powerfeed

[iain]

"powerfeed" is a fish fertiliser from the makers of seasol.

Does anyone use it? Pluses, negatives etc

The product analysis is here:
powerfeed analysis

What would be the likely effect of applying this directly to the water of a fishless AP tank that has grow bed with plants in it (at rates of a few ml / 1000l every few days)? Any benefit/damage? Would it promote a fishless cycle?

[GaryD]

Hi Iain,

On the surface, it looks good.

Unlike regular Seasol, it has useful quantities of nitrogen so it might be a useful nitrogen source for fishless cycling......and the other nutrients would be well received by the plants......including fruiting ones.

My only concern is what else might be in it. Some other fertiliser products (including Thrive) are credited with fish kills.

My advice would be to trial it on a small number of fish to determine whether it has any undisclosed nasties.

My initial impression (based on the content analysis) is positive.....and it may offer an alternative to the (sometimes) controversial urea.

Gary

[GaryD]

Hi,

I found the MSDS for PowerFeed here. It's still looking good.

Gary

[Murray]

I have tried Powerfeed in my systems. I did not observe any ill effects, but as I did not have any detailed info about it's contents I ceased using it.

On the surface of it, there does not appear to be any thing wrong or bad about it, and as Gary says, it may well be a viable alternative to UREA as a method of fish-less-cycling.

Maybe one of us should set up a new small system and try cycling with it to see how it goes.

I have killed enough fish by experimenting so I am learning to be a bit more cautious.
My guess is that I would have had several hundred more fish dinners by now if I had not been so keen to experiment.

[Dufflight]

Has anyone tried to contact the makers of Seasol. You would think with the amount APers use and the amount of free advertising of there product. AP might be something they would want to look into. Maybe even design a product for. AP seems to be gaining in popularity over hydro.

[Murray]

AP seems to be gaining in popularity over hydro.

Not yet, but it will I feel. There are so many advantages to AP over Hydro....The fish.

There may appear to be a lot of us, but not yet....It's coming.....

[Outbackozzie]

I am coming to the conclusion that the initial bad reputation of Thrive and similar fertilizers was from one person using way too much of it at once. Hence a big fish kill and a negative view of thrive. It appears to be ok in more moderate doses.

I personally wont use it, fish and seasol for me.

[iain]

For what it is worth - these were my readings using "powerfeed".

I was adding 5-6 drops of powerfeed, 4-5 times a day, for the first 5 days, then used 2-3 drops, 2-3 times a day over the next few days after. I was also adding a couple of caps of seasol per day as well.

I had a single balcony kit bed planted with seedlings. It was a standard balcony fish tank with about 7-800 litres of water in it.

Put the fish on 29th and so far all are still swimming - the readings have been the same since then. Photos for the first 2 weeks added. First photo day 1 (19 March), second photo two weeks after (April 2).

20 March: ammonia - low, nitrite - low, nitrate - low

21 March: ammonia - 0.5, nitrite - 0.25, nitrate - 5-6

22 March: ammonia - 0.75, nitrite - 0.75, nitrate - 7-8

23 March: ammonia - 1, nitrite - 1, nitrate - 10-11

24 March: ammonia - 0.6, nitrate - 10

26 March: ammonia - 0.1, nitrate - 15-20

28 March: ammonia - low, nitrite - 1, nitrate - 10-15

29 March: ammonia - low, nitrite - low, nitrate - 15-20

[zact01]

so from the above results would you all say hat this has cycled wihtin a week ??

was this a fresh kit? ie the equipment hasnt been used before??.

this is intresting. did you mesure the amount of powerfeed tht was used ??


i guess the next step is to add some fish.



regards

zact01

[iain]

Hi Zac

Yeah - fresh kit (from Murray obviously).

Powerfeed dosage rates are as listed in the previous post. Fish went in on the 29th Mar - all are still swimming. Probably would need others to try and see if they can get similar results - but ammonia has been zero since about 29 Mar - so I'm happy that powerfeed is ok to get plants up and running and get some bacteria going, which is all I wanted to do for the first couple of weeks.

Photos from first few weeks attached:
Photo 1 - 19th March (day 1), Photo 2 - 2nd April, and Photo 3 - 11 April.

I started harvesting the bed after 11 Apr - so it looks about the same now. Good to get lettuce, kale and chard in a few weeks.