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RE: NO3 rising
Daud, as someone else mentioned, nitrates at 10 are not necessarily a bad
thing, if everything else is going well. I know you mentioned having
trouble getting test kits, but you really need to be able to measure FE and
hopefully Phosphate as well to be able to tune your dosage correctly -- the
idea being to get it to the point where you are maintaining measurable
nitrates and FE in the .05 - .1 area while your phosphates decrease to
unmeasurable. In absence of the test kits, what I would do would be as you
suggested -- make up my next mixture with the nitrate seperately, and
continue to dose the PMDD as you have been, and simply keep adding enough
nitrate separately to keep the nitrates at around 5 mg/l. Watch for signs
of too much iron (not sure what they'd be, though).
I just made up my second (triple-sized) batch of PMDD; I halved the amount
of water to lower the amount I had to add, and doubled the potassium nitrate
as the two tanks I'm dosing are now consuming nitrates about twice as fast
as they were when I started. Algae has all but disappeared (little hard
green spots on the glass in one tank, and a stubborn little patch of BG in
the other which may be due to not enough nitrates), and growth has really
taken off. I'm very happy with the results.
On the H. polysperma, I had the same thing happening and it didn't respond
to the PMDD. I tested calcium, and found my levels were unmeasurable. I
added enough Kent "Turbo-Calcium" (Calcium Chloride in a highly dissolvable
form) to bring the level up to around 100 mg/l, and new growth on the Hygro
seems to be normal once again. Does anyone know if there'd be a problem
adding Calcium Chloride directly to my next batch of PMDD? Or would it bind
with something else (chemistry isn't my strong suit :-)
- Chuck
Daud Datu writes:
> Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 01:37:42 -0800 (PST)
> From: Daud Datu <daud6198 at yahoo_com>
> Subject: NO3 rising
>
> Dear all,
> Started dosing my 150 litre tank with PMDD 4 days ago. Before dosing,
> some 50% water change was made. NO3 measured at 0ppm.
>
> The pmdd recipe was made according to the recipe in the krib but I
> halved my soup to 150ml.
>
> Today my NO3 was measured at 10ppm. Plan to take these corrective
> actions but need some suggestion before doing it:
> 1)stop dosing with current pmdd
> 2)to make new pmdd batch but consisted of just trace element mix (no
> macronutrients)
> 3)But K2SO4 will be dissolved and added to tank at say, 1/8 tsp a
> day...until NO3 level drops.
> New shoots of H.polysperma looks pale and cupped. My Banana plant just