richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/17/90)
Upon John Bridge's behest, I spoke today to the Coralife people about their plant fertilizers. These are my notes: I spoke to Dr. Tooley. He had a slight accent, so it could have been Dr. Tu Lee for all I know. Nice man. He can be reached at (213) 320-9872 Q: What are the proportions of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) in the aquarit plant food ? A: Basically it's 2-1-2. Q: Hmm. Planttabs are 10-15-10. Why the difference ? A: They are measuring theirs by weight. Ours is by volume; it's in solution. (I didn'nt understand what he was talking about, but didn't want to press it) Q: What are the sources for these ? A: Calcium Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate and Potassium Nitrate. Q: Is there anything else in there ? A: Yes. Plants need a balance of 13 essential minerals. A deficiancy in any one of them will result in poor plant growth. Note that different plants have different requirements as to the percentages of these nutrients. Q: And what is the source of these minerals ? Standard Hoaglands solution ? A: No. Hoaglands is outdated. It's a formula developed by Dr. Muraschu (SP?) and his Prof. Dr. Skoog (SP?) at the university of Irvine. It contains more elements than Hoaglands. (Can anybody fins any reference to work by these guys so we can find out exacly what is in this stuff ?) Q: Let me get back to the N-K-P for a moment. Plantabs are 10-15-10 yet Tetra fertilizers are 1.5-0-10, ie. just Potassium. Any idea why this is ? Is the idea here that the fish supply nitrates and there will (for whatever reason) be enough phosphates and that all plants need is to get additional potassium to utilize existing nitrates and phospates. A: Yes I think thats the idea, but I peronally don't think this is very well thouh out. You can't really do that, it's like eating things from the four food groups but eating them on different days. Besides, plants don't use ammonia which is what fish excrete, they use nitrates. (Doesn't this contradict what I just read here someplace ?) Q: What can you say about algae ? I used to have blue-green bit now that I'm using RO water I get hair algae. A: Yes, blue green is the most pernicious, but requires some minerals to grow. RO water does not contain many of these minerals so it will not dominate. Thread algae, however trives on silicates which are ot removed by the RO filter.
link@soup.ssl.berkeley.edu (Richard Link) (01/17/90)
In article <24849@gryphon.COM> richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >I used to have blue-green bit now that I'm using RO water I get hair algae. OK. I give up. What's RO water? Richard Link Space Sciences Laboratory
BRIDGE@rcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (JOHN BRIDGE) (01/17/90)
It doesn't sound like they really want to talk that much about Coralife fertilizer or maybe I am just dense. I can say that I am not unhappy with its performance. I was using the Tetra stuff and had the impression that Coralife seemed to be doing more for the plants. I am also becoming aware of the effect of light timing on plant growth. I don't think there is a universal "correct" time of light and time of dark. It seems to depend on the plant type, amount of light (lumens), plant location in tank relative to the lights, amount of fertilizer in tank water, and time between water changes. Under all conditions I have become convinced that 12 hours of light is too much time. Even poorly lit tanks seem to do better with 9, 10 or 11 hours of light. I also notice that the plants in slightly acid (pH between 6.5 and 6.9) water seem to do a little better than those in water at 7.2 (tap water pH here). It still is an art for me. I don't really do much for the plants using rational judgement. I appreciate the discussion of various other peoples experience. Please do give some idea of the water conditions you have (tap water, RO, whatever) with a pH and salt content at least. John
thuan@garnet.berkeley.edu (Thuan Nguyen) (01/18/90)
richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes:
<Coralife: ... plants don't use ammonia which is what fish excrete,
< they use nitrates.
<
<R: (Doesn't this contradict what I just read here someplace ?)
Yeah, I think there was a recent article which said that ammonium
ions are attracted to the negative ions in the soil and that plant
roots use mostly ammonium.
<R: What can you say about algae ? I used to have blue-green
< but now that I'm using RO water I get hair algae.
<
<Coralife: ...Thread algae, however thrives on silicates which are not
< removed by the RO filter.
I don't know for sure if thread algae thrives on silicates.
Diatoms certainly do. However, I'm sure that the silicates would
be removed by your reverse osmosis (RO) filter. Why shouldn't it be?
Sodium ions are removed, as are Chlorine ions. Silicon is between
these 2 in size, so it should also be too large to cross the cellulose
membrane.
My opinion is that the person you talked too, Dr. Tooley (?)
either knows zip about the Coralife fertilizer or else he's trying
to avoid telling trade secrets.
Thuan
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Thuan Nguyen thuan@garnet.berkeley.edu
University of California, San Francisco/Berkeley Bioengineering Graduate Group
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richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/18/90)
In article <1990Jan17.054121.27143@agate.berkeley.edu> link@soup.ssl.berkeley.edu (Richard Link) writes: >In article <24849@gryphon.COM> richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >>I used to have blue-green bit now that I'm using RO water I get hair algae. > >OK. I give up. What's RO water? Reverse osmosis. It's a highly selective filter that pretty much de-ionizes water. Looking at my notes, which I can barely read there are two points I forgot to make: 1) When I asked why they don't just make 1 chemical that you can add rather than having a fertilizer and an iron supliment and a trace element solution. The answer is that, the chemicals, when mixed, react and precipitate out. Also, the two Dr's that discovered the new trace element solution (modified fro Hoagland) are at University of Irvine and University of Wisconsin, in case anybody tries to track them down (and I hope somebody does)