[APD] Re: Traces

[Roger Miller <roger at spinn_net>]

Tom and John and Mark have been discussing trace nutrient dosing rates.

I had a weird revelation today that I'm not sure I've really adsorbed yet.  
I've been dosing with Seachem products for a few years now.  I started out at 
what I thought was the recommended dose, then adjusted the dose over time -- 
mostly to lower values.  This morning I glanced at the little dosing pipette 
that came with my first ever bottle of Flourish and realized that the pipette 
only held one ml.  I thought it held 4.

No wonder my Seachem products were lasting so much longer than they were 
supposed to!

My dose of Flourish is about 1 ml/50 gallons/week.  That's about 1/5 of 
Seachem's recommended dose.  It's an even smaller part of the dose that Tom 
is recommending.

Plants in the 55 gallon tank (which has a 15-year-old sand and gravel 
substrate and 128 watts of t8 lighting) have good color and no signs of trace 
nutrient deficiencies.  Maybe the R. indica could be a little greener on it's 
older leaves, but I'm not sure that is a trace nutrient problem.

Plants in the 150 gallon tank (1-year-old Flourite substrate, 330 watts of PC 
lights plus sunlight) has proportionately an even smaller dose of Flourish 
Trace and Flourish Iron.  Some of the ludwigias could have better color on 
new leaves, and the H. corymbosa has a little chlorosis when viewed from the 
top but not from the side.  Those might be signs of a little trace deficiency.

Plants in my other tanks get similar doses and all but some chain swords and 
C. moehlmanii in one tank are in good health and color.  In that tank there 
are other conditions that might account for the problem.

I don't know what makes the difference between my experience and Tom's.   
>From my experience it certainly isn't necessary to overdose Seachem products 
to get healthy growth.


Roger Miller
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