"Dave M. Picklyk" wrote in message . ca...
Wow, I've been only dosing every water change (once a week). I've got about
33ppm C02 going right now with 2wpg in a 15 gallon wide (shallow tank).
Dosing say, every 2nd day or so wouldn't be too much iron?--algae spurts? I
guess I could test for iron levels every other day to actually see. I guess
we want chelated iron levels about what?--.3 to .35ppm?

Dave.

Good CO2 and light.
Well then the macro and micro nutrients are all that's left.
Here's an easy cheap way to do this and keep them in a good range.

For your tank, dosing 2x a week would be about right and relatively
easy/cheap.

What you'll need:
Traces- you got that.
KNO3- stump remove, I use Grant's or Cooke's branc.
K2SO4- potash of sulfur, I used Green All brand
KH2PO4- I get this from www.litemanu.com and you can get all three
from them also.

So the routine goes like this:
Twice a week add:

Add 1/8 teaspoon of KNO3
Add 1 rice grain's worth of KH2PO4
4mls of Trace mix.

Once a week after water change:

Add 1/4 teaspoon of K2SO4
Dechlorinator.

Do 50% weekly water changes, add all the 4 nutrients back, 1/2 way
through the week add the KNO3, KH2PO4 and traces.

That's it.

Try and tell me what you think after 3 weeks.

Before you do the water changes, trim the plants, scrub off any algae
from the glass, trim any algae off plants etc. Then do the water
change.

The above routine will give you about 7-8ppm of NO3 after each dose
and enough K and PO4, Fe etc.

The weekly water changes keep the nutrients from getting too high and
the dosing keeps things from getting too low.

It resets the tank each week.

Just keep up on the CO2 and you'll be fine with this routine.
No, algae will not be a problem if the plants are growing well.
The best way to deal with algae is to have well growing plants.
So give the plants what they need. If the plant suffer, the algae will
creep in.
So you recheck the CO2 first, then do a 50% water change and add the
nutrients back in.

Regards,
Tom Barr