"Pete" wrote in message
...


Didn't have time to read it all i'm afraid, but a couple of points -
I've got a 100 UK gall tank (about 77 UK galls H2O) and I use more
like 5 bubbles CO2 per second - I was using about twice that but then
read an article about not letting the spray-bar output from the filter
ripple the water surface too much (a little is good, like a heat-haze
on the road). I turned my spray-bar down a little and my CO2 use
dropped by nearly half !!
I also have a wet/dry filter which looses a little CO2.
Tap water here is a little under 8 and the pH in my tank is around 6.5

If you head over to http://www.barrreport.com take a look at Tom
Barr's EI (Estimative Index) dosing regime.
I started off with most of the plant products that Seachem make and it
was costing a fortune - I found using the dry ferts (Greg Watson etc)
resulted in even more growth - and dose as directed using EI. If you
subscribe, you can get hold of Nutri-Calc which will tell you what to
dose and how often.
For a 55 US gallon tank it suggests-
5/8 tsp (3.15g) KNO3
1/4 tsp (1.44g) K2SO4
5/32 (!) tsp (.89g) KH2PO4
1.5 tsp (8.15g) MgSO4
All the above 3 x per week (eg Mon, weds, fri)
3/16 tsp (.55g) CSM+B
3 x week
(eg tues,thurs, sat)
Sunday is your day off
This regime does require that you change 50% of your tank water per
week.
If you read the article it describes the reasoning behind it.
The beauty is that you don't need to use test kits which unless you
buy Lamotte or similar are not that accurate. In particlar, you'll
never get a meaningful result for chelated Fe, because if the plants
need it they'll use it quickly then there's none in the tank, so if
you have 0.1ppm Fe in the morning, you may have 0.0ppm Fe in the
afternoon - this is not an issue with EI.
From what I remember, the addition of peat will give false readings
when trying to estimate pH/CO2 ppm.
Not sure about the play sand - it may or may not contain unwanted
stuff - I don't know.
If you live in the UK, I can tell you where I got all my pressurised
CO2 stuff.

I've had spectacular results with EI, but I do have an algae issue.
I'm pretty certain this is not due to EI, which I have only been using
for 1 month.

Good Luck!!
Pete

Hi Pete from another Pete :-)

I'm in the UK, and I'm starting to think about co2 for my 400ltr, so fire
away with the links.

Was it mail order ?

Peter