# Does high tech necessitate regular water changes?



## LancsRick (17 Jul 2012)

Ok, the planning for my Rio 180 continues, and I'm giving more and more thought to CO2. That said, I'm getting more and more questions as a result.

At present the Trigon 190 is doing well, with 2000lph turnover, and 0.8wpg of T8 lighting (with reflectors). I'm dosing James' All in One at a level of 25ml per week, and doing *maybe* a 25% water change once a month.

The reason I'm talking about my old tank? Because that level of effort and maintenance really suits me. That said, it would be nice to get faster growth, and be able to broaden my catalogue of available plants.

The Rio 180 will have 1800lph turnover, but has MUCH more lighting available - two T8s and two T5s, all with reflectors, giving me a maximum possible lighting level of a huge 3.5wpg, plus reflectors. I realise that going anywhere near this in a tank without CO2 would just a) create algae and b) generate deficiencies in the plants, so my options are either to run on reduced lighting, or go down the CO2 route (most likely via FE with diffuser under the spraybars)...

Two fundamental questions:

- Any downfalls to not using EI with CO2, and sticking with dosing an All in One fert?
- Does CO2 necessitate water changes?


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## darren636 (17 Jul 2012)

i believe water changes are large and frequent due to the nature of the high tech organism. Everything happens faster- and more of it. I am sure you could stretch out the water change frequency..... If you desired.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (17 Jul 2012)

Only downfall of not using EI with such high lighting would be not knowing if any problems your having are nutrient related. Co2 doesn't mean large water changes as such. Co2 is usually administered into tanks with fast growth which comes with the EI dosing and high light as co2 levels can't keep up naturally with this level of growth. Increasing plant growth also creates waste products produced by growing plants and needs bigger/more frequent changes to clear these algae causing pollutants.
If your going down the road of higher lighting both co2, EI and larger water changes will be beneficial. You can reduce the amount of ferts if you want later if you feel it neccasary but is only a negligable cost cutting excercise.


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## Skatersav (17 Jul 2012)

As far as I'm aware, the prevailing theory is as follows:
 - Light should be the limiting factor - therefore, if you have more light, then more CO2 and more intense fertilisation is needed to avoid algal blooms and/or plant damage.
 - EI is really good at ensuring your plants don't go hungry for minerals, especially in high energy tanks.
 - 50% weekly water changes are needed to avoid the build up of nasties when running a high energy tank.
 - the best way to reduce maintenance requirements is to reduce lighting levels.

3.8w/g sounds like a lot.
Maybe the way to do it is to choose fauna that don't mind a cold sharp shock once a week and simply do the refill with a hose.  That way, it will reduce the effort involved in the water change.


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## ian_m (17 Jul 2012)

Skatersav said:
			
		

> Maybe the way to do it is to choose fauna that don't mind a cold sharp shock once a week and simply do the refill with a hose.  That way, it will reduce the effort involved in the water change.


My mate who kept fish for years used to just syphon say 25% water out the window onto the lawn (maybe stir tank up abit to hopefully suck out debris), add dechlorinator to tank sufficient for 25% water change and hose pipe from cold tap straight into tank. Fish didn't appear to suffer.

I personally syphon via gravel cleaner into a 40l bucket (ASDA £3 bargain), just in case I suck up something I shouldn't eg fish, plants etc. Then I pump using a JBL 750 pump the container out onto a going extremely long, green and well fertilised front lawn. I fill another 40l bucket with cold water, hot water from kettle and dechlorinator in kitchen and pump into tank. Can't use hot and cold mixer tap as I have a water softener fitted. Whilst tank is filling wash filters and fiddle with plants. Takes about 1 hour a week for 50% water change on 180l tank.


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## Morgan Freeman (17 Jul 2012)

You don't need to use EI it just makes dosing a lot easier. Mark Evans doesn't use EI.

You don't have to do large water changes with CO2 per se. Large water changes are needed because of fast plant growth. Yes, injection of CO2 will usually lead to a much faster growth rate but it's the waste put out by the plants you remove with the large changes. Fast growth being a result of high light, ferts and CO2 injection combined.

This thread may help more:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=22489


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## LancsRick (17 Jul 2012)

Thanks very much for the considered responses guys. I had always assumed that the water changes were to get rid of the excess EI ferts, not the plant waste products.

I'll have a look at some of Mark Evans' posts to get ideas.

I suspect I'll end up going low tech on this setup since I want to keep maintenance down, but I want to fully explore the high tech option at least.

Cheers!


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## AverageWhiteBloke (17 Jul 2012)

> I suspect I'll end up going low tech on this setup since I want to keep maintenance down


High tech or high energy as a lot of people are calling it these days are generally more expense, more effort and if not done properly more problems than low energy with a nutritious substrate. I haven't been in this board for a while due to work but was catching up on This topic and was amazed at some of the beutys in there, makes you wonder if high energy is worth the hassle at times! Unless your doing a show tank of course.


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## Ian Holdich (17 Jul 2012)

IME large water changes are needed for a good few weeks until you hit that 'balance'. Most high tech tank will suffer surface scum in the first few weeks, again until you hit that 'balance'. Water changes daily are a must everyday for the first couple of weeks, then dropped to every 2-3 days for the next few and then dropped to a week there on after. All this is done on my experience with planted tanks. I know a few other stick to this regime on here and it works well.

I don't dose EI, i use TPN+ or TNC complete at present.


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## ghostsword (17 Jul 2012)

The more you eat the more you poo and wee. Same happens with plants. 

More nutrients, ei or not, growth powered by co2 and light means more waste released by all living things on a tank. 

Very simple really. 


___________________________
Luis 
@ghostsword


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## ceg4048 (17 Jul 2012)

ianho said:
			
		

> I don't dose EI..


Yes, you do mate. You just don't realize it.


			
				ianho said:
			
		

> i use TPN+ or TNC complete at present.


 It doesn't matter what product you use.


			
				Morgan Freeman said:
			
		

> Mark Evans doesn't use EI.


Yes, he does. He simply doses EI using commercial products instead of using dry powders.

It seems like we're always having to re-center our thought processes to enable ourselves to think about this stuff objectively. I'll repeat the comments I made in an old thread.
EI is not married to dry powders. They can each have other partners. EI is just a concept that is based on always having unlimited levels of nutrients in the water column. That's all. You can achieve that with any brand of ferts but if you need to know what concentrations are being dosed with the type of ferts being used, then for commercial ferts that might mean some more maths, or (heaven forbid) measuring concentration levels. Dry powders just makes it easier to make adjustments, does not require measurements and the powders are loads cheaper. The quantities are already known so the maths are easier.

When people use TPN+ in a high light CO2 enriched tank, do they really dose the amounts suggested by Tropica listed on the bottle? I don't think that this is generally the case unless the tap water being used by the hobbyist is already high in nutrients, and if that is so the hobbyist is still  dosing EI using a combination of tap water nutrients plus TPN.

In Marks case at the moment he may use reduce lighting combined with reduced CO2, enriched substrate and whatever other products he obtains, but his fundamental method of doing things has not changed, and that's why he can achieve the same results regardless of what products he happens to be using. The reduced nutrient demand means that he does not have to dose the manic levels we have all erroneously associated with EI, but as far as the plants are concerned, the nutrient levels are still unlimited in relation to their demand. If they were not, they would suffer deficiencies. Reducing the nutrient levels from baseline is a standard procedure for EI. The concentration levels offered by the baseline recipe is simply a reference value from which the user is encouraged to deviate based on his/her requirements.

EI was never meant to be a shackle. Adjust as you go. You are not forced to use dry powders or the amounts listed in the recipe. There is no difference in comparison to the dry powders other than the fact that the commercial products cost 100X more than necessary. EI is interactive. It's a "World View" and has only an affiliation with the dry powders primarily because of price. The two objectives therefore work hand in hand: avoidance of malnutrition and low price. This is SPECIFICALLY why the article in the Tutorial section is entitled "EI Dosing Using Dry Powders".

Cheers,


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## Morgan Freeman (17 Jul 2012)

I stand corrected. I was under the assumption Mark's dosing was fairly low or at least at a much lower level than regular EI calculations.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (17 Jul 2012)

I guess no one knows exactly what their dosing. With nutrient substrates, fish waste, filters and tap water to take into account. I'm assuming here that EI is worked out on the basis of if the water column is assumed to contain zero of anything. If so people who does ei at full value are actually dosing more and people dosing just less are probably dosing at full. Just thinking out loud.


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## Tomfish (17 Jul 2012)

> I was under the assumption Mark's dosing was fairly low or at least at a much lower level than regular EI calculations


.
I think you may miss understand what ceg is saying. There is really no such thing as reglular EI calculations. If you are talking about the doses found on interenet calculaters and ukap guides, to my understanding these are starting points from which to more than likely reduce to an adequate level. EI simply gives you the a benchmark of maximum need and a safety zone from which to experiment.


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## ghostsword (18 Jul 2012)

Tonight I made two solutions for the month, while watching eastenders with the wife.. My measuring? A teaspoon.

Wife asked, shouldn't you measure that properly? That is not half a teaspoon..y answer? Sometimes half a teaspoon is this, sometimes it is more, others it is less, the plants do not care.. As long a there is enough they are happy.

Only thing I keep an eye on is co2, too little the plants suffer, too much the fish die, and light period, only 6 hours. Ferts I just dose, lots and lots..  happy fish and happy plants.  

I tried other sorts of ferts, Elos is my favorite, but the dosing bottles are crap..  why? 1ml per day, very concentrated.. 


___________________________
Luis 
@ghostsword


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## ceg4048 (18 Jul 2012)

Tomfish said:
			
		

> > I was under the assumption Mark's dosing was fairly low or at least at a much lower level than regular EI calculations
> 
> 
> .
> I think you may miss understand what ceg is saying. There is really no such thing as reglular EI calculations. If you are talking about the doses found on interenet calculaters and ukap guides, to my understanding these are starting points from which to more than likely reduce to an adequate level. EI simply gives you the a benchmark of maximum need and a safety zone from which to experiment.


Yes, that's right. If the nutrient uptake demand of the plants are low then dosing on the lean side still accomplishes the goal that the published EI vales set out to accomplish in high nutrient demanding situations. It is as simple a concept of supply and demand. If your demand is low then it takes lower amounts of supply to satisfy the demand. If the demand is high then it takes higher amounts of supply to satisfy that demand. The hobbyist decides how to control demand. That is accomplished by the energy input to the tank. That energy is in the form of light and CO2. 

Also consider that the EI method focuses on dosing the water column but it does not exclude nutrient uptake from the sediment. If there is a plentiful supply of nutrients in the sediment then the demand can be satisfied primarily through the roots and would only require a small amount of water column dosing to satisfy the demand. The ADA system uses this technique, but again this is also consistent with the dosing principle of EI, however it is NOT consistent with the _low-cost_ imperative associated with EI.

So what people need to think about in their approach to their plants is to consider the nutritional supply and demand equation driven by the energy input to the tank, and mediated by their objectives of growth rate and maintenance objectives.

And I think this is the basis of the OP's question. He is thinking no doubt about his maintenance objectives. I apologize to the OP for having gone off track, but I think it's important to clear the mind of these product names and formula names which tends to narrow our thinking.

As I mentioned, there is a relationship between the amount of energy input to the tank and the amount of maintenance. I always like to use the car analogy. a Formula 1 car is high a high energy vehicle and so requires huge amounts of maintenance. A Nissan Micra is a low energy car and you hardly have to do anything. Just add petrol and a bit of oil every now and then. It just putters along happily. These are the two extreme ends of the spectrum, and of course there are cars that fit in the middle somewhere. If the OP decides that he does not want to do a lot of maintenance then the conclusion he should draw is that he had better severely restrict the amount of energy input to the tank. He would really be asking for trouble if he used all his megawatts plus lots of CO2 and did not do regular water changes. The waste buildup in the tank would ultimately cause problems. It may not happen this week or next month, but it would result in a slow decline of plant health and would facilitate chronic algal blooms. So he can spend his time changing water or spend it cleaning algae.

Just because the tank hood comes with lots of megawatts it does not mean that one actually has to use them. Just because one injects CO2 it does not mean that one has to use high lights. Adding CO2 means that you may use LESS light. It does NOT mean that you have to use more light. This is another fundamental misconception of high tech tanks. People automatically assume that they need to upgrade their lighting. It is the enrichment of CO2 that defines a high tech tank NOT the light. The lights just drives everything quicker. I see this misconception every day. "Oh, I want to grow carpet plants so I need to add megawatts." You need to forget this idea. It is fundamentally flawed. Carpet plants do not "require" megawatts. They require mega-CO2. That is why some plant species do not do well in low tech tanks, because CO2 is not enriched, not because the lighting is low. Websites like Tropica fuel these misconceptions by showing categories of plants in terms of light requirements. The light requirement of plants is a much more subtle and complicated issue than what is normally presented, and so these categories get simplified, but in so doing we cause more problems for ourselves because we become focused on light instead of focusing on nutrition.

Cheers,


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## AverageWhiteBloke (18 Jul 2012)

> Websites like Tropica fuel these misconceptions by showing categories of plants in terms of light requirements


I think the vast majority of aquarium good suppliers are guilty as charged of fuelling misconceptions. Possibly they are selling their goods aimed at people with long term low energy tanks. I have recently been cleaning out stuff from my house and have lots of old books some specifically for planted tanks and some that are mainly for fish only systems but do have a bit on plants. I've been having a little flick through them and they all make the same mistakes of over emphasising the importance of the lighting and which plants do "well" under certain lighting brightness and spectrum. The old boogie man of nitrate raising it's ugly head as per usual. Even on most modern packaging there are warnings about algae and it's causes. That's why it best to find advice in places like here where the ultimate goal of the hobbyist is to grow plants. It's no coincidence that companies warn you of how bad nitrate is at causing algae and also sell nitrate removing resins to put in your filter. Never would the novice assume for one minute that the lack of nitrate is the problem and in fact compounding the problem further by using such products on the manufacturers recommendation. 

It's going to be a while before all these misconceptions are gone out of the minds of people first embarking on having a planted set up and commercial suppliers aren't helping at speeding things up. On the other side of the coin there are also common misconceptions for people just starting when reading boards like these   A lot of people read through the posts on here before actually posting anything themselves and don't differentiate between long term mid-low energy tanks and the show men and women among us. They see some pics of awesome tanks and think that's the way forward. If money isn't a factor then it's out with the credit card and on with the problems. They often forget that the pics of tanks they're looking at weren't created by thousands of pounds worth of equipment but decades of experience. All the gear but no idea is not often the fast route to a decent planted tank. It's good to see in here though that when asked, people will immediately dis-spell the myths and advise away from the set ups that people initially knee jerk think they need.

The link I posted earlier regarding low techs is a fine example of this. The OP is possibly opting for this based on hassle and I feel he will get a lot more enjoyment out of the hobby and spend less cash. Low tech should be the starting point not EI, you can always build on it from there.


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## Morgan Freeman (18 Jul 2012)

Tomfish said:
			
		

> > I was under the assumption Mark's dosing was fairly low or at least at a much lower level than regular EI calculations
> 
> 
> .
> I think you may miss understand what ceg is saying. There is really no such thing as reglular EI calculations. If you are talking about the doses found on interenet calculaters and ukap guides, to my understanding these are starting points from which to more than likely reduce to an adequate level. EI simply gives you the a benchmark of maximum need and a safety zone from which to experiment.



Yeah I just misunderstood what EI actually was. I usually think of EI as the maximum you need and anything below just becomes......something else.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (18 Jul 2012)

> Yeah I just misunderstood what EI actually was. I usually think of EI as the maximum you need and anything below just becomes......something else.


Your right in thinking that as that is how it is often portrayed. How many people in here start a post off with "I'm dosing Full EI"  When people refer to dosing EI they are generally dosing the maximum amounts the plants can uptake set off anything thing more than that is a waste. If I understand Clive correctly he means that although Mark isn't dosing the column at full EI values but taking into account other values and the sum total would be the equivalent of dosing at the max values for that particular tank. In short Mark knows his system through experience and is dosing more than the tank needs rather than a very vague but fail safe way or "estimative" as it's known.


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## LancsRick (18 Jul 2012)

Thanks guys, hugely informative posts and discussions in here.

I think I'm going to approach this with the following strategy:

- Run both the T5 tubes with reflectors, which will give me circa 2wpg.
- Do not run CO2
- Dose the 5ml/50l of all in one fert recommended

That should keep me in the "low tech" spectrum, which I know I'm comfortable with. If the light intensity and depth of tank means I fail to achieve carpeting (acknowledging that it is likely to be slow due to no CO2), then I'll consider stepping up to high tech - i.e. raise the lighting level and increase CO2 and fert dosing to match. I don't feel the need for faster plant growth justifies (in my mind) the increased maintenance burden that CO2 & EI will bring, but if I need to make the step to enable a broader range of plants to flourish, that might be a motivating factor for me.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (18 Jul 2012)

Good call, like is posted many times in here and sounds a bit cheesy but the plants will let you know what they think of your lighting. Running with the lighting you already have keep an eye out for co2 or nutrient related problems. If you haven't already checked out these or this on algae and this on deficiency they're are worth a read. If you see any problems the next step is either increase ferts and introduce co2 albeit liquid or gas or drop the lighting. The lighting you have is adequate for growing majority of stuff and like Clive says you don't need v high lighting for carpeting stuff just everything else in check and it will grow, just slower.

Remember though once you up the lights and the tech you also up the work load of the tank and problems manifest quicker.


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## Ady34 (18 Jul 2012)

LancsRick said:
			
		

> Thanks guys, hugely informative posts and discussions in here.
> 
> I think I'm going to approach this with the following strategy:
> 
> ...


Hi Rick,
personally if opting for no c02 id run the 2x t8's, as opposed to the t5's. High light and no c02 is a recipie for disaster, i know Troi has suggested he finds this the best way on the low tech route. As suggested already, carpeting plants are more needy of c02 than high light, so be careful when choosing, maybe less demanding species such as marselia hirsuta would be an option. The other thing to consider with low tech is that c02 fluctuations cause algae, water changes alone can cause c02 fluctuations so therefore fewer smaller water changes are better in keeping things stable.
Good luck,
Ady.


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## LancsRick (18 Jul 2012)

Thanks Ady. I was thinking that the PAR at gravel-level would be better without being excessive by using the T5s? I'm aware that the tank is reasonably deep.

That said, there's absolutely no reason why I couldn't run the T8s and then maybe try the T5s at some point in the future for a brief experiment...

Good shout Ady, cheers!


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## AverageWhiteBloke (18 Jul 2012)

Or maybe get some floating plants.


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## LancsRick (18 Jul 2012)

AverageWhiteBloke said:
			
		

> Or maybe get some floating plants.



Good suggestion, but they drive me nuts! Not nearly orderly enough for my liking .


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## AverageWhiteBloke (18 Jul 2012)

I know what you mean, I had some duck weed sneak in on wisteria and I'm still trying to get rid of it.


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