"laz" wrote in message
hlink.net...

In addition, you need a lot more macronutrients and micronutrients than
you're putting in there. I see that your NO3 is 0. I aim for 10-20 ppm
NO3,
which gives me less algae problems than 5-10 ppm. I also add 20 ppm or
so
of
potassium from K2SO4 per week. I suggest doing the same. It's better to
dose
the nutrients from separate bottles than from a combined PMDD solution.
It
would also be helpful to add some phosphate, but only when you've sorted
out
the other nutrients. I try to keep mine at not less than 1.0 ppm. As for
mic
ronutrients, I add 1 mL of Flourish Iron per day to my 30-gal. tank, as
well
as about 2x the recommended dose of Tropica Master Grow. That's several
times more than what you're adding. It seems to me that the 2 mL of
Flourish
that you're adding per week is very low, almost insignificant.

Here is where my confusion comes to the picture.
Allow me to quote from the krib:

"But, to get started, for each ten gallons, try around 1/12 ml of PMDD a
day
(roughly 2 drops). A 29 gallon tank would then get 1/4 ml a day (roughly 6
drops). If you don't do many partial water changes, dose less. If you have
a
"high tech", densely planted, CO2 injected, VHO lit tank, you might want
to
double the dose to 1/6 ml of PMDD per 10 gallons a day (roughly 4 drops).
"

You guys talking about many many cc of fertilizer, PPMD, Fluorish, Fluoris
Iron, additional KNO3, K2SO4, Magnezium,
I started my dosing according the Krib guys, and slowly increased the
doses,
but I have to admit what you are telling me make more sense

Well, I'm not an expert on PMDD. I don't know what the chemical analysis of
the final PMDD mixture is. I was just assuming it was comparable to TMG. In
any case, I think you should be dosing enough PMDD to get a NO3 reading of
around 10 ppm. I just went over that PMDD recipe page on The Krib, and it
seemed rather conservative to me. It was written in 1997. I think hobbyists
were more conservative about fertilizing back then. While others may
disagree, it is my opinion that being conservative is what will get you in
trouble in the first place. The PMDD recipe is based on the premise that
limiting phosphate will make all your algae disappear. But many hobbyists,
including myself, don't believe that that is the case. I think the limiting
nutrient should be the light, not the phosphorus. That's why I try to
"saturate" my plants with every other nutrient they need so they would be
able to grow as fast as possible. In my 30-gal. highly-lit tank, I have
little algae, and no herbivores.

Anyway, what I would do is figure out exactly how much I need to add of the
potassium, nitrate, and traces to obtain the recommended levels. I suggest
making a solution. I don't know what the point of using both Flourish and
PMDD is. If you have Flourish, then just use that as your trace supplement,
along with Flourish Iron. I'd say it's better than the PMDD trace mixture.
And just add the KNO3 and (KCl or K2SO4) separately. You will probably
eventually need to add phosphate. If so, then try searching the Google
archive for ideas on PO4 sources. I got some KH2PO4 from www.litemanu.com.
__
Alex R
pcalex (at) hotpop.com