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Re: Using urea



Neil Frank wrote:

>...Maybe urea is like time released ammonium. This might be a great source of
>N in a heavily planted tank.... and might prove to be reasonably safe at
>concentrations of up to a few ppm.....

Be vary cautious in the addition of urea.  In small doses, it seems to do
no harm, and I have seen growth responses in nitrogen deficient plants.
But in larger doses, it kills Daphnia and causes huge green water
outbreaks.  (I tried 43 ppm!)  It doesn't seem to benefit the plants much
in larger doses, and the algae takeovers can cause a lot of damage to the
plants.  It is definitely not a form of nitrogen that you can put a big
reserve supply in the water.  An equivalent dosage of nitrate nitorgen
would be 62 ppm nitrate, and that doesn't seem to harm anything.

Paul Krombholz