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Old 09-03-2005, 09:35 AM
 
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Plant tissue.

Over a 3-9 month peroid, large amounts of cuttings are removed from the
tank.

Just like a CO2 enriched tank, except slower...........hence smaller
amounts dosed less frequently.
Higher Ca is less of an issue, K+ also helps and can become limiting,
we can add CaCO3 etc for Ca and KH to the gravel(eg Onyx sand).

The two box model:
Nutrients (Fish food, organic or inorganic KNO3 etc) in = plant
biomass/filter cleaning out.

As more nutrients are needed to maintain growth rates with CO2 and more
light, the bacteria can not process and break down the organic nutrient
waste fast enough and build up occurs.
Then you get algae.

So we add inorganic nutrients like KNO3 and other inorganic readily
bioavailable nutrients.
While slower growth rates in non CO2 tanks are slow enough to supply
many plants, fish food is hardly balanced for plant health and needs in
many species. It'll do okay, but a few small dosing changes will
greatly improve a non CO2 tank.

Adding SeaChem Equilbrium of a mix of MgSO4/CaCl2/K2SO4 etc and some
traces can help if added 1-2x a week at small amounts.

Try it and see. It takes more time than CO2 enriched tanks to see it,
but it will help and you should be able to see an improvement soon.

Regards,
Tom Barr