EI PMDD dosing amounts

My PMDD (Poor Man's Dosing Drops) recipe for EI fertilising is:

Sunday - 50% water change, change Drop Checker, renew one 3L yeast reactor bottle
Monday - 1/2 tsp. KNO3, 1/16 tsp. KH2PO4, 1/4 tsp. K2S04
Tuesday - 1/4 tsp AquaEssentials TRACE ELEMENTS MIX
Wednesday - 1/2 tsp. KNO3, 1/16 tsp. KH2PO4, 1/4 tsp. K2S04
Thursday - 1/4 tsp AquaEssentials TRACE ELEMENTS MIX
Friday - 1/2 tsp. KNO3, 1/16 tsp. KH2PO4, 1/4 tsp. K2S04
Saturday - 1/4 tsp AquaEssentials TRACE ELEMENTS MIX

This is based on having approx. 30ppm of CO2 and over 3 WPG lighting.

KNO3 – Potassium Nitrate: Provides N and K.
KH2PO4 – Monopotassium phosphates: Provides P and K.
K2SO4 – Potassium sulphate: Provides K.

I have also read from a number of sources that for a general hi-tech setup, you are aiming for:
CO2 30ppm
NO3 10 - 30ppm
K+ 10 - 30 ppm
PO4 1 - 2 ppm
Fe 0.2 - 0.5 ppm
Mg 10 - 15 ppm
Ca 10 - 15 ppm

I believe I will have to add more Iron (therefore Trace Mix) as I have alot of red plants, and also more calcium as some of my plants (like monoselenium) need a bit more than usual of this element.

As you can see I dont dose magnesium seperately as the trace mix from AE has enough for me.

My PO4 dosing is intentionally lower than normal (it should be 1/8 tsp.) as I am trying to get rid of some algae issues.

I should also mention, that you dont HAVE to mix the ingredients in bottles before hand.

I just use a glass, fill it with water from the aquarium, then add either my NPK or trace mix to it, stir until dissolved, then pour over the surface.

P.S. dose BEFORE lights on, so its all there and dispersed for the plants when the lights come on.

Theres no magnesium in Aquaessentials trace mix. Your mixing that up with Manganese. To dose magnesium use Magnesium Sulphate a.k.a. Epsom salts.

hmmmm, quite right I see :/

I wonder how essential it is then, as my recipe is based on alot of other sources around the wonderful Internet (!?)

I notice AE do supply a magnesium sulphate, so obviously poeple out there are dosing it.

Cardnim wrote:

hmmmm, quite right I see :/

I wonder how essential it is then, as my recipe is based on alot of other sources around the wonderful Internet (!?)

I notice AE do supply a magnesium sulphate, so obviously poeple out there are dosing it.

Well it is a macro nutrient, so it is important. It all depends on your water. If you have soft water I'd dose magnesium. If you have hard water then you might have enough magnesium already, but the water might be hard because it has loads of calcium lacking magnesium. I'd dose magnesium anyway. You can get it easily at a chemist as Epsom salts.

Hey Cardnim, thanks for taking the time to post. Just out of curiosity what is the size of the tank that you are dosing. This will give me a better idea of how much a 1/2 tsp of KNo3 will treat.

I like your regime of fert dosing but I'm afraid that I would get lazy and may skip a dose here or there if I had to break out the teaspoons every second day. Would you know if the solution that people make for dosing EI weekley would be the same for daily dosing? Basically what I would like to achieve, is to avoid such large weekly water changes (think this is done to try and reset all the available ferts in the tank to roughly zero) and just add a few drops of the PPMD solution and the Tropica Plant nutrition daily to provide the plants with just sufficient ferts.

To me, I think adding a weekly dose of PPMD would just lead to algae problems with lots of excess phosphate bobbing around the tank before they start to get used up by the plants?

Regards

Denis

I also found this fairly basic mix of

mix with water to make a 1/2 liter solution,
1 tablespoon chelated trace mix

---

(not sure what this is)?
1 tablespoon MgSO4+7H2O
2 tablespoons K2SO4
1 tablespoon KNO3 (varies, depends on your nitrate)

PPMD Link

tanks_alot wrote:

Hey Cardnim, thanks for taking the time to post. Just out of curiosity what is the size of the tank that you are dosing. This will give me a better idea of how much a 1/2 tsp of KNo3 will treat.

Your welcome
My tank is 180L (sorry, should have remembered to say that before!)

I like your regime of fert dosing but I'm afraid that I would get lazy and may skip a dose here or there if I had to break out the teaspoons every second day. Would you know if the solution that people make for dosing EI weekley would be the same for daily dosing? Basically what I would like to achieve, is to avoid such large weekly water changes (think this is done to try and reset all the available ferts in the tank to roughly zero) and just add a few drops of the PPMD solution and the Tropica Plant nutrition daily to provide the plants with just sufficient ferts.

Sounds like the Perpetual Preservation System (PPS-Pro) system might be more your cup of tea. I dont know much about it yet, but its a refinement of the EI regime, where you attempt to add more precisely what the plants will need, so you can do away with the large 50% weekly water change.

To me, I think adding a weekly dose of PPMD would just lead to algae problems with lots of excess phosphate bobbing around the tank before they start to get used up by the plants?

Exactly. Thats why they dont advise you do a weekly dose. Also, you could have negative effects on your tank stock, as you will be adding a weeks worth of chemicals to the tank in one go. For example, with your trace mix you will have copper, which is very harmful to shrimp and Im not sure, but a weeks dose might be enough to harm them.

1 tablespoon chelated trace mix

---

(not sure what this is)?

This is your CSM (not quite sure what that stands for) and different manufacturers will have different ratios of nutrients in it, but basically its the chelated form of all the micro-nutrients that you will need. So you dose the macro-nutrients seperately, but dose the micro-nutrients as one TRACE mix. Its got lots of stuff in there, such as iron, magnesium, manganese, copper, chlorine, boron, etc, etc.
Just dont mix this in with your macro-nutrients as the chelated iron will break down and become unusable to the plants.

One last thing I noticed was that the recipe you posted didnt have any phosphate being added. This may be a good thing as your water may already have plenty, but it might be worth monitoring the PO4 level if you choose to use this recipe.

Cardnim, that is exactly the term I have been looking for,


PPS-Pro

Over lunch, I did a quick bit search and I found a little beaut of a mixture by a guy called Edwards on aquaticplantcentral.com, it goes as follows,

500ml of water (distilled or Ro is best)

K2So4 = 29g
KNo3 = 33g
KH2Po4 = 3g
MgSo4 = 20g


I will add 1ml for ever 10 gallons daily and I will add the same for the TE (trace elements).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Cardnim and for taking the time to reply to my questions.

Hey, youre more than welcome.

It was a help to me to, as I found out that magnesium is a macro-nutrient that I wasnt taking into consideration.

Also, I cant wait to hear your reports on the PPS-Pro method, versus my own EI.
Please do keep me up to date.

Im posting a thread soon about my new planted tank, and intend to give it a few picture updates every other month; just so people can see how its progressing, and give me a few pointers.

Cardnim wrote:

Hey, youre more than welcome.

It was a help to me to, as I found out that magnesium is a macro-nutrient that I wasnt taking into consideration.

Also, I cant wait to hear your reports on the PPS-Pro method, versus my own EI.
Please do keep me up to date.

Im posting a thread soon about my new planted tank, and intend to give it a few picture updates every other month; just so people can see how its progressing, and give me a few pointers.

I should have said, I use the PPS-Pro method and find it great. The growth of the plants is not as vigorous as the EI method but you don't have to do 50% weekly water changes. C02 is not injected as high either. You aim for 20ppm of co2 compared to the 30ppm used with EI. Look at my thread www.irishfishkeepers.com/cms/component/o...it,10/limitstart,10/

tanks_alot wrote:

Cardnim, that is exactly the term I have been looking for,


PPS-Pro

Over lunch, I did a quick bit search and I found a little beaut of a mixture by a guy called Edwards on aquaticplantcentral.com, it goes as follows,

500ml of water (distilled or Ro is best)

K2So4 = 29g
KNo3 = 33g
KH2Po4 = 3g
MgSo4 = 20g


I will add 1ml for ever 10 gallons daily and I will add the same for the TE (trace elements).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Cardnim and for taking the time to reply to my questions.

add about an extra gram of KH2Po4 to the above mix and its better IMHO.

You will get less problems with GSA, green spot algae.

I just use tapwater for the mix. once your tapwater is not loaded with phosphate or nitrate this is ok to do, mine is not, if you have access to RO water that would be good, distilled water is quite difficult to obtain easily.

Peter

zig wrote:

tanks_alot wrote:

Cardnim, that is exactly the term I have been looking for,


PPS-Pro

Over lunch, I did a quick bit search and I found a little beaut of a mixture by a guy called Edwards on aquaticplantcentral.com, it goes as follows,

500ml of water (distilled or Ro is best)

K2So4 = 29g
KNo3 = 33g
KH2Po4 = 3g
MgSo4 = 20g


I will add 1ml for ever 10 gallons daily and I will add the same for the TE (trace elements).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Cardnim and for taking the time to reply to my questions.

add about an extra gram of KH2Po4 to the above mix and its better IMHO.

You will get less problems with GSA, green spot algae.

I just use tapwater for the mix. once your tapwater is not loaded with phosphate or nitrate this is ok to do, mine is not, if you have access to RO water that would be good, distilled water is quite difficult to obtain easily.

Peter

I can get Distilled water quite easily at any motor factors in 5 litre containers.

Hey Darragh,

As far as I am aware you can pick up 50% of the required ingredients in a local store. The magnesium (MgSo4) can be bought for about €1.50 for 125g in your local pharmacy as Epsom salts, you can then get the potassium sulphate K2SO4) in woodies as Sulphate of potash. It cost €4.00 for 1000g's.

However, as for the (KNo3) - Potassium Nitrate and (K2Po4)Potassium Phosphate, I'm not sure where you would get them locally. You might be able to split an order on here with somebody else if you are looking to reduce costs. I would also think about ordering a bottle of 4kh solution it you are going to use a Co2 bell in your tank to indicate the level of Co2. I've just got mine up and running and its showing a fantastic green colour (which is what I am looking to achieve apparently)!!!

Im not convinced by these drop checker things.

I use the 4dkh solution from AE with 5 drops of API ph test which gives a strong blue colour.
A few hours later in my tank, and its nice and green.... which is exactly what it is supposed to be.

But today mine is still green.... and I havent injected CO2 in a week now due to a)laziness and b)a leak in my airline system which wasnt fixed until last night.

So my question is... are these drop checkers ACTUALLY worth anything? Mine seems to always be the same green colour no matter when I was injecting CO2 and not!?

P.S. I have carried out my 50% weekly water change as usual and am currently dosing Seachem Flourish Excel. Is this providing the CO2 for the drop checker. I dont think so as its not really CO2 but jsut some carbon derivitive that the plants can use.

Cardnim wrote:

Im not convinced by these drop checker things.

I use the 4dkh solution from AE with 5 drops of API ph test which gives a strong blue colour.
A few hours later in my tank, and its nice and green.... which is exactly what it is supposed to be.

So my question is... are these drop checkers ACTUALLY worth anything? Mine seems to always be the same green colour no matter when I was injecting CO2 and not!?

Good question Cardnim, to be honest I'm not in a position to state on their actual accuracy but I would think after seeing them in so many peoples setup (experts and novices) there must be some functionality behind them. Or maybe people do just buy them because \"some people\" say they work.

Are you sure you are using the correct ph test kit. On the bottle of 4kh solution that I got it states that you can only use the Nutrafin \"low range\" pH test kit because it contains the active chemical \"Bromothym blue\". Also, according to the bottle the mixture in the bell must be change after every large water change.

darragh wrote:

Denis,

I have order the 4dKH solution as well, I am waiting on lots of items that I have ordered from 4dKH to lily pipes, but none of them have come yet

Darragh

Nothing worse that having to wait. I was looking at those lily pipes on ebay but decided the postage was just too much at 5times the actual price of the product.

The API test also uses the Bromo-blue indicator so there shouldnt be a problem there, and I change the drop checker every week (after changing 50% water on Sundays)

Im sure they work, but my concern is that the range which they indicate \"green\" in is so vast that it proves no better than the flawed pH/KH CO2 test.

Now that is what I call a lot of Potassium Nitrate! I'm good for ferts at the moment but thanks for the offer.

However, I'd just like to bring the following to your attention. With 25kg of Potassium nitrate you can make enough PPS-pro mixture to dose at 1ml for each 10 gallons for 319 years! Although planning for the future is a good idea how easy is it to store a big sac of Potassium Nitrate. I don't think its the kind of product I would like to have lying around the place. In addition if you have angina or high blood pressure it is the active ingredient in the drugs used to combat these medical conditions so you could also use it for that!

Out of interest Darragh, how can you increase the concentration from 60 to 80%. Is it the kind of process that would look very suspicious if the local super attendant called around for a cuppa and there was all this white powder being boiled and decanted in the kitchen?