# EI Ferts in low tech



## Planted Bows (24 Jul 2015)

hi guys new to the forum.

I've been dosing my 180litre tank with easy life products such as profito, carbo and iron.

Now it's been 4 weeks in and it seems nothing has changed in the way of better or faster growth.

I have 3 t5s 25w bulbs 2 10k and 1 red bulb.
I know my lighting is fine as have them on for 7 hours a day which I believe works out to be around the medium light range from what I've been told. My plants are easy growers too.

Would I benefit from EI Ferts at all?
Do you need to use presurrised co2 with Ferts?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated  

Cheers,
Jamie


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## Tim Harrison (24 Jul 2015)

Hi Jamie and welcome.
Your lighting is on the high side for a low-energy tank, so watch out for algae creeping in from the edges. However, if you're using carbo you might get away with it - although strictly speaking that makes your tank high-energy. 
Yep you can use EI with low-energy, approx 1/10 dose is the usual. If you're dosing carbo as well you can double or triple that fertz dose.
Check out the tutorials section for more info.


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## Planted Bows (24 Jul 2015)

Hi troi,

Thank you for your reply.

I worked out that I have 1.85 wpg which in the tutorial page states that's low to medium light?

I'm thinking of going all out with presurrised co2 but when I did that before I had a right issue with algae etc so it kinda puts me off.......

Do EI Ferts provide better Results that liquid Ferts like easy life products?


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## Tim Harrison (24 Jul 2015)

The whole w/g thing is a bit old hat these days, but it's still an OKish rough guide, your lighting is perhaps low to medium light for a high-tech. 1 w/g T5 is usual for a low-energy, and IME usually only once the tank is biologically stable with plenty of plant biomass. 
I think EI and ready mixed fertz are all pretty much comparable in terms of ingredients...give or take...most premixed fertz can be adapted to EI, the only real difference is that dry powders are a heck of a lot more economical.


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## Planted Bows (24 Jul 2015)

So all in all EI Ferts do the same job but just far cheaper long term? I do 50% water changes weekly anyway so from what I've read I would be better off using them?
So if I did put co2 in this tank would you say to get more light?


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## Sk3lly (24 Jul 2015)

Planted Bows said:


> So all in all EI Ferts do the same job but just far cheaper long term? I do 50% water changes weekly anyway so from what I've read I would be better off using them?
> So if I did put co2 in this tank would you say to get more light?


No not necessarily. Plants need a combination of light, ferts and co2. Light is the driving force in the process. Higher the light, the faster the plant grows. As the plant grows faster, it becomes more important to get the supply of ferts and co2 correct as it will require greater amounts. My advice is to get the co2, it will improve plant health. I would keep light lower. Yes plant growth will be slower, but it will be healthy. People go high light and suffer plant deficiencies which leads to algae problems


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Tim Harrison (24 Jul 2015)

I agree with Sk3lly. It's a balancing act...and it depends on the plants you want to try and grow as well. 
In reality I think you need a flexible solution to lighting, duration is one part of the equation, but perhaps more important is the ability to vary intensity - whether that means raising or lowering the light or using dimmable units.
If you're going high-energy think about the plants you want to grow and their lighting requirements...whether they are so called difficult plants or easy plants...see Tropica's list of easy, medium and advanced plants http://tropica.com/en/plants/ 
For something like Georges Slow Burner your lighting would probably be fine http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/na-65cm-slow-burner.37285/ and IMO it'll be a relatively safe place to cut your teeth.


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## Planted Bows (25 Jul 2015)

Right......

Well what I will be doing is purchasing some EI Ferts next week on pay day and I'm going to look into co2 too.

One thing I have never seen before is the reactor he had in there? What on earth does this do? What is it for? 
Pardon for my ignorance ahaaaa


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## ian_m (25 Jul 2015)

You are dosing with liquid carbon and have high'ish light so you are therefore high tech and must dose ferts accordingly or else as you have found plant suffer.


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