GardenBanter.co.uk - PMDD Question

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 10:27:21 -0600, "Robert Tucker"
wrote:

I am sure noone has ever asked this question here (kidding).

Does anyone have a recipe for PMDD and where to get the ingredients (such as
how the recipe translates to something I can buy at Wal-mart)? Believe it
or not, this town has NO decent pet stores to purchase stuff at. The only
thing in town is the obligitory pet store at the mall.

Well you may or may not be able to get the Potassium Nitrate at
Wal-Mat, and you may or may not need the Nitrate. You want to test
your Nitrates before you add more. As for the rest, the trace mix is
the hardest. It seems that the Plantex is very hard to find in the
United States. Potassium Sulfate can be found at
http://www.litemanu.com Epsom Salts can be found at Wal-Mart that
adds the Magnesium. You can also pick up Boric Acid at Wal-Mart for
the Boron.

That said I have found that for any tank with around or over 2 watts
per gallon and CO2 injection that the PPMD mixture (Sears and Conlin)
formula doesn't quite cut it. I have mixed up a batch of trace mix
using the Plantex and Boric Acid. I add Nitrates as needed
separately, the same for Phosphates and Potassium. I add these as dry
powders most of the time but always for the Potassium as it's
impossible to make a stock mix that will add enough Potassium without
using 100's of ml of mix. I also use Seachem Flourish as my main
fertilizer. Once in a while when I have a hard time with my Iron I
will use Seachem Flourish Iron. Every tank is different. You need to
adjust your ferts to your tank for best results. I know I'm dosing
about 5x the recommended amount of Flourish and about the same on the
trace mix.

And don't forget that the Sears and Conlin paper and mix was
designed with the idea that limiting Phosphates would limit algae.