The Dry Fertilizer Test

[FrozenFins]

When I went to order some of my plants from a source I have never orderd from I saw that they had some "Dry Fertilizer" up until today I have only used liquad stuff. Well, I decided to give it a try and thought I would create a thread for it as I document how well my dry fertilizer is.

Is it better then the all in one liquad stuff like easy green?

Heres what the package looks like:

I accidently clicked the "high tech" option instead of the "low tech" option so hopefully it will be alright.

As you can see it does not say how much to dose, it only says "the following dose will add _______ to your water". I could see how one (espically a beginner) may find this confusing.

After filling a old 500ml hand sanititzer bottle (it has been throughly rinsed) with condtined water I add the powder. I must say that when adding the powder I made a HUGE mess. I reccemend fillind the bottle up with water then add the powder, I overflowed the bottle lots when trying to get it all in. I then shook it until you could not see the powderd substance. It says to shake every couple hours and wait for 24hrs. I shall update this thread then.

 

I will be taking the hand sanitizer label off and putting a homemade label on it.

[StephenP2003]

I dry dose in my CO2-Inject tanks, but I buy the individual compounds. And the only reason I do that is to customize my ratios since I dose most often in those tanks -- some of the tanks make more nitrate than others, and my tap water has phosphate already.

I also stopped mixing it into a liquid solution, and instead just mix up the powders that work out to a 1/4 teaspoon of powder per 20 gallons. 

For all my other tanks, easy green all the way.

With the premixed powder you have, I'm not sure what advantage it would have over any all-in-one, other than cost savings -- and that would certainly be significant depending on how many planted tanks you have.

[Anita]

Oof, the nitrogen and phosphorus seem awfully high for aquatic plants:

• Dry Fertilizer: NPK 7.01-1.45-5.01
• Easy Green: NPK 2.66 - 0.46 -9.21

I wonder if you are setting yourself up for a sudden algae bloom? 

On the other hand,

• Seachem Flourish: NPK 0.07-0.01-0.04

I agree that providing the dosage in  parts per million (PPM) is precise; however, as you mentioned, bewildering. One of my first jobs out of college was as a lab tech, so, I made plenty of solutions with this level of precision. These days, it is too much work creating an Excel spreadsheet just to figure out how to dose my plants. Give me Easy Green! 🙃

Edited March 9, 2021 by Anita

[FrozenFins]

39 minutes ago, Anita said:

Oof, the nitrogen and phosphorus seem awfully high for aquatic plants:

• Dry Fertilizer: NPK 7.01-1.45-5.01
• Easy Green: NPK 2.66 - 0.46 -9.21

I wonder if you are setting yourself up for a sudden algae bloom? 

On the other hand,

• Seachem Flourish: NPK 0.07-0.01-0.04

I agree that providing the dosage in  parts per million (PPM) is precise; however, as you mentioned, bewildering. One of my first jobs out of college was as a lab tech, so, I made plenty of solutions with this level of precision. These days, it is too much work creating an Excel spreadsheet just to figure out how to dose my plants. Give me Easy Green! 🙃

I accidentley bought the "high tech" kind therefore there would be more nitrogen and stuff. I will just be dosing less.

[Anita]

13 minutes ago, JamesB said:

I accidentley bought the "high tech" kind therefore there would be more nitrogen and stuff. I will just be dosing less.

Haha, I'm out of reactions for the day!😝 It will be an interesting experiment. 🔬

Edited March 9, 2021 by Anita

[Koi]

One dose looks like its roughly double give or take compared to easy green. I would just use it the same way as easy green but at half the amount. You shouldn't see too much problems at 1 or half dose a week. You could technically even dilute the solution with some more water but I don't think you want to be bothered doing all that math.

I wouldn't say one is better then another. The fertilizers are all the same it's just how you to want implement it.

Oh and you might want to keep that bottle out of light in case of mold. Some people put excel into their solutions to prevent mold.

[FrozenFins]

Its been a little over 24 hours.

I have figured out that one pump = 1.25ml. So I will be dosing roughly one pump for every 10 gallons. I will be testing this dry fertilizer on my 5 gallon betta tank so, 1/2 pump = 1 dose. 

I also created a label for the fertilizer as I am using a old hand sanitizer bottle:

 (ThePlantGuy was the company I got it from)

Edited March 10, 2021 by JamesB

[FrozenFins]

LET THE EXPERIMENTS BEGING!!!

Now that I've re-scaped my betta tank I can start dosing.

One Dose = 0.5ml - 1/2 pump

Plants used:

-Anubius Barteri var Nanna

-Red Melon Sword

-Hygrophillia

-Salvania

 

 

[Anita]

10 minutes ago, JamesB said:

LET THE EXPERIMENTS BEGING!!!
Now that I've re-scaped my betta tank I can start dosing.

Yes! 👏

[KBOzzie59]

Congtrats on your dry all in one liquid fert!  I'll be following to see how this brand works out for you.

[FrozenFins]

Well...

My Anubius Barteri var Nanna is sufffering from a Phostphate deffencie. This brands fertilizer contains 0.7ppm of phostphates per dosing. So I will probably start to dose a little more. 

The Sword, and Hygrophillia is looking great though! No melt back yet!