# Dry ferts.. EI: what am I doing wrong



## rusticdr (25 Oct 2016)

I set up my high tech 100g planted tank 4 months back. Plants were flourishing. Now they seem to have developed nutritional deficiency. Can't pinpoint the exact parameter but it cud be potassium or manganese or iron. But in general leaves r more brownish and dull some with holes. Anyway I posted that thread and got replies. Now I just want to get some feedback whether what I use as EI is correct. Here it is:








Kno3.. 12 tsps + kh2po4.. 4 tsps + mgso4.. 30 tsps dissolved in 1200 ml of RO water. I dose this as 100 ml on alternate days. 
Also add seachem iron 7 ml (once per week) and seachem flourish 5 ml ( twice a week) in the days in between the macros. 
I do 50% water change on Sundays.  

Apart from this.. tank has pressurised co2. Two cannister filters and a variety of fish most of which have low bio load.. around 65 fish total. Rummy noses cardinals rasboras pencil fish form the majority. I feed once daily. 
I also add seachem equilibrium when I do the water change as water is RO. 

Is my EI dosing ok?
These r actually chemicals I bought at a store that supplies laboratories.. is that ok? Or do I get it from an agricultural store?
Will I need to supplement manganese separately or is flourish  or florusih trace ok?
Am I missing something? 

Please help with ur valuable inputs. 

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## kadoxu (25 Oct 2016)

Whenever in doubt...
EI dosing calculator - http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm
EI explanation - http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/EI.htm

UKAPS EI article - http://www.ukaps.org/index.php?page=dosing-with-dry-salts

One more thing, how hard is your water? If you have hard water, it may make it hard for plants to get iron properly. If that's the case, then you need to find a source of iron with a different chelator.


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## rusticdr (26 Oct 2016)

NPK (Nitrogen + Phosphorus + Potassium) Mixture for 20 Gallon Tank
1 month = 4 Weeks
3 doses of NPK per week
Therefore there are 12 doses of NPK per month
Multiply a single dose teaspoon value by 12 => [3/16 tsp KNO3]*12 = 2 ¼ tsp KNO3
[1/16 tsp KH2PO4]*12 = ¾ tsp KH2PO4
[1/2 tsp MgSO4]*12 = 6 tsp MgSO4
Add these to 600ml of tap or distilled water

Yes.  Thank u.. i took this from the ukaps ei formula. And that's how I got my measurements. But unfortunately my plants r not doing well in spite of not missing one dose and proper water changes. Water s soft ro water. Cud u pls answer the questions I have posted at the bottom of my first post? 

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## rusticdr (26 Oct 2016)

Hi everyone.. I have two sword plants which were doing very well until recently. First my co2 was down for about a week during which they developed some bba but once I restarted co2 that was solved. But after that they both have shown a downhill course. These r my tank specs..<br />100 gallon 48x24x21 <br />Filters : eheim 2217 and sunsun 303b<br />Lights: 4x 54 watts  (6500 k and 4500 k) <br />Period: total of 6 hrs per day with only 2 x 54 as I have cladophora issues too.<br />Ferts: EI method <br />Co2: in line Ista reactor.  On with the 6 hrs of lighting period. 3bps with green drop checker. <br />Soil.. ada amazonia <br />Other plants: rotala, limnophila aromatica(not doing well), ludwigia ovalis (not doing well) crypts, flame and Christmas Moss, echinodorus major, microtenellus, anubias nana. <br />Is it the light? Shud I increase it to all four.. will add root tabs today but the tank is only 3 months old. <br />(There is also a sunsun jvp 101 wavemaker for the flow.)<br />Please anyone shed some light.. 





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This was the thread I posted abt my plants a couple of days back.  Just for reference. 

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## ian_m (26 Oct 2016)

Couple of observations.


You don't need to use expensive lab grade ferts. You might be able to find considerably cheaper non lab grade alternatives.
I think your EI mix is too strong. My calcs would be 10 tsp NO3, 3 tsp PO4 and 14 SO4 in 1200ml water. Dosing 100ml every alternate day.
You probably need to dose Fe & Flourish every alternate day.
Flourish contains iron, so extra Fe might not be necessary, though extra won't be an issue. Dosing Fe to 0.5ppm per week is fine.
Most mechanical defects in plants, holes, rotting etc are either fish having a nibble or most likely insufficient CO2.
Try placing your drop checker in amongst the failing plants (tie it with string to a stone ?) and see if it turns green. I was really  surprised that I could get a yellow drop checker in certain places in my tank and get a blue drop checker in other places.


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## dw1305 (26 Oct 2016)

Hi all, 





rusticdr said:


> Or do I get it from an agricultural store?





ian_m said:


> You don't need to use expensive lab grade ferts.


I agree with "ian_m" agricultural grade is fine.

The damage to the Sword plants is *definitely *caused <"by your _Ancistrus">, _but they may well have started on your plants because of the lack of plant health.

Your fertiliser addition adds both manganese (Mn) and iron (Fe), deficiencies of which are possible causes of the chlorosis in the new leaves of your plants, so I would probably discount them.

Along with manganese and iron the other nutrients that are non-mobile (or partially mobile) in plants are: <"Zn, Cu, Bo, Mo, Si, Ni and Ca">. You can get a trace mix via one of <"our sponsors"> (other sponsors are available).  Trace element deficiencies are hard to diagnose because they often relate to problems with plant uptake and ratios of elements, rather then direct amounts.

Even though you are adding Seachem equilibrium you may have problems with calcium uptake caused by the large amounts of added magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). You could try adding some more calcium, calcium chloride (CaCl) is widely available (they use it as a desiccant and in food etc) via Ebay etc.

cheers Darrel


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## rebel (26 Oct 2016)

Oh yeah those swords are getting rasped by your sucker fish. If you look at the freshly destroyed areas, there is no necrosis at the edges.


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## dw1305 (26 Oct 2016)

Hi all,





rebel said:


> Oh yeah those swords are getting rasped by your sucker fish. If you look at the freshly destroyed areas, there is no necrosis at the edges.


That one. 

There are images here: <"Extraplant Blog.....">



 

cheers Darrel


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## rusticdr (26 Oct 2016)

Hi all.. so grateful for all the replies. Didn't expect such a response. U have no idea how helpful this kind of feedback is. From the looks of it u guys r probably rite regarding the leaves becoming fodder for the fish. Here r pics of my limnophila.. 





I will try and get less expensive chemicals but it's a relief to know that what chemicals I am using now r ok. I will tinker with the amounts as suggested to make it exact. I will try adding flourish trace once weekly. 
Co2 seems to be OK.  But will try moving the drop checker. Will also increase lighting to all four ( 4x 54 watts ) from my current two. I had reduced thinking that ferts were insufficient. 
And lastly will try adding some cucumber for my bn plecos. Thank u so much to all who replied. 

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## dw1305 (26 Oct 2016)

Hi all, 
Just a thought, if your tap water is hard you can just cut your RO with ~10% tap to supply some calcium.

cheers Darrel


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## rusticdr (27 Oct 2016)

All my water outlets including all taps have RO water coming out. The ground water is too hard to be used as such. So the entire apartment gets RO water. That's why I add the equilibrium. 

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## Glenn Birtwistle (27 Oct 2016)

Following for info.

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## ian_m (27 Oct 2016)

rusticdr said:


> All my water outlets including all taps have RO water coming out. The ground water is too hard to be used as such. So the entire apartment gets RO water. That's why I add the equilibrium.


Are you really 100% sure everything is RO ? I have never heard whole apartments being supplied RO ? Your water must be outrageously expensive, RO maybe cost 1p per litre typically 5-10x cost of straight mains water and isn't very ecologically friendly wasting 5-10litres for each litre of RO.

What I suspect (I may be wrong) is whole apartment water softening that swaps the hard calcium/magnesium ions for soft sodium ion. These are very common especially in very hard water areas and their cost is covered in apartments ground rent as are cheap to run. I have one in the kitchen.

Unfortunately sodium softened water has no place in fish keeping (I know as I have a whole house water softener) and this could be and certainly produces plant issues as they (and fish) are being poisoned by excess sodium.

In UK, at least, one tap in the apartment must be mains water for drinking and cooking. If you have one just use that water.


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## rusticdr (28 Oct 2016)

Yes.. whatever u said is absolutely true. But unfortunately the city I live in has outrageously high ground water tds. We have a huge RO plant for the entire apartment. The waste water that is generated is used for gardening. It's not a good ecological alternative but if the ground is used directly the pipes will clog up within a year. But maybe it's the water that's causing all these issues. Will have to test the water parameters and compare. There is no way I can add tap water now as all the outlets r ro. Anyway thanks for the input. Will keep this thread posted. 

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## rebel (28 Oct 2016)

Check theTDS of your tap water and report back. I am very curious.


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## rusticdr (1 Nov 2016)

Will measure the tds soon. In the meantime.. discovered that it WAS the bn plecos munching on the swords and the dwarf gourami picking apart the limnophila aromatica. Planning to give some zucchini for the plecos. No idea how to control the gourami. Any thoughts on that?

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## rusticdr (18 Mar 2017)

Hi guys.. I am here to give a feedback on wat happened. First I wud like to thank u all so much for taking the time to reply and why I haven't posted this reply earlier cos I just figured out wat was going wrong in my tank.

Problem:
1. The swords died a few weeks after this thread started. 
2. All my stem plants started turning brown. 
3. Rooted guys like crypts as well as flame Moss were OK.

Solution:
So I checked my nitrates and phosphate(which  I shud have done a long time ago).. nitrates >160 ppm.. phosphates >10ppm. I was overdosing for the past four months. 
I immediately did multiple 50% wc over the next few days. Cut down my dry ferts dosing. And voila.. the rotala which was just burnt out twigs without leaves.. started shooting out leaves. Now that parameters have stabilised the plants r recovering. 

Problem:
4. Got some fresh echinodorus major.. next day they were showing holes.. just like before. It was my bn plecos. I have two. 

Solution:.
 I started feeding them zucchini on a daily basis. 
Question: 
But my question s this.. is there no way I can grow swords with bn plecos and NOT feed them zucchini everyday for the rest of their lives..? 

Again.. thank u all. 


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## AverageWhiteBloke (30 May 2017)

Unfortunately if the fish fancy a snack and they like the taste of the swords they will graze on them I suspect. Even with zucchini in they still might fancy something different.


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## Soilwork (2 Jun 2017)

I find that EI is not fool proof and it doesn't work for everybody.  The general pattern is that it works for a while then as the nutrient levels increase and the ratios become wider things can turn sour.  I suspect the BN was eating the leaves because they were unhealthy due to overdosing.  Perhaps they will leave the swords alone now in your current dosing system.


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## roadmaster (2 Jun 2017)

Hard for nutrient level's to increase steadily assuming plant uptake and 50% weekly water change EI method call's for.
I raise long finned albino Bristlenose and some leave plant's alone while other's never seem to leave em alone once they get a taste for them.
Would not be inclined to associate dosing method with damage caused by fishes.


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## Soilwork (2 Jun 2017)

Stems were 'burnt out twigs'.  If the fish were damaging them they would not be recovering now dosing has been reduced. 

If I am not mistaken, the OP has a nutritious substrate.  Dosing the original levels of EI in conjunction with the nutritious substrate and waste production + feeding of fish can increase the baseline far from EI levels which is already way in excess of what the average tank actually uses.


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## roadmaster (2 Jun 2017)

Would agree that full EI would maybe not be needed for first few month's with ADA soils  but fishes were responsible for most of the damage according to photos and OP's observation's.
OP replaced sword plant's and Bristlenose immediately set upon them.
In any event,nutrient's have been reduced according to OP so whatever the dosing is now,,,it is not EI method.


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## rusticdr (4 Jun 2017)

roadmaster said:


> Would agree that full EI would maybe not be needed for first few month's with ADA soils  but fishes were responsible for most of the damage according to photos and OP's observation's.
> OP replaced sword plant's and Bristlenose immediately set upon them.
> In any event,nutrient's have been reduced according to OP so whatever the dosing is now,,,it is not EI method.


Sorry if there was a miscommunication from my side. Just wanted to clear few stuff. Most of the stem plants had melted or had burnt look and that I attribute to the high levels of nutrients. And as to why the ei dosing with weekly 50% water change did not work was also bcos of inadequate lighting. This I concluded after a few months of tweaking various parameters. Now ei dosing does work but I have reduced the amt I add from the original recommended values. Secondly.. the only plant damage I can confidently say was only due to fishes was the echinodorus major or swords which was due to the pleco. 
 Thanks so much for taking interest. Some of my plants never recovered fully. So I put in some new ones. Once I have completely  figured out and get a sustainable good growth I wil post more pics. 
  In conclusion EI dosing does work but the actual dosing must be adjusted to suit our tank conditions. And I love this forum where ppl r so active and contribute so much. Pls carry on the good work. 

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## rusticdr (4 Jun 2017)

Latest pic of my tank.. 




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