[Mr_Bubbles]

Hello Everyone

I know the point of dosing EI is to always have enough nutrients in the water column, but based off the EI dosing regimens I see around and using aquarium plant central's "Fertilator", most of these numbers seem to be on the lower side of the recommended ppm. I've seen a post by Tom Barr where he said he doses 5ppm of phosphates 3x a week with no ill effect , and I assume other nutrients in higher numbers too. So my question is, instead of hoping to have enough nutrients for all the plants by dosing on the lower end of the ppm ranges, why not just go to the higher end of the scale? So, instead of dosing say 10ppm of KNO3, why not dose 20? I've had a bunch of plants show yellowing at times, pinholes, etc and can't help but wonder if I just had everything in excess, maybe there would be no issues with lacking nutrients? Of course, it would not be wise to go too crazy, I still mean within reason of course

Thoughts?

 

[tetra73]

I believe the concentration, varies from tank to tank, is the consequence of EI dosing. With EI dosing, you aren't dosing based on PPM. For instance, you are dosing the same amount of fert from 20g to 40g. Same with from 40g to 60g. Of course, too much nitrate, in excess of 100 ppm, can be toxic to fish. Too much phosphate can cause Iron precipitation.

 

[Mr_Bubbles]

yeah, dosing say 20ppm of NO3 3x a week seems fine as far as toxicity goes, since obviously the plants will use some of this up (i do realize fish/food waste adds to this too). What is Iron precipitation? I've never heard of this

 

[tetra73]

yeah, dosing say 20ppm of NO3 3x a week seems fine as far as toxicity goes, since obviously the plants will use some of this up (i do realize fish/food waste adds to this too). What is Iron precipitation? I've never heard of this

Supposedly if the phosphate level is too high, it can lockout Iron for the plants to use. Not sure how high we are talking about here. I try to keep it around 5 to 10 ppm. Certain trace elements may not be available too for the plants if either one of them is excessive. Moderation is better. However, overdosing potassium seems to have no negative impacts. Still, since you are doing 50% water change at the end of the week, any excessive fert dosage may not have the opportunity to do harm at all. Obviously, you don't want any of the fert dosage to reach to toxicity before the end of the week. In that case, you are probably dosing too much and the plants aren't able to use them up.

 

[VeeSe]

When using fert calculators, are you putting in 75G volume for your 75G tank? If so, you actually get higher concentrations than what the calculator says because your 75G tank does not have even close to 75G of water in it (if you count space taken up by substrate, rocks, driftwood, not filling it to the absolute top, etc, then you get significantly less than 75G of water even if you count the extra space in your canister filter if you have one). So there's that to take into account too.

 

[Mr_Bubbles]

Hmm, interesting. However, with dosing on the higher end of the scale, assuming you do this with everything, would it not all balance out? Wouldn't it just mean you have excess of everything in the tank? Obviously if you are only dosing some thing higher and not everything, that could cause problems. I usually do about a 60% water change at the end of the week.

 

[VeeSe]

Every case is different, but with the general EI guidelines, you already should have excess everything at the end of the week. That's the way it's designed.

 

[plantbrain]

Hello Everyone

I know the point of dosing EI is to always have enough nutrients in the water column, but based off the EI dosing regimens I see around and using aquarium plant central's "Fertilator", most of these numbers seem to be on the lower side of the recommended ppm. I've seen a post by Tom Barr where he said he doses 5ppm of phosphates 3x a week with no ill effect , and I assume other nutrients in higher numbers too. So my question is, instead of hoping to have enough nutrients for all the plants by dosing on the lower end of the ppm ranges, why not just go to the higher end of the scale? So, instead of dosing say 10ppm of KNO3, why not dose 20? I've had a bunch of plants show yellowing at times, pinholes, etc and can't help but wonder if I just had everything in excess, maybe there would be no issues with lacking nutrients? Of course, it would not be wise to go too crazy, I still mean within reason of course

Thoughts?

This has been my attitude all along, not one has disproven it to to date either, does not imply you cannot dose less.........but illustrates the lack of risk with higher dosing ppm's, I just move it up to where even if I mess up or forget to dose a day or two, I have plenty, the upper bounds, we really do not know and it's so high it really matters not.

I can easily target an effective wide range and then no need to bother with testing etc.

Then I spend more time playing with CO2 once the light is adjusted correctly.
Any thing else, is scaping, trimming, selling lots of weeds etc.

And I do sell a lot more than the clowns claiming that it is best to use the bare min amounts of ferts. A lot more.

I've dosed 160 ppm of NO3 as KNO3 on top of heavily fed fish......no issues with the fish for 3 weeks. So if SOMEONE has some real data that disputes and targets a LD50 for a tropical fish we keep, I'm all ears when it comes to NO3. Zebra fish and guppies are in the 600-800ppm ranges, but those are the only species I've seen data on.

I think it'd be pretty hard to mess up to 80 ppm in general.......

Which is 10x less than the LD50's.

Trout, coldwater species are not the same as warm water tropicals, many can handle quite polluted water.

 

[plantbrain]

Hmm, interesting. However, with dosing on the higher end of the scale, assuming you do this with everything, would it not all balance out? Wouldn't it just mean you have excess of everything in the tank? Obviously if you are only dosing some thing higher and not everything, that could cause problems. I usually do about a 60% water change at the end of the week.

Say if you did 80% 2x a week, you'd be even that much closer to the dosing you do with little/less build up possible.

It's really just about how much error you want to accept.

Since the D range is huge: you have a lot more to work with.
If you chose the B or A range, then it's a PITA and requires careful attention.

This stuff is BASIC agriculture Science and Liebig's law of the min is a basic law regarding fertilization.

Many many many aquarist are unaware about these basic fundamentals. Then they chose to ignbore these basic facts even when told. I do not understand why they chose that path.

Belief versus logic and fact.

A better discussion that addresses light and CO2 INDEPENDENT of nutrients:

http://www.tropica.com/advising/technical-articles/biology-of-aquatic-plants/co2-and-light.aspx

They also discuss Liebig as did PMDD, but VERY few other folks seem to have any clue about this concept. If you learn anything about plant Science and fertilizers, you dang well better learn this concept.

It can be extended and applies to light and CO2 as well as nutrients.

 

[Riiz]

My philosophy has always been - If I dose heavy that is one variable in an otherwise easy equation that I do not have to worry about. Plus the **** is cheap why hold back, hehe.

 

[Mr_Bubbles]

Thanks a lot for this reply Tom! I've read a lot of stuff you've posted and I love that you're trying to get rid of the many myths that have been part of this hobby for years by showing facts and results, rather then just what people believe or are told. I'm new to the hobby but from the many many hours of reading I've done over the past year, it's clear there's a lot of information floating out there that's just out of date or unproven. I'll take proven facts any day

 

[Mr_Bubbles]

Riiz : that's what i was thinking, as long as it's not going to bring harm to my fish, i'd rather dose more then necessary and be sure the plants have what they need. When you put this much money into a planted tank, why hold back on the ferts