Dosing plants with NPK home compunds
 

Hi,
As part of my effort to save my Amazon swords, I think my tank lacks some
Nitrogen and Potassium.
After a short visit to the plant nursery I finally selected Jobes Spikes and
some liquid fertilizer - Yes for home plants!
The Spikes made of:
N - 6%
P2O5 - 2% (trying to keep phosphate as low as I can, not that I have any
Algae problems...)
Potassium 3%
And Iron 1% (EDTA) Which I doubt will have any effect, Since it is not
chelated

The liquid is made of:
NPK all 7%
I still need to look for KNO3 and other 'hydroponics' related compounds.
Does anyone have any good experience with NPK home compounds ???
10x

Amit

Dosing plants with NPK home compunds
 

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 22:31:44 +0200, "Amit" wrote:

Hi,
As part of my effort to save my Amazon swords, I think my tank lacks some
Nitrogen and Potassium.
After a short visit to the plant nursery I finally selected Jobes Spikes and
some liquid fertilizer - Yes for home plants!
The Spikes made of:
N - 6%
P2O5 - 2% (trying to keep phosphate as low as I can, not that I have any
Algae problems...)
Potassium 3%
And Iron 1% (EDTA) Which I doubt will have any effect, Since it is not
chelated

The spikes are probably fine, especially since they will be buried and
won't dump their nutrients directly into the water.

The liquid is made of:
NPK all 7%

DANGER!!!! In most house-plant liquid fertilizers, the N is in the
form of Urea, which is basically ammonia and is highly toxic. In
addition to the toxicity issues, adding N in the form of ammonia (or
urea) will often result in algae problems.



Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

Dosing plants with NPK home compunds
 

I know....
I didn't see any traces in the labels about the N in the form of ammonia (or
urea).... However I mixed 20ml....with about 60 ml of water and added this
into my 100gallon - very carefully.....
No stress signs on fish and everything is looking ok - Yet....
The big problem is verifying how the compounds are mixing in the water and
whether they have an effect or not.....

Amit
"Chuck Gadd" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 22:31:44 +0200, "Amit" wrote:

Hi,
As part of my effort to save my Amazon swords, I think my tank lacks some
Nitrogen and Potassium.
After a short visit to the plant nursery I finally selected Jobes Spikes
and
some liquid fertilizer - Yes for home plants!
The Spikes made of:
N - 6%
P2O5 - 2% (trying to keep phosphate as low as I can, not that I have any
Algae problems...)
Potassium 3%
And Iron 1% (EDTA) Which I doubt will have any effect, Since it is not
chelated

The spikes are probably fine, especially since they will be buried and
won't dump their nutrients directly into the water.

The liquid is made of:
NPK all 7%

DANGER!!!! In most house-plant liquid fertilizers, the N is in the
form of Urea, which is basically ammonia and is highly toxic. In
addition to the toxicity issues, adding N in the form of ammonia (or
urea) will often result in algae problems.



Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

Dosing plants with NPK home compunds
 

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 11:06:22 +0200, "Amit" wrote:

I didn't see any traces in the labels about the N in the form of ammonia (or
urea)....

If it doesn't state that the N is in the form of Nitrate, I'd bet it's
in ammonia/urea form. It is the preferred / most common form of N
used for terrestrial plants.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

Dosing plants with NPK home compunds
 

Amit,

Not to sound too strong but,

I would suggest next time, take the plants out of the tank, and start
experimenting with them outside, in another tank. You said you had fish in
your tank. These are living things, and you are adding something that you
dont know how it would react. Maybe it can kill all your fish.

Take care


"Chuck Gadd" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 11:06:22 +0200, "Amit" wrote:

I didn't see any traces in the labels about the N in the form of ammonia
(or
urea)....

If it doesn't state that the N is in the form of Nitrate, I'd bet it's
in ammonia/urea form. It is the preferred / most common form of N
used for terrestrial plants.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

Dosing plants with NPK home compunds
 

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 20:31:44 UTC, "Amit" wrote:

And Iron 1% (EDTA) Which I doubt will have any effect, Since it is not
chelated

Actually, iron EDTA _is_ chelated. EDTA is a powerful and widely used
chelating agent. However, if you run an iron test, you won't detect any!
EDTA binds the iron so tightly that standard simple tests can't see it.
The plants will get it, though (I believe).

Supplements made for aquaria seem to use the weaker chelating agent HEDTA,
which keeps the iron from precipitating but doesn't frustrate the test
kits.


The liquid is made of:
NPK all 7%
I still need to look for KNO3 and other 'hydroponics' related compounds.
Does anyone have any good experience with NPK home compounds ???

You can make your own NPK and trace element solutions, and I do, from
chemicals available at any chemical supply house. And then you'll know
exactly what you're dosing the plants with. But it's expensive and hardly
worth the trouble unless you have geeky ideas of what's fun. Worse, the
moment you buy anything from a chemical supply house, your name will go
into a government terrorist database (parse that phrase as you wish to)
even if they consent to sell to you, which is increasingly unlikely,
especially for anything-nitrate. Unless you're already in the database,
you probably don't want to do this.



--
Dan Drake

http://www.dandrake.com