All In One Solution
| What is it?
After Tropica released their Plant Nutrition
Plus, which is an 'All In One' dosing solution, I became
interested in doing the same to make life easier for myself.
Normally it is advised to keep potassium phosphate and iron
traces in separate solutions to prevent any reaction occurring
that results in an insoluble precipitate of iron (III)
phosphate. The chelated traces that are used contain iron that
is complexed and as long as the iron remains complexed it
should be safe from any reaction with the phosphate. The
problem is that once the traces are in solution the chelator
tends to deteriorate and so releasing the the iron. I
discovered that the chelators used are a lot more stable in a
solution with a pH of 6 or less. After a bit of experimenting
I ended up using E300 Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) which not only
keeps the solution acidic but is also an anti-oxidant. Enough
is used so as to maintain a pH of 6. Another problem with
keeping traces in solution is that they often tend to develop
mould. To combat this I use E202 Potassium Sorbate which is a
yeast and mould inhibitor. Luckily the Potassium Sorbate works
most effectively at a pH around 6 which is what the solution
is kept at. How do I make it? It depends on how you dose to what quantities of each chemical you add. The important thing to remember is that you must get the right amounts of the macro's and trace's mixed up especially if you currently dose different amounts of the solutions. Also it might be an idea not to make the solution too concentrated. What I do to make life easy is to adjust the levels so that one full fill (25ml) of my old Tropica bottle is enough to dose the whole of my 200 litre tank in one go. As an example here is a formulation that is based on my PMDD+PO4 formula: 10g Potassium Nitrate If you wish to change the amounts of ingredients then as long as the levels aren't changed too much you can leave the amounts of Ascorbic Acid and Potassium Sorbate the same. Dosing is 5ml per 40 litres DIY Tropica Plant Nutrition Plus Tropica have very kindly provided an analysis
of their product so with my calculator at the ready I have
calculated a couple of matches. Tropica's TPN+ uses Ammonium
Nitrate for it's source of Nitrogen, so I have copied this.
The first formulation uses all Ammonium Nitrate and the second
uses some Potassium Nitrate to replace the Potassium Sulphate
which is used for the Potassium content. The third formulation
replaces all the ammonium nitrate with potassium nitrate which
results in higher Potassium levels. DIY TPN+ (1) DIY TPN+ (2) DIY TPN+ (3)
Tropica recommend to dose 5ml per 50 litres
of tank water per week. Final thoughts I have mainly posted all of this for information for others. I am by no means 100% certain if what I'm doing is correct or safe for fish and plants but so far myself and many others haven't had any problems. The additives that are added are very commonly used in the food and drinks industry, so I'm presuming that they are safe for aquarium use. If you wish to use my methods then please do so at your own risk. So far the solution has remained clear and bright and has had no settling out for up to six months. Plants still grow and pearl as before. Most chelated trace mixes on the market contain Fe-EDTA and are brown in colour. This is because the type of iron used is ferric iron. Ferrous iron compounds tend to be green in colour. When making up the 'All In One' solution you may see that the solution turns green in colour over a period of a few hours. This is because ascorbic acid is able to reduce the ferric Fe-EDTA to ferrous Fe-EDTA. This is quite normal and nothing to worry about. In fact it might be of benefit as plants prefer ferrous iron to ferric iron. In the UK you can buy the Ascorbic Acid and Potassium Sorbate quite cheaply from The Nutrient Company. In the UK and Europe you are able to buy everything you need from The Nutrient Company and in the US and Canada from AquariumFertilizer. |
This page was last updated by webmaster - 05th February 2015