Archivarium 2004

[Rotem]

Hi all,

Tank description: 29g running for about 4 months. medium planted. 110w PC lights. Some CO2 injection but I'm sure it's too little for this tank. light bio-load.
pH: 7.2 KH: 8 GH: 8

So BGA sarted appearing this week. What should I do?
I do intend to beef up the CO2, and I started got some KNO3.
How much of KNO3 should I dose?
And what else should I do?

[Mike]

PH7, and KH 8 = 24ppm of Co.2 level OK.

More important, what is your water regime like ?

Water changes about 50% per week.

Nitrates no less than 5ppm. I usually keep mine higher cause of test kit discrepencies
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Tell it how it is!

[Rotem]

Well, pH is actually around 7.3 so you should look at the 7.2 or 7.4 line on the CO2 graph. That gives my under 15ppm of CO2.

Water change is around 25% every other week.

And I guess I need a nitrate kit.

[Mike]

Nitrate Kit is extremely important in planted tanks.

never dose kn03 without checking nitrate levels first.

BGA can be found in high nitrate conditions and low ones also.


get an accurate no3 kit, API, aquarium pharmaceuticals or sera are very good, and maybe a couple of others, depends where in the world you are.

don't bother with the tetra kits or hagan, no good for planted tanks. too wide scale and not good colour indicator

If you don't see plants pearling after a couple of hours, my guess is you are not adding enough co2, or enough traces?

Are you adding Potassium ? If not, you should be adding lots of it.
_________________
Tell it how it is!

[Rotem]

OK, how do I add potassium?

[Irons]

kno3 is a good source. Added K and N. All you need after that is some P. Which you usually get from flake/crumble foods.
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"... instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen," - about e-mail
Irons.

[mlody]

How to add KNO3 (Nitrate and Potassium) is as follows.

1 gram of KNO3 mixed with 50 gallons of water gives... (1g/189L)
2.1 ppm potassium (39%)
3.2 ppm Nitrate (61%)

so adding 1 gram of dry compound to a 29 gallon tank (110 liters) would be death for any fish in there. what I would recommend you do is take a container that you can store this chemical and mix 11 grams of KNO3 with 250 mL of water. With this mixture for each mL of the mixture it will raise your Nirtate level in the 29 gallon tank by .25 ppm. So to increase the Nitrate by 1 ppm per day, just add 4 mL of your mixture. This way it is likely that you will overdoes and it leaves you room for error. This also gives you .15 ppm of potassium per mL of the solution.


Some thing along the same lines...

Does anyone know a good place that sells KNO3, hopefully not online? I checked ACE hardware stores and they do not carry Green Light Stump remover. (The one brand which has only KNO3)
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"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
- Albert Einstein

[naclh2ofly]

Tip for all using KNO3 to dose K... you cannot reach ~20ppm K without seriously over dosing NO3... go to Fertilizer Calculator and do the math! Hit your target range for K first then use the same numbers to figure your NO3, bet you it will be ~ 5Xs to much.
KNO3 is great if you need NO3 BUT for K use K2SO4 or KCl. You will probably need to get K2SO4 on-line but KCl is often used in water softener systems, try Sears, Lowes, Home Depot etc.(make sure it is pure KCl). KCl is also in salt substitutes like Morton's Nu-Salt... Try Lowes, Home Depot or garden centers for KNO3(Green Light Stump Remover).
An important reminder; Don't forget to do weekly wcs(50%) to reset your tank...

Fred

[Rotem]

Anybody tried "Grant's Stump remove" available at Home-Depot?

[Irons]

Unless you have something that is directly sucking up K, why would you need any more than then N/K ratio in kno3. With KNO3, keeping your N up will keep your K up. If I add 1.5G of KNO3 to my 75, I'm adding 3.24 ppm Nitrate and 2.04 ppm Potassium. Any developing imbalances would be taken care of in the water changes.

I'm not using Grants, but Greenlight. Should be same stuff though.
_________________
"... instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen," - about e-mail
Irons.