO4 of 12 grams per 100 mL of distilled water. You will probably need to shake the container each time prior to dosing.)

This is another possibility to try and play around to reach your tanks need. So then we will not need to damp all nutrients and do a heavy water change at the end.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Yes, macronutrients are very easy to DIY. The salts generally have good solubility (though it's still a good idea to look up the solubilities at room temperature). If mixing your own make sure you have true DI water (no or very low TDS). K2SO4 is generally tricky to mix, so may be better to dilute the solution and recalculate the dosage volume to get your target ppm. 

However for trace nutrients, I would rather buy premade solutions then go out and buy a dozen different mineral salts in huge packages that would last me many lifetimes, or very messy yellow ones (basically any iron compound). The several liter Flourish trace and iron bottles are quite fairly priced.


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