# EI Dosing and Phosphate Level



## mracejay

Hi Guys,

This is one for the EI experts I think!

My phosphate levels appear to be really high or are they? Just before the 50% water change they got upto 5ppm after the 50% water change and before I dose the first Macro Nutrient mix for this EI week the phosphate level was 2.5ppm.

I am not sure if this is normal or EI dosing or not? I am only just moving into my 2nd week! So I am still finding my feet with it!

If this level is too high what should I do about it? Should I reinstall the D-D Rowaphos remover? Or will that defeat the EI dosing?

Thanks guys.

Jason

Here are my aquarium stats:

Aquarium age: 3 Months old
350 litres (Juwel Trigon 350)
2 x 45w Juwel T5 Hi-lite tubes with reflectors (1x Nature, 1 x day)
2 x 24w Juwel T5 Hi-lite tubes with reflectors (1 x nature, 1 x day)
Photoperiod: 10 Hours
Presurised CO2 system (22ppm), Sera 1000 Activ CO2 Reactor
1 X 1000EF, 1000 lph UV external filter
(Media: Ceramic rings, Bio Balls, Seachem Purigen 250ml) (there is noway this filter kicks out
1000lph more like 300 lph)
1 x Eheim 2217, 1000 lph external filter (Media: 2l Eheim Mech, Course filter pad, 4l Substrate Pro Plus, fine
filter pad)
1 x 1000 lph power head
Temp: 24 Degrees Centigrade
Dosing: EI (only been dosing for one week now)

Water Parameters:

pH: 6.8 - 7.1 (6.8 during the day when CO2 is being injected, Rises to 7.1 during lights out when CO2 isn't
being injected)
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm0
Nitrate: 40 ppm (Tap water contains 5ppm)
O2: 10 mg/l
GH: 17 Degress (300 mg/l) (I live in a very hard water
KH: 8 Degress (150 mg/l)
Phosphates: 5 ppm (high I know but assuming this is due to EI dosing)

Plants:

Green Cabomba
Rotala Indica
Elodea Densa
Bacopa Carolina
Vallisneria Spiralis Leopard
Rotala Macandra
Hygrophila Difformis (Wisteria)
Hygrophila Rosanervis
Red Ludwigia Repens
Limnophila Sessiliflora
Java Fern
Java Moss

Fish Stock:

6 x Gold Danios
6 x Adult Platis Various ( 10 x fry that are now 3 weeks old from two batches)
12 x Neon Tetras
6 x Leopard Corydoras
2 x Baby Bristlenose Pleco's barely 3 cm long
Lots of Malaysian Trumpet Snails


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## spyder

mracejay said:
			
		

> I am not sure if this is normal or EI dosing or not? I am only just moving into my 2nd week! So I am still finding my feet with it!



EI is designed around supplying excess ferts.



			
				mracejay said:
			
		

> If this level is too high what should I do about it? Should I reinstall the D-D Rowaphos remover? Or will that defeat the EI dosing?


 You should put the test kit down and keep dosing.


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## Alastair

I used to double the recommended ei levels purely to see what added benefits it did and actually tripled my phosphate levels for a bit because of GSA and it had no ill effects 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ceg4048

You would be well advised to burn your PO4/NH3/NO3 test kits on their own funeral pyre. A PO4 test kit will never help you to grow better plants or to help you keep healthy fish because it is actually incapable of acurately or consistently measuring PO4.

Furthermore, there are no toxic syndromes against fish or plants related to PO4. You seriously need to get over your fear of PO4 because the more you fear it the more problems you will have in a CO2 injected planted tank. PO4 is your best friend. It improves growth rates, improves coloration and can even encourage underwater flowering in some plants. Did you realize that plant helical DNA stands are held together by bridges constructed of PO4? Did you relaize that the molecule that allows a plant to turn CO2 into sugar is called Ribulose bi-phosphate? That the sugar produced by all plants used for growth and for fruit is a Phosphate sugar? Did you realize that the very basis of the energy produced by all living things on the planet is rooted in the transfer of electrical energy facilitated by the PO4 ion? No PO4, No DNA, No food, No energy...No plant. Trying to rid you tank of PO4 therefore is like chopping off your right hand. Rowaphos? It's incredible to me that people are rushing headlong to their LFS to hand over their hard earned cash for a product that undermines the fundamental health of their plants. Lets get real people. 

Here is a CO2 injected tank dosed with 10ppm PO4 per week.







Cheers,


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## Quetzalcoatl

Thanks for that very informative reply Ceg. It`s much appreciated.  

I had no understanding of the importance of maintaining good PO4 levels. I doubled my dosage a while back to combat GSA but was afraid to add more in fear of levels becoming toxic. Reassuring to know that this is not the case.  

Is maintaining good PO4 levels as important, if not more so than maintaining decent KNO3 levels then? Like I said I am currently double dosing Ei in relation to PO4 and KNO3 (70g KNO3 + 30g PO4 in 1000ml solution 180ltr medium planted tank) What should we be aiming for in regards to ppm for KNO3/PO4 and how do we monitor these levels without the use of test kits? 

Sorry for the hijack Jason but I wanted to quiz Ceg`s head whilst he was in your thread.


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## ceg4048

Hi Liam,
             The order of nutrient importance (in descending order) goes something like this:
Carbon-->Nitrogen-->Phosphorous-->Potassium-->Iron-->Rest of traces
However, they are all important because algae due to poor PO4 is just as bad as algae due to poor NO3.

So, PO4 is only third in line, however, Carbon and Nitrogen are relatively abundant in nature. PO4 is very difficult to find because it is super reactive that even if it is present, it has already reacted with some other agent and is often not "bio-available" to plants. This makes it a rare commodity and we find that natural systems are often limited by, and even defined by their PO4 content. When PO4 is leached into these systems unnaturally (such as runoff from fertilized farms) it inevitably changes the competitive balance in that system, altering the fundamental structure of that system for a very long time. That's why ecologists consider eutrophication of a natural system to be almost as bad as the pollution from toxic agents. That's one reason PO4 has been removed from detergents and cleaning powders (now our clothes don't get nearly as clean as they used to).

In any case, this is where the fear of PO4 originates. Streams and lakes become polluted by laundry (via careless sewage dumping) and farm runoff, and fish stocks plummet, normally due to Oxygen deprivation as the cocktail of pollutants affect the biology of the system but NO3 and PO4 got singled out as pariahs because it too complicated to explain all the fine details to a general public. Eutrophication became synonymous with sewage, algal blooms and toxic pollution. Products such as PO4 test kits and Phospho-zorb, or whatever, are are pawned off to the unsuspecting public, who don't understand the fundamental differences between real pollution that kills fish and plants versus eutrophication as a means of facilitating plant health.

As far as what to aim for, as I mentioned in the previous post, NO3 has very low toxicity, which is further held at bay if one is really worried about it, by the water change scheme. PO4 has no known toxic levels, or at least, no one has been so crazy as to dose massive enough levels in order to find the toxic level in an aquarium (although I have attempted it without success to date).

Additionally, the more you add the more amazing your plants will grow, as long as the tank is not under any other limitation such as poor CO2, which ironically is the only real toxic agent in this methodology, and which nobody seems to be too concerned about, until they wipe out their tank with it.

So really you are asking the wrong question. Since these nutrients are not toxic at these levels one never needs to monitor them, and since higher concentrations simply generate higher growth rates, why on Earth would you worry about ppm? You simply have to choose how amazingly fast and large and pretty you want your plants to look and the only reason to know ppm is to know whether you've added more (or less) this week than you did the previous week. 

Don't forget also that higher concentrations of nutrients, which drive higher growth rates, also result in high levels of metabolic waste products by the plants. These metabolic wastes themselves are toxic, and so you are forced to do more water changes and to perform more trimming if you add more nutrition. The plants are living in their own toilet, so you have to do more flushing if you give them more food to eat. So choose the dosing levels that generate excellent growth but not so much growth that it becomes a burden to keep the tank clean.

Having a PPM mentality is exactly like having a recipe mentality. See Recommended ppm?? for more details.

Cheers,


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## mracejay

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the responses. The information has been great and I have hopefully taken it onboard. 

Don't worry about the Jijack Liam all is welcome!

By the way that's a beautiful looking tank ceg4048. Can I ask what plant that is right in the background of that photo, the one with the redish / brown tips? Thanks.

My fear of Phosphate it not toxity but algal break out. I have cleaned all the algae out of my tank and I don't want to return. Having done some reading I learned that high phosphate and high nitrate along with poor co2 causes agae. So yeah I am a little jumpy and I just want to make sure that everything is doing what it should be doing as is the right level because I don't want to be going round in circles if that makes sense?

As for CO2 in my tank I think I can safely say that I have enough CO2 in there. I have turned my drop checker yellow unfortunately. So I am letting the CO2 drop until the Drop checker goes green again and the I will turn the CO2 back on as slightly lower rate than it was on previously.

Thanks guys again for the help I appreciate it.

Jason


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## ian_m

ceg4048 said:
			
		

> ..... When PO4 is leached into these systems unnaturally (such as runoff from fertilized farms) it inevitably changes the competitive balance in that system,..


There is still some debate about the source of the phosphate runoff. Trials have shown fields dosed with radioactive labelled phosphate fertilizer find that the phosphate run off is not radioactive labelled. It appears the phosphate fertilizer feeds the plants and/or bacteria which release chemicals which enable the existing in soil phosphate to become soluble and get washed away.

Might be explained in here. I have read the the book, an interesting read, but don't have it at hand to verify the above.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Shockin...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340401213&sr=1-1


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## ceg4048

Yeah, too bad there is no Kindle version. From the reviews it seems like it should be an interesting read. I love the title "...Devils Element..."



			
				mracejay said:
			
		

> Can I ask what plant that is right in the background of that photo, the one with the redish / brown tips? Thanks.


See--> Limnophila aromatica - The Rice Paddy Herb



			
				mracejay said:
			
		

> ...My fear of Phosphate it not toxity but algal break out. I have cleaned all the algae out of my tank and I don't want to return. Having done some reading I learned that high phosphate and high nitrate along with poor co2 causes agae....


Well, again, this is not even close to being true either. I'm afraid you're a victim of disinformation promulgated by The Matrix. Algae do not care about either the PO4 levels or the NO3 levels. Light causes algae. It's as simple as that. But people don't really want to hear about that. The Grand Illusion goes something like this:
The Matrix teaches us that aquatic plants need a lot of light just like hydroponic gardens and the cannabis growers confirm. So, we pummel our tanks with megawatts of light and we immediately get algae. Then we think we can solve the problem with a test kit, and we measure the PO4/NO3 levels, and of course the kits are incapable of telling the truth so the readings are really high. Then we panic and assume, at the urging of The Matrix, that the algae is there because of these artificially high readings, so we run out to our LFS like the little lemmings we are, and buy more Phos-be-gone, or Nitro-zorb, or algecide, or whatever hair brained products The Matrix can come up with, sucking the money out of our pockets like a Hoover sucking up so much lint from the carpet.

So people get algae for the rest of their lives, all the while telling each other horror stories of how they just can't seem to be able to rid the tank of either algae or NO3/PO4. So then we run back to the LFS to buy RO devices at outrageous prices because that will finally solve the NO3/PO4 problem, right? But those who can affor RO get just as much algae as the people who can't afford it and who are still using tap. So back to the LFS for more Phos-be-gone. Round and round he goes, where the hamster wheel stops, nobody knows.

The reality is that for a given lighting level, insufficient PO4 causes some types of algae, insufficient NO3 causes other types of algae, insufficient CO2 causes yet another type of algae, and so on and so forth. So while people are manically trying to get rid of these compounds they never think about controlling the light, which is so much easier to do, and they continue to starve their plants into oblivion. So that phony baloney test kits act in concert with disinformation to ensure that you always have a problem and that you'll always be spending money on products that will ensure that you always have a problem.

Therefore, if you have a type of algae that is related to insufficient CO2, then fix your CO2. If your problem is related to insufficient NO3 or PO4 then fix those by adding more. EI shows that you'll not have a problem by adding more than you need but you will have a problem if you add less than you need. For more information check the thread==> Why dont nutrients cause algae?

Cheers,


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## mracejay

Hi Clive,

Thanks for the info again!

So how do I make sure I have enough CO2 in my tank? Is trusting a Drop Checker ok or should I be doing something else?

I mean I managed to inadvertantly turn my drop checker yellow yesterday and my platties didn't look too good for it bless'em. I have now got the drop checker back to green and the platties seem happier.

I don't think flow is my problem. I have got 2 x filters both rated 1000 lph although one of them definitely is nowhere near that I reckon its more like 300 lph. 1 x water pump set 1200 lph and another 1200 lph powerhead. A total of 3700 lph that's in excess of the 10 x turnover for a 350l tank. The plants all gently sway. So I think I have got the flow sorted.

Thanks


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## spyder

Have you always ran the full 4 x T5's for 10 hours a day on this tank?


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## mracejay

No it was originally on for 12 hours then with the onset of algae I reduced it to 10 hours.


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## ceg4048

mracejay said:
			
		

> ...So how do I make sure I have enough CO2 in my tank? Is trusting a Drop Checker ok or should I be doing something else?


Hi Jason,
     Well, rule number 1 is to never trust a test kit, so trusting a DC is definitely NOT OK. As always being in control means having your lighting under control. This is the easiest thing to do and yet it's the last thing people ever seem to think about. I mean, you've got 4 bulbs right? But do they all have to be on at the same time? Why not just use timers to turn 2 of them on for the first couple of hours and then thurn the other 2 on later? The most important time for CO2 is at the beginning of the photoperiod. So have the light 50% dimmer in the beginning reduces the _demand_ for CO2. The gas should also be turned on earlier than the lights so that the DC is already a lime green when the lights come on.



			
				mracejay said:
			
		

> I don't think flow is my problem. I have got 2 x filters both rated 1000 lph although one of them definitely is nowhere near that I reckon its more like 300 lph. 1 x water pump set 1200 lph and another 1200 lph powerhead. A total of 3700 lph that's in excess of the 10 x turnover for a 350l tank. The plants all gently sway. So I think I have got the flow sorted.


OK well it sounds like you have enough flow throughput. How you are distributing the flow is unclear, but if you say that the leaves are swaying then this is a good sign. As long as the tank is not sufferring any CO2 related deficiency or CO2 related algae then you should be OK. It's very easy to look at the tank and to determine immediately when CO2 is becoming an issue so you should never have to blindly trust the DC.

Cheers,


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## mracejay

Hi Clive,

Thanks again for the info I really do appreciate it.

When you say that is very easy to look at the tanks and determine immediately when CO2 is becoming an issue and never blindly trust a DC. What is it I am looking for that immediately says CO2 is not right? Is just the types of algae growing or not growing as the case maybe? Or is there other things I should be looking for.

As for my flow distribution well I have a corner juwel trigon tank. So along one straight wall I have the two filter outputs (1 x 1000lph and 1 x 300 lph) and a 1200 lph power head. The inputs for the filters sit in the pivotal corner of the tank i.e. the furthest away in the corner.

On the other straight wall I have my 1200 lph water pump which powers my CO2 reactor. A the moment I have just got a simple filter pipe as the exhaust for this pump but I am seriously considering getting a spray bar for it distribute the outflow a bit better.

When you watch particles flowing in the tank you can see that ther is a strong clockwise current and a rotation current that comes to the front of the tank flows downwards towards the substrate and then backwards towards the corner where the filter inputs are.

Thanks


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## ceg4048

Hi Jason,
          Yeah, triangle tanks can sometimes be difficult to get flow correctly but it seems like you've got it figured out.

It's so easy to communicate with your tank. All one has to do is to learn the language of plant health. I'll quote from another thread the basics of poor CO2. That's because the faults associated with CO2 are not only wide ranging but may also appear as different syndromes on different species. This is probably the most important grammar lesson one can learn in an injected tank:


			
				ceg4048 said:
			
		

> The problem with CO2 is that depending on the severity of the deficiency and depending on other environmental conditions (and even depending on the plants response mechanisms) it can be expressed in the plant in so many different ways.
> 1. Sudden (acute) shortages can bring the onset of hair, thread  and other filamentous algae or even staghorn algae.
> 2. Fluctuating CO2 levels trigger BBA.
> 3. Chronic severe shortages can cause melting (see What causes leaves to melt, and what to do now?) and can also contribute to excessive surface scum.
> 4. In some plants chronic, medium severity shortages causes holes to appear, leaves falling off, or leaf necrosis (browning on edges, browning on leaf surface), disintegration, rotting stems, glassy (translucency) and a tattered look to the leaves, while the same shortage condition, say on a fern, causes translucent tips and black spots. Cryptocoryne melt is a sure sign that CO2 is chronically at sub-optimal levels.
> 5. Distortion of leaves occurs with chronic minor shortages under very high light, and I only see it in certain plants like Ludwigia, Nesaea and Ammania, but that doesn't mean three aren't other combinations. Plants use Carbon to build structure, but most focus on the Calcium when they see the distortion and forget that under fast growth conditions Carbon shortages will affect the ability to develop clean perfect leaf shapes.
> 6. Chronic severe shortages, often, in combination with chronic NPK shortages can result in Cladophora algae, Oedogonium algae and Rhizoclonium algae and Green Spot algae (GSA).
> 7. Poor CO2 and too much light when a tank is first setup can give rise to the dreaded Green Dust Algae (GDA) and can contribute to Diatomic algae.



Cheers,


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## mracejay

Thanks for that Clive, that has been really informative!


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