# Seachem Nitrogen Dosing and Ideal Nitrate Level



## Choco (Dec 8, 2007)

I have this tiny 3g tank that is quite very heavily planted (http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/t...m/88786-natural-filterless-nano-lots-pic.html and http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/nano-aquariums/61015-natural-filterless-nano-tank-2.html)

since there are no feeding, naturally I will need macro nutrient for the plant to grow. I use seachem nitrogen, and the instruction suggest 2.5ml per 40gallon (2x per week), which means for my tank size, I should dose less than 0.2ml @ 2x per week.

However, i found that extremely inadequate, and the plants show obvious sign of deficiency using the recommended dosage.
So I am wondering what would be a more realistic dosage to ensure the plant get the nutrient they need, but at the same time, safe for the inhabitant (2 shrimps, 1 just started carry eggs :tongue

The instruction said to use the following formula to measure nitrate level -> 0.25vn=m (v= volume of tank in gallon, n= desire nitrogen increase, m=volume of dosage in ml) 
What is the ideal nitrate level in a planted plants? (The tank constantly measured 0 nitrate right now)

Thanks for the help!!


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## Choco (Dec 8, 2007)

btw, before I put in the shrimps, i used to overdose the seachem nitrogen randomly at 5-20x the recommended dosage, so all the plants seems fine and had good growth > like this









However, now that I've added livestock in there, I don't want to randomly dose nutrients that could end up killing the shrimp in there.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

See the non CO2 water column article on my web site, it will give you a general rate to use, you might use it at 3x that rate if...........you use Excel, since the HC will take over most things unless you trim it back aggressively.

Cherry shrimp are tough as nails, you will not kill them with KNO3.
Not unless you get up at the 100-150ppm or higher range. 

For CO2 enriched tanks, there is an increase of growth by 10-25X depending on species.

So you can take that figures and divide by 10/20X etc, but you can also only dose once a week or skip a week here and there to reduce it back down.
The frequency can be less since the rate is also less.
So daily or 2-3x a week is not required.

Here is such a tank using the non CO2 water column method:










Adding ADA As or MS to such a tank will make it it even easier, and you could error on the lower side for water column dosing and get away with even more flexibilty and better growth.

Try that on the next nano you do.

Regards, 
Tom barr


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