# The Use Of Phosphate and  Nitrate Removers



## jeefran (23 Dec 2011)

HI

Not a regular contributor, tend to be more of a browser.

Been trying to understand this for a while now any ideas?? ......your feedback and opinions would be greatly appreciated

EI tried it with great success but what a waste of water and nutrients. Have had great results dosing TPN+ daily, if any deficiencies appear i add a little extra Potassium, Iron, Nitrogen Phosphate etc.

But how does this approach work ....
I have been following Mark Evans progress with his latest set up and Mark is using a very low nutrient approach using carbon in the filter and phosphate remover.

Also for a few years now i have regularly visited this site http://bubblesaquarium.com/Aquascape/Aquascape Front PageF1.htm
if you take a look at the info pages on all of the aquariums they are using phosphate remover, nitrate remover etc. Plants are all healthy, no algae and water is gin clear.

I realize in the early days of a set up growth can be less and the requirements for these elements will be less and the plants will pull their needs from the substrate if using a good one ADA/Tropica/JBL etc but is this sustainable in the long term!!

I have had a lot of success with the Dennerle fert system on a relatively high light level set up 22 watts over 25 litres, V30/E15/and their NPK daily.....but when dosing EI we are dosing to 20mg/l No3 - 1mg/l Po4 - Potassium to 20mg/l.  After testing when using Dennerle system No3/Po4 is really low.

Can plants be trained run on less nutrients N and P....is the way forward less light low nutrients. Do plants find a different source of N and P to the ones these phosphate and Nitrate removers take out.

Or are bubbles using a separate filter running it say over night to reset the tank so to speak and then re-dosing before the lights come on.

What do you guys think!


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## ceg4048 (27 Dec 2011)

Hi,
    Plants are able to adjust to a wide variety of nutrient conditions. All that's required is a set of stable conditions to adjust their internal chemistry in order to compensate for the lower nutrient availability. They simply become more efficient at gathering and utilizing the nutrient components. The only difference you will see with a reduction of nutrients is a reduction in the growth rate. The reduction in growth rate means a reduction in maintenance and in water changes. Reduction in growth rate does not automatically mean a reduction in health.

Assuming that these NO3/PO4 Removers actually work (which no one has actually verified) then "6 of one is the same as a half-dozen of the other". In other words, why spend money to buy products which remove NO3/PO4 when you can simply add less NO3/PO4?

I think what people fail to recognize when told of these various schemes is that there are fundamentally two types of dosing regimens promulgated by various camps: One in which the majority of nutrients are fed to the plants via the roots, such as in the ADA system, and the other in which water column feeding is predominant, such as in EI/PMDD and so forth.

Plants do not really care which system is used so long as there are no shortfalls in the nutrient loading. So if Mark decides to use a nutritious substrate, and if that substrate is extremely high in NO3/PO4 then the plants will not be affected by the removal of NO3/PO4 from the water column because they have a plentiful supply in the sediment. Let Mark or anyone try using NO3/PO4 removers while using an inert, unfortified substrate and see what happens.

Because of the interchangeability of nutrient movement between leaf and root it's possible to achieve success using various combinations, so we ought not to be surprised that we can have success using a rich substrate and minimal water column dosing any more than we should be surprised that we can achieve success using high water column dosing and minimal sediment dosing.

The important issue of EI type schemes is not that there is some revolutionary force in plant growth via water column dosing but that there is a cheap and effective way of sustaining plant health. In his revelation of the results of his technique Mark should also provide an economic report, giving us the retail value of the products he is using in his experiments and compare it to the economics of an EI based approached. Then we will have a better idea of the value of each of the techniques. There can be no argument about which technique works because we should know that all these approaches work equally well. It's just a matter of how much money one wishes to spend.

Cheers,


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## jeefran (27 Dec 2011)

*Re: The Use Of Phosphate and Nitrate Removers*

Hi ceg
Thanks for the reply!

This is really interesting and becomes more obvious the more i think about it.

Nutrients dosed on a daily basis i.e TPN+ or the Dennerle system V30/E15/NPK Daily, good circulation, ample CO2 availability and distribution, medium light, regular waterchanges and a really good nutritious substrate.

This way i,m sure is the way forward for alot of people.

I have recently set up a small aquarium using ADA amazonia and powersand, i have carried out water changes (50%) every 2 days but only illuminated it for 3 hours for the first 3 weeks and have now been on 4 hours for the last 2 weeks still zero algae not even on the glass..........plants are doing well albeit very slow growth.

I have been trolling the web recently and have found some very intersting debates on CEC factors of different substrates....this is where its at, more of your budget should be considered on the substrate!


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## ceg4048 (28 Dec 2011)

Hi,
   Well, again, Denerle products are hideously expensive. Check a typical price for the V30 product which is just a trace element mix:
Aquajardin V30 £11.99 for 100ml = £119 per liter.

Similarly, E15, which is nothing more than an Iron root tab, and which ought to be included in the V30 costs around £20.

Their Daily NPK costs around £18.

Now, just do a simple comparison with Garden Direct Store Brand Trace Element Mix at less than £15 per Kilo, and which also includes Iron. This product is the same as the Dennerle V30 + E15 and will last at least 5000 times longer. If you search the Gardens Direct site for NPK you'll find almost exactly the same economic competitive advantage. I mean, really, people just are not getting this. They see the fancy labels and the fancy product names like "E15" or "V30" which sounds like you're buying a Mercedes or a Ferrari and they think "Oh, this must be the way to go since it's so fancy", when all you;re buying is essentially the same ingredients that are in cow manure.

The technique that you are following reduces the possibility of algal blooms primarily because of your restraint on the light energy that you are putting into the tank, not because the fertilization approach is somehow superior to EI/PMDD approach. So for example if I didn't want to spend £3 per liter for Aquasoil Amazonia, I could just pay 3p per liter for sand and use a water column based fertilization approach such as EI/PMDD and get exactly the same results as you are getting. Having good flow, good CO2, good maintenance practices and not going bonkers with the lighting is the fundamental approach to having an algae free high tech tank. The nutrition part is easy.

There is no mystery here, except the one about why people are willing to pay more money for name brand products when the supermarket brand is exactly the same, but lacks the pretty picture on the label. If you are on a budget, why on earth would you want to spend gobs of money for what you can get at 1/5000th the price?

Cheers,


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## plantbrain (30 Dec 2011)

You can keep larding on the ferts, or........you can reduce them down if water changes are chore.

I just suggest d50% weekly since the math was easy, but.......modification is VERY easy.
Additionally, you can predict the outcomes using wet's dosing cal with the any routine with EI modifications.

The main tenent is to show folks what non limiting ferts are........and the fact they do not induce algae.
So in virtually any and EVERY CASE, your tank........will.....obviously because EI is non limiting.........use less nutrients.
*This is not the least bit surprising.*

The point is to show folks what a non limited plant will look like.
From there, one can simply reduce their % dosing down say 5 % each 2 weeks, till they note a negative response, then bump back up to the last highest dosing. This is the critical point for that specific tank.

I do 1x a month water changes 50% on this tank, I tend it very little, you will also note the plants are also not the higher maintenance types either, so scaping choice makes a big difference.





If I garden more, I tend to do more water changes.

Same with Amano/ADA, they also suggest roughly the same thing: 50% weekly water changes, 2-3x a week in the first 1-2 months. Most top scapers will do 2x a week water changes.

It'll only help.

If you use an enriched sediment, then there is less demand, but overall, the ferts to the water column are very easy and wide ranging. Over time, sediment ferts are reduced in N, but otherwise, should last for the other nutrients for a decade, maybe more. So they work well with leaner dosing if...that is a goal.

I can garden and create anything I chose with richer ferts without issues, and I can do it with less, often much less than most of the same folks that claim lean is best. 

Zero water changes and dosing about 1x a week and feed fish, no CO2.




Top that.

This stuff needs some context, some goals and some overall philosophy. If less is best.then why use high light?
If less is best, then why use CO2 gas? This same crowd always side steps those questions and is extremely nutrocentric and narrow minded frankly. I find such arguments quite fake myself.

Where are their non CO2 lower light examples?
I did the leaner stuff 15 years ago.
I already have done that.

I wrote articles to that effect as well, here's one 1996:

http://sfbaaps.org/articles/barr_02.html

These are not that much higher than PMDD, which was about 1-2 years before this article.
Folks took this too rigid, and most take EI too rigid also. That was never the intent, there's a wide range in natural systems and plants can respond.

Also, we can show examples for EVERY so called dosing method if you have a decent scaper and they are willing to do the work to produce a nice gin clear lush planted tank. A dosing method does NOT define a scape. It's just a small part in what the scaper does.














This device makes water changes very fast and very easy regardless of tank sizes, I have a 120 Gal and 180 Gal, and a 70 Gal that get water changes, I can pre set the depth of the water change, hang this on, then scape, trim, clean, filters, etc.........

1.5 hours later...........I've refilled and done all my weekly work on all 3 tanks.
The time it takes to drain/fill, I'm doing other things on the tanks.

As EI is the higher end of ferts........a simple method and one I've mentioned for many years is to simply slow and small progressions.........reduce till you see a negative response(algae or poor plant growth), then you bump back up to the last highest dosing rate.

This is athe best method to target a specific tank because it starts with an unlimiting reference for ferts. If you start at the other low end, you have no reference to see when to stop adding more, and the plants are often stunted or take a long time to recover if they are limited, so starting high, then reducing a is a much better horticultural method.

Once you hit what is often referred to as the Critical point(Cp), then you adjust the water changes and reduce them in % or frequency or both.

Here's such a tank where I do 1x a month 50%:



Very easy and modified EI.
If you also have soil or ADA AS etc, then you have even more wiggle room/back up if you run things too lean or are impatient/neglectful or just smart/lazy.


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## sWozzAres (30 Jan 2012)

*Re: The Use Of Phosphate and Nitrate Removers*



			
				jeefran said:
			
		

> Hi ceg
> ...
> I have recently set up a small aquarium using ADA amazonia and powersand, i have carried out water changes (50%) every 2 days but only illuminated it for 3 hours for the first 3 weeks and have now been on 4 hours for the last 2 weeks still zero algae not even on the glass..........plants are doing well albeit very slow growth.
> ...



Hi jeefran,

Could you let us know a bit more about your process? I too have just setup a tank with amazonia/powersand, it's been sat there for 4 weeks and I've been doing 95% water changes every so often. The plants go in this week so I am interested in what your nutrient dosing and water change regime has been like since you switched the lights on.


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