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Need Help!! Phosphate readings off the chart!
Hi there
Ditch one of your tubes, 3.5 watts per gallon is a tad on the bright side. Try 2 WPG or near to there. Your co2 is not keeping up (20ppm) with this ammount of light. Maybe cut an hour out of the photo period aswell. Ditch the activated carbon aswell, no use for it in a planted tank. You might be TOO RELIGIOUS with your maintenance routine , Are you adding Nitrates back to the tank after water changes? If your N is 0-5ppm then your plants are starving. There is a relationship between N & P, I would say that your Nitrates are being used up too quickly therefore leaving the available Phosphate to float around the water column... IME Root stix are a disaster, this may be adding to the phosphate levels you report. Try and vacuum some of them out. If your tank is only 6 weeks old you might want to give it a bit of time until you have some mulm build up before seeing any good signs in the plants! You will have to start dosing Macro ferts in the water column as I think your gravel may still be a bit sterile for plants to inhabit happily. You must start adding ferts asap, your plants are starving. Go to the pharmacy/drug store/chemist and buy the following: But before adding ferts, ALWAYS make sure that your co2 levels are high and are stable. Add another bottle if you have to, according to Tom Barr you want to shoot for about 30ppm in the morning and try and keep it there, if you are at 20ppm in the evening this would be ok. Salt Petre (Pottassium Nitrate or KNO3) dose 1 level teaspoon twice a week. This will take care of Pottassium aswell as Nitrates. No-Salt contains Pottassium Chloride and could be added as an extra dose but probably not necessary. You can get fleet enema as a phosphate source (when your levels come down), dose 3 drops twice weekly. You can use Epsom salts as a Magnesium source, Or dolomite pills/powder as a calcium & Magnesium source at the correct ratios. Im not sure about the dosing quantity for this one, I let the plants indicate a calcium deficiency by looking at the leaves on Hygro Polysperma, they get "wrinkled". Of course not to forget your micro ferts which can be bought at any LFS, take your pick, I've used Kent and Sera ferts and they seem to work well! Hows that for a long winded post Cam, I had to thank you for that explanation... I've saved it because I want to use it later, it will add to my pile of useful info I've collected over the years... and Nemo, you're post has also been saved....Thanks. -- RedForeman ©® Sorry about the troll, the ball is rolling there.... |
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