# Ei dosing with liquid carbon



## Jester (19 Sep 2016)

Hi, I have been using liquid carbon (seachem excel) on my new tank.  It has been running for 6weeks, I have ordered an Ei starter kit from aquariumplantfood and I,m unsure about how to dose. Ive searched and can only find info saying reduce dosing not concentration? does this mean dose every 2 days or reduce the amount dosed i.e. 5ml per 50lr?
my tank is 55lr, 40x40x40cm
 eheim ecco pro 2 filter timed at 400lr per hour
light is fluval aquasky 12w (800lumen) running at 100% for 6 hours
dosing 2ml of seachem excel daily.
Any help would be appreciated. Jes.


----------



## kadoxu (19 Sep 2016)

I've only been here for a few months, but I never heard about reducing the dosage.
I still dose the recommended amount of Excel when using that same EI regime. I do it even now with CO2 injection.
I think you are overdosing, though... the recomended dosage is 5ml for 40L after a water change and 5ml for 200L when no water change was done. You are dosing 2ml a day which is for tanks just bellow 100L. My tank is 19L and I dose 2.38ml when I perform a water change and 0.48ml on non-water change days.
You should be dosing less than 1.5ml a day


----------



## Jester (19 Sep 2016)

Sorry I mean should I reduce the dosage of ferts not carbon.
In an article online on PFK site titled 'what you need to know about EI plant feeding'  scroll down to ' is C02 essential when using EI' it states, 'However if you do not have pressurised C02 then liquid carbon, such as Easycarbo, can be used instead, but the level of EI dosing, not the level of concentration , should be cut by 50%'.
What I wanted was a confirmation, should I reduce to 5ml per 50lr or dose Ei every 2 days? as I am reading the above as a contradiction.
Or a I being thick??
I am well aware that I am 'overdosing' excel but my shrimp are fine, also my plants seem ok. I have no algae,I perform 50% water changes weekly, all 'seems' to be well. I as like many others have no way of telling whether the liquid carbon is actually being absorbed by the plants or not, just my experience telling me that as all my plants have not melted into my filter and they are rooting well then I am ok with my 'overdose' regime.
Having said that I do not want to go completely over the top with Ei dosing. I understand that's the point, give the plants more than they need, but how much is way too much when only using liquid carbon?


----------



## Manuel Arias (19 Sep 2016)

Jester said:


> Sorry I mean should I reduce the dosage of ferts not carbon.
> In an article online on PFK site titled 'what you need to know about EI plant feeding' scroll down to ' is C02 essential when using EI' it states, 'However if you do not have pressurised C02 then liquid carbon, such as Easycarbo, can be used instead, but the level of EI dosing, not the level of concentration , should be cut by 50%'.
> What I wanted was a confirmation, should I reduce to 5ml per 50lr or dose Ei every 2 days? as I am reading the above as a contradiction.
> Or a I being thick??




Ufffff....there are SO MANY oversimplifications of the matter in that sentence of PFK that I even found it a bit dangerous. The thing of using Excel and not CO2 injection is that they operate in different mechanisms of plants. They are both a carbon source but you cannot fully replace CO2 with Excel. Plants still need the gas, even if they grow better in a low tech with Excel than without it. Because of that, a planted aquarium being provided with Excel still must be considered low-tech and then, CO2 diffusion from air determines the law of minimums in terms of nutrients. Because of that, fertilizers must be adjusted accordingly. 
I agree with PFK that a 50% reduction can be a good starting point respect to nominal EI levels. But to start with, nominal EI levels are really difficult to determine, as this depends on nature of plants (low/high demanding), associated light to it and CO2 balance, density of plants (many/just a few). In this sense, they refer to the amounts, not the frequency. EI relies in a basic routine that must be preserved to avoid breaking the equilibrium of the aquarium. Stick to the EI routine but reduce concentrations you provide to the tank (i.e. volume of dissolved fertilizers you add). For amounts, take as a reference what PFK says, but think yourself if you have low/high demanding plants and many or few plants. Depending on that 50% is OK, or perhaps you need even to reduce to 25%. At that point is just a guessing exercise, so you will need to start with something and adjusting depending on the answer of plants (and algae) to it.

Cheers,
Manuel


----------



## Jester (20 Sep 2016)

@ Manuel thank you, I think my plants are not that demanding of light and are fairly easy to grow, nothing exotic.
Emailed aquarium plant food UK, John advised use liquid carbon as directed on the bottle and half dose their EI kit and keep an eye on plant condition, simples. I guess.


----------

