# tap water in manchester



## barturas (29 Dec 2011)

hey guys ... just wanted to ask you what are your tap water parameters in manchester area ... I've recently checked for PO4 .. and I was shocked ... PO4 in my tap water is exceeding 2ppm ... that wasn't the case about year ago ... 
unfortunately, united utilities don't give any data regarding PO4...


----------



## Alastair (29 Dec 2011)

Really? I'm in Manchester too and in all fairness I've never checked any of my parameters. I may have to get a test kit just for curiosity. Won't this cause algae blooms?


----------



## barturas (30 Dec 2011)

Alastair said:
			
		

> Really? I'm in Manchester too and in all fairness I've never checked any of my parameters. I may have to get a test kit just for curiosity. Won't this cause algae blooms?



I'm really struggling with algae ... Even large doses of glutaraldehyde (same as seachem exel/easycarbo) don't seem to be helpful .. especially against green thread algae ...






Left: tap water (intense blue colour). Right: my RO water
Playing with dilutions I determined that PO4 conc. in tap water is more than 2ppm ... It's completely out of my desired PO4 conc.


----------



## ceg4048 (30 Dec 2011)

Alastair said:
			
		

> Really? I'm in Manchester too and in all fairness I've never checked any of my parameters. I may have to get a test kit just for curiosity. Won't this cause algae blooms?


Hey Alistair, Morpheus suggests that you take the Red Pill....Err..in fact, take two.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our hero doses his tank with over 10ppm PO4 weekly. And look Ma, no algae!





Cheers,


----------



## barturas (30 Dec 2011)

it's different situation ... I've got little, slow-growing biomass in contrast with this tank ... but still 10ppm of PO4 is way too much ... it's totally gonna violate REDFIELD ratio unless you put ~100ppm NO3 which is stick!


----------



## ceg4048 (31 Dec 2011)

The Redfield Ratio is completely meaningless for us and has absolutely no relevance to our dosing strategies. Therefore you do not have to worry about what ratio of one nutrient you need to dose just because you are dosing some level of another. This is not a different situation at all. The same strategy works in tanks with slow growing plants as well as in one with fast growing plants.  The reason you are having thread algae is because of poor CO2 and/or poor flow/distribution. Thread algae has nothing to do with PO4. 

Cheers,


----------



## dw1305 (1 Jan 2012)

Hi all,
Manchester tap is soft and pretty good quality, but will have NaOH and phosphates added to raise the pH above pH7 and precipitate out any lead (Pb) or copper (Cu) picked up from old pipes. Plumbosolvency and PIMS are the technical terms (PIMS = "Phosphate Induced Metal Stabilisation"). There are no EU limits for phosphate, so the water companies don't have to publish the values in tap water. <http://www.manchesterwater.org/pdfs/2009_WaterQualityReport.pdf>.

cheers Darrel


----------



## barturas (1 Jan 2012)

dw1305 said:
			
		

> Hi all,
> Manchester tap is soft and pretty good quality, but will have NaOH and phosphates added to raise the pH above pH7 and precipitate out any lead (Pb) or copper (Cu) picked up from old pipes. Plumbosolvency and PIMS are the technical terms (PIMS = "Phosphate Induced Metal Stabilisation"). There are no EU limits for phosphate, so the water companies don't have to publish the values in tap water. <http://www.manchesterwater.org/pdfs/2009_WaterQualityReport.pdf>.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Thanks for info source ... will read it certainly ... 



			
				ceg4048 said:
			
		

> The Redfield Ratio is completely meaningless for us and has absolutely no relevance to our dosing strategies. Therefore you do not have to worry about what ratio of one nutrient you need to dose just because you are dosing some level of another. This is not a different situation at all. The same strategy works in tanks with slow growing plants as well as in one with fast growing plants.  The reason you are having thread algae is because of poor CO2 and/or poor flow/distribution. Thread algae has nothing to do with PO4.
> 
> Cheers,




Cannot agree with you on some points ... Will reply you tomorrow ... My head is empty after yesterday ...


----------



## barturas (2 Jan 2012)

Alright ... I'm not trying to say that Redfield ratio is something important or most influential in regard of algae thriving ... As I know all this theory is based on observations of parameters of natural water pounds (reservoirs) ... and experimentally proven to be valid in aquariums ... But as authors of this theory are saying RR should be just rough guidelines since algae problems are related to whole bunch of various conditions ... I'm one of those aquariumist who think that algae should be outcompeted by boosted growth of plants. To get this you need to put SLIGHTLY more than plants need JUST TO AVOID growth stagnancy which is the time when algae come to scene ... But as I mentioned overdose should be not too big ... And I think keeping NO3O4 ratio closer to 10:1 is better that 1:1, eg. 10ppm NO3 + 1ppm PO4 rather than 10ppm NO3 + 10ppmPO4 ...

BUT YOU ARE RIGHT saying that my problems with thread (and Cladophora) algae are not related to PO4  ... I admit that ... I'll try to increase dosing and CO2 ...


----------



## ceg4048 (2 Jan 2012)

Hi,
    Actually the Redfield Ratio should be be ignored completely because in the first place it's a stoichiometric analysis performed originally at a few location in the Atlantic Ocean and is not a mass analysis. It was also later shown that individual phytoplankton varied in their atomic ratio of C:N by as much as 10X. So really, if someone is trying to dose in accordance with this ratio then they ought to be using atomic numbers, and then converting that to grams, and they also should also know what the ratios are in the particular plant that they are trying to dose. Even so, this still leads nowhere from our perspective because the uptake rates of the nutrients are not the same as the rate at which we dose.

Secondly, higher plants, phytoplankton and algae inhabit completely different niches and there is no way that any plant can compete with algae because algae cannot be limited by CO2/nutrients while it is very easy to limit plants.

I can understand that it's necessary to believe something, but to continue to believe a thing in the face of evidence to the contrary doesn't serve. As I just demonstrated in the photo of the tank above, the dosed ratio of NO3/PO4 in that tank varied from 6:1 to 2:1. That photo was taken at a dosing ratio of 2:1 for several weeks. As the ratio approached 1:1 the growth rates improved, so it cannot be true that 10:1 is better than 1:1. This shows that PO4 is super important and that it is likely that PO4 is the limiting factor in growth performance in many instances.

My tanks don't get algae at all, and I routinely violate the Redfield Ratio as well as intentionally violate any other ratio, because I can see that at the end of the day plants do not really care about any ratio. What they care about is obtaining as much of everything that they can, and whatever ratio that happens to be will be fine with them.

One can dose any ratio as long as the fundamental principles of sufficient nutrition is maintained. On the other hand, one can dose a particular ratio but if the actual amount of a nutrient is below the required threshold for those particular environmental conditions the plant health will fail. That's why following ratios often gets people into trouble.

More data about Refield ratio in the thread The problem with the Redfield ratio theory

Cheers,


----------



## barturas (3 Jan 2012)

nice ... thanks for reply ... I'll read more about that ... 
What strategy of fertilization are you using? EI or PMDD ? What amount of macro in ppm are you trying to keep?
Are you using any algicides such as Exel, EasyCarbo, glutaraldehyde? What is your water pH? dGH, dKH? What do you think about treatment against green algae with Cu2+ (0.125ppm)?
If you could squeeze into one sentence what would be your basic rule to keep aquarium without algae? ... 

thanks!


----------



## ceg4048 (4 Jan 2012)

barturas said:
			
		

> What strategy of fertilization are you using?


Hi,
  I normally dose EI. You can have a look at our EI tutorial viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1211



			
				barturas said:
			
		

> What amount of macro in ppm are you trying to keep?


Well, it's always a good idea to start with the basic EI dosing plan which does have some baseline ppm numbers. However, because it is difficult or impossible to determine exact uptake rates or even to determine specific uptake requirements I don't really worry about PPM. Worrying about PPM is the same as worrying about ratios. I simply react to the changes and evolution of the tank as the plants grow. Also, test kits are never accurate or consistent so I avoid all the stress associated with trying to maintain some PPM level. See my comments at the tail end the thread viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8501



			
				barturas said:
			
		

> Are you using any algicides such as Exel, EasyCarbo, glutaraldehyde?


No, and this is another point which I think is important. Although I have used Excel, I never think of these products in terms of their algicidal properties, even though I do recognize that they have these properties. I always refer to them as liquid carbon because the fact that they deliver CO2 to the plant is 1000X more important than the fact that they have algicidal properties. In fact, you'll find that these products are most effective against CO2 related algae and are much less effective against algal species which are not related to poor CO2 uptake. This is an important detail in that the reason a tank suffers thread, hair, and BBA blooms is specifically because the hobbyist is using an incorrect technique with their CO2 application. Excel and Easycarbo primarily work by fixing this issue in that they deliver extra CO2 to the plant thereby improving the health of the plant. As far as i'm concerned, it is only a secondary benefit that the CO2 related algae react negatively to their application. Killing algae does not fix your plants, but fixing the faults associated with plant nutrition, such as poor CO2 uptake will always help avoid incurring algal blooms.



			
				barturas said:
			
		

> What is your water pH? dGH, dKH?


I never worry about pH GH or KH. I allow these parameters to fall where they may. The only time I think about what the numbers are - or think about adjusting them, is when I'm interested in breeding particular species of fish. Most plants don't really care - although there are a couple that do care about KH/GH but I've had tanks with anywhere from [pH 3, GH 3, KH 4] all the way to [pH 7, Gh 25, KH 15] and everywhere in between. As long as nutrient/CO2 are paid attention to then there really has not been much difference in performance. With some of the sensitive species that do care there is performance falloff at the extreme upper limits as discussed in the thread viewtopic.php?f=11&t=16479



			
				barturas said:
			
		

> What do you think about treatment against green algae with Cu2+ (0.125ppm)?


I've never really played with copper algecides to tell you the truth. I refuse to turn my tank into a toxic waste site. 

For green water you can just use a UV sterilizer and fix that issue within a couple of days. It works like a charm. Toxins and algaecides are simply not in my inventory, because whatever kills algae also damages plants, and I know that if you do not fix the fundamental causes of algae then using a toxin will only be a temporary solution which will always backfire if you continue to depend on it. The correct path is to simply not get algae, and that's done by maximizing plant health and by keeping the tank scrupulously clean.



			
				barturas said:
			
		

> If you could squeeze into one sentence what would be your basic rule to keep aquarium without algae? ...


Oh, that's easy. Fatten up you plants by feeding them as if they were hogs, do not go overboard with megawatts of light, keep your tank pristine by massive and frequent water changes and pay attention to CO2, filter flow rate and flow distribution.

Cheers,


----------



## barturas (7 Jan 2012)

such a thorough answer! ... I appreciate that, ceg4048 ...


----------

