Greg Watson supplants Seachem

The dry fertilizers from Greg Watson showed up a few days ago, and I finally got some distilled water to mix them up for solutions. I decided to mix the components separately instead of a complete Poor Man's Dupla Drop (PMDD) formula. This way, I can dose each component as needed, and tailor it to my aquarium's needs. I even put them in old Seachem bottles I had kept for just such an occasion.

The most recent suggested dosing I could find goes something like this (per liter of water):
* 2 tablespoons Plantex CSM+B
* 2 tablespoons Mg2SO4 + 7H2O (not really sure what the H2O is all about)
* 4 tablespoons K2SO4
* 2 tablespoons KNO3

I mixed the Plantex CSM+B micronutrient mix with the Magnesium Sulfate (Mg2SO4) in equal parts (1/2 tablespoon of each in a 250 mL bottle). This is now my micronutrient fertilizer that I will add in sufficient quantities to maintain an iron level of 0.01 ppm.

In a second, larger bottle I mixed up 1 tablespoon of my Potassium Sulfate (K2SO4) in a 500 mL bottle. I realize now that works out lower than the recommended concentration, but since I made more, I can simply add more. The Sears/Conlin paper suggests I dose this in sufficient quantities to get nitrates down near zero.

Finally, in a bottle I may or may not use a whole lot, I mixed a half tablespoon of Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) with 250 mL of distilled water. This solution is to be used once nitrates get low to bring them back up to 5 ppm or so. The tricky part, however, is to get the plants to grow like heck and suck up all the nitrates from the water column to create a nitrate deficiency. Feeding less would help, but that's no fun, is it?