# EI questions



## steveninaster (11 Oct 2010)

First of all sorry for newbie quetions.

I have a 150ltr medium\low light planted tank which up until 2 weeks ago was dosed using easycarbo and profito.

The tank was ok, plants not growing much, not unhealthy.  So I decided to switch to DIY CO2 which has given me 20-25ppm.  Tank looks much more vibrant and I am pleased with the results.

My profito is about to run out and I am considering switching to EI.  
Today I did some tests   
kH 13, gH 16, 
Fe 0, 
P 1.0 
N 30.

Obviously the increased CO2 has stripped the Iron so I have upped the dose which will in turn hopefully reduce nitrates.  My nitrates are always high as my tap water is 20-25ppm.  If I feed this info into nutri-calc it tells me to dose for P,K,Mg and trace.  
Should I dose Mg if my water is so hard and therefore probably contains a fair amount?
Should I dose at the level suggested as my lighting and CO2 levels are not high tech?

I was considering dosing at half rate, what do you think.

Thanks for any advice given


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## CeeJay (11 Oct 2010)

Hi steveninaster
Ooh, all those numbers   
I'm afraid any CO2 in a tank makes it 'hi tech'   .
Glad to hear your tank is improving. Just make sure you keep an eye on the CO2 production, as it has a reputation of being unstable towards the end of it's life. Unstable CO2 = algae headache   .
On to the numbers. 
Personally, I would start with EI levels and slowly reduce the amounts over a period of a few months if you want to. If your reading of 20-25ppm CO2 is anywhere near correct, you are getting up towards the top end anyway, which will increase the demand for ferts. Demand will also increase as the plants get bigger. It is easier to start high and reduce, rather than start low and increase, and have to deal with all the associated problems of plant deficiencies and the dreaded algae.
Do yourself a favour and stop stressing about your high Nitrates. Your plants will love you for it   .
If you want to dose Mg, check out ebay. 99p for 2kg of Epsom Salts will last you a very long time indeed.
Mg is used by the plants to assist in the production of chlorophyl so if you back off your dose and your plants stay green, you won't need it.
After sound advice round here, I chucked my test kits in the bin and am now dosing double EI values (have been for the last 5 months), and that's on top of an alleged average of 25ppm NO3 in my tap water, of which 80% gets changed every week   .
The results I see are seriously healthy plants. It doesn't bother my fish or shrimp in the slightest, and not a drop of algae in sight  
You will also save yourself a fortune on the ferts compared to commercial liquids. .
Good luck.


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## steveninaster (12 Oct 2010)

Thank you,  it's probably the first time I've run tests on the tank in 12 months but thought it worthwhile due to the routine change.

I now have a plan 
Sat   50% wc    Macro 1/2 tsp K2SO4, a little KH2PO4,
Sun  15ml Trace
Mon  Macro
Tue  Trace
Wed Macro
Thur Trace
Fri   None
Based on what I've found out Magnesium in the tap water is at least 10ppm and probably a lot more so I wont worry about it for now.  
I dont see a great amount of algae, a few tufts of green algae which I remove by hand, anything else is taken care of by the nerite, ottos and shrimp.


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## Whitebeam (12 Oct 2010)

You should be able to find out a typical Mg content for your water by contacting your water supplier. I sent mine (Bornemouth and West Hants) an email yesterday evening (when I read your first post, actually) and received a reply (2.46ppm) today. My tap-water GH is 240 and KH 210ppm by uncalibrated test-kit, FWIW.

Peter


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## chris1004 (12 Oct 2010)

Hi,

I wouldn't bother with K2SO4 at all if I were you and purely dose KNO3 and KH2PO4 in quite reasonable amounts. I'd start with about a teaspoon a week of each and see how it goes. You may be able to get away with less especially of the KH2PO4 but if you source it from ebay its cheap as chips anyway and those amounts won't do any harm and the high Phosphate content will go a long way to keeping green spot algae at bay.

To be honest the fert regime is nowhere near as important to get your head around and understand as your CO2. I would seriously doubt that you have anywhere near 20-25ppm in a 150L tank with a DIY system and it most certainly won't be stable which will trigger algae to bloom in itself, there's simply no getting away with that. Once the algae blooms it will in turn make good use of the ample supply of food that you are planning of introducing just as all your plant matter will and after all most all algae is indeed plant matter albeit undesirable.

How did you measure the co2 concentration? My guess is that you took a PH and KH reading and worked off the charts. This method is flawed I'm afraid. For a more accurate result you need to use a Drop checker with a known reference solution, commonly 4KH water, (apologies if you did) but even this only gives a ball park figure, accurate enough for our needs though.

Regards, Chris.


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## steveninaster (12 Oct 2010)

I have a drop checker with 4kh water in it ,
Currently reading 6.8 or 20ppm, I get 6.6 just before lights on and that rises to no higher than 7 at lights out.  I'm finding that feeding the CO2 into the filter inlet is completely disolving the CO2.  I have v little surface movement so this helps too.  The DIY lasted 2 weeks and I replaced as soon as I saw a drop.  tbh I've been amazed at how good the CO2 levels have been.

As an aside, I'm not convinced 1 cup of sugar per week is any cheaper than I have paid for CO2 using FE .

Steve


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## chris1004 (13 Oct 2010)

Hi,

Fair enough, if you're getting this much CO2 off a DIY system then you're doing well, but the trick is keeping it stable, especially if you're running the tank with anything approaching high lighting.

Are you running this tank as a high tech tank or lower tech with lower lighting? what about flow?  

It makes a big difference just how much lighting you have and the duration of the photo-period, its this coupled with the plant mass that determines the demand for the CO2 and in turn the type and amount of ferts required not the other way around. The light-CO2 is a  delicate balance to achieve and maintain and probably the NO1 cause of problems in planted tanks. The other biggest factor for trouble is ammonia spikes (which trigger algae to bloom) so understanding this and keeping them in check is also of paramount importance.

The best and most effective way of using the EI dosing regime is to supply more than enough of both CO2 and ferts and control the plant growth by light limiting the tank. Its by far and away the easiest factor to control. 

There is a huge margin for error with ferts and it really doesn't make any difference to the flora or fauna if you dose as much as up to 4 times recommended levels. This has been tried and tested by some very competent aquarists which post on this site so the rest of us don't have to experiment in this way.

So really just concentrate on sourcing cheap ferts and dose way more than the plants can take up. Sorted. On that score at least.

At first trying to understand using dry ferts seems complicated I understand, I've been there myself in the past, but try not to bog yourself down they really are that simple.


Regards, Chris.


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## steveninaster (13 Oct 2010)

Thanks Chris,
The tank is at the low end of lighting, I use 4 14watt T8 tubes giving me 56 watts for 9 hours per day, Filtration is a Tetratec EX700 and a koralia nano for extra circulation.  I used FE CO2 up until about a year ago when I decided to slow the growth and try easyCarbo.
Plants are a mix 50% coverage, L sessiflora, B Monerii and Rotala Indica Stem plants.  E Tenellus and dwarf sag the rest with a single anubia barteri. 

I suppose I like to know that what I'm adding is for a reason and will benefit the tank.  I'm struggling to get to grips with dosing nitrates when the tank has plenty, it seems counter-intuitive.


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## chris1004 (13 Oct 2010)

Hi,

I wouldn't say that your lighting is all that low. On the face of it you have about 1.7WPG (watts per gallon) of standard T8 lighting. I think that's usually considered to be about mid-high lighting, with 2WPG considered by most as high lighting. A lot depends on your tank though and there are many other factors coming into play when considering lighting like reflectors, water clarity, height of luminares above water surface and depth of water.etc. Any how that's another subject and further digressing from your original post.

Its worth checking out this link:- 

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/

Look at the algae guide under the plant problems tab.

Take particular attention to the causes of the differing algae and note just how many have low nutrients as a causal factor. Especially BGA (cyanobacteria) which is an absolute bitch to get rid of once it gets a hold in a planted tank.

Thinking it through then there is more to be gained by overdosing ferts (within the upper limits) than walking the proverbial tightrope. Unless of course this is the way you intend to control algae which moves more into the realms of PMDD dosing than the EI type dosing that you've been asking about thus far and is to my mind so much more complicated and possibly even flawed when you start having to rely on home test kits to base fertilizing decisions on. Anyway that's another completely different subject which you can delve into at a later date should you feel inclined to do so.

So as ferts are really cheap and don't harm flora or fauna (within those upper limits of course)  its just good practice therefore to stay well above the basic minimum requirements when EI dosing. Fast growing plants like Limnophilia Sessiflora will munch there way through NPK at a fair old rate anyway and as its impossible to predict exactly how much they will get through just keep the ferts at un-limiting levels. That means all they can eat plus some left over so as not to trigger algae to bloom.

Earlier you mentioned that your nitrates in your tap water are about 20-25ppm which isn't that high at all really. Standard EI dosing recommends 20ppm nitrate as a starting ball park figure so I can see where your coming from on this but to be honest I wouldn't even bat an eyelid now dosing twice that figure, especially with plants like limnophilia sessiflora in the tank. 



More importantly never underestimate the importance of good *stable* CO2 and the light-co2 balance within your individual tank. Look again at that algae article I linked to and note just how many are caused by low or fluctuating Co2 levels. Sorry to keep banging on about CO2 but it really is 10x more important than the ferts.  

Regards, Chris.


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## steveninaster (13 Oct 2010)

You win , 
I'll contact my local FE company, they've supplied me with 10yr old FE for Â£5 in the past and you're right I dont fancy having to do regular tests which is why EI interests me.  

I was looking on ebay and was going to buy http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170548901995&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:BIN, but then I realised that the composition seemed wrong and http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/100g-TRACE-EL...arden_PlantsSeedsBulbs_JN&hash=item255dd2d023  has the right iron etc.  so I intend to order that one.


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## chris1004 (13 Oct 2010)

Hi,

Its not me winning mate its you....    

Regards, Chris.


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## steveninaster (13 Oct 2010)

I've ordered KNO3 and KH2PO4  in addition to trace so there is no turning back.

Steve


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## chris1004 (14 Oct 2010)

Hi, 

Good, its definitely the way to go without a shadow of doubt. Hope things go well for you.

Regards, Chris.


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## steveninaster (17 Oct 2010)

Just filled a Â£10 profito bottle with Â£2 trace mix .  Definitely no going back to comercial mix.


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## steveninaster (26 Oct 2010)

You were definitely right on the DIY CO2, EI WC's are to large and so it takes 2-3 days for the CO2 levels to recover.


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## chris1004 (29 Oct 2010)

Hi,

There's a recipe for algae if ever I saw one....

Regards, Chris.


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