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Sacrilege, I know :O

Arne

Arne

Member
Joined
29 Jan 2014
Messages
98
But I'm going to ask it anyway 😀

I have an ADA 60P with the Aquasky 601 LED lights above it. This is one hell (or sun) of a lighting system, and I am reluctant to add a dimmer to it, because I can't find any info on how to safely do this.

The high levels of light, combined with my EI fert dosing has led to BBA, time after time. In the first 3 months I really struggled with staghorn as well, but thats gone now. When the BBA get really in my way I reduce fert dosing and it subsides, but plant growth is also reduced, so not optimal.

I've read somewhere that the Brighty fert series by ADA have very different nutrient levels from what the EI advises, probably because of the lights they put on their tanks.

Ok, so dealing with BBA: increasing CO2 and flow is the go-to method. Flow is definately not the issue, and CO2 levels should be fine. I have an UP inline atomizer hooked up on the intake of the filter to max the dissolution. I have a Dennerle Evolution Space regulator with built in solenoid, and it's almost turned up to the max.
I know the obvious suggestion is MOAR CO2 !!! but the point of this topic is to put that aside and explore something else:

Is there a specific nutrient that could be reduced in order to prevent BB Spores from blooming ? 😱
(I did some searching and read http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/po4-levels.6371/#post-111069 )

I dose most the nutrients seperately with different solutions from dry salts, and I know when I reduce ferts to reduce BBA I get an increase in BGA due to nitrate shortage. Is there a way to reverse engineer this ?

I know I could just experiment myself, but since there is going to be a ... a .. eehhhh ... I don't know how to translate this but via my local aquarium "club" there will be a house visit by a senior inspector for the national inspection. This is in 3 weeks and I don't want my tank to have imploded by then 😕
 
Subscribed! Sorry Arne, this question is beyond my knowledge but I have always been interested to know why the ADA way is so different compared to EI dosing. ADA ferts are just water with minimal amounts of salts. Yes, I've read many times that lights in ADA tanks are no that high as it seems but here we have a clear example of a complete ADA setup. We all agree that CO2 injections in ADA tanks must also be optimal (even that there is always very little information about it) and that both systems rely on good levels of both co2 and O2, good flow, filtering, etc. So why this huge difference regarding ferts?... And to be honest, we all know thousands of incredible planted tanks created using both approaches, thus both ways work. Maybe understanding all this your problems could be sorted out.

Jordi
 
Sorry! Are you absolutely sure that your flow/distribution is OK? I dose EI too. I also have a powerful LED light and I'm currently (fingers crossed) on top of BBA in my aquarium.

From my experience, BBA on plants was worse when I reduced the flow. How/why did I do this? I swapped a Koralia pump for an Eheim Skim 350. This got rid of surface scum but over a few months, BBA on the bottom of stem plants got worse and worse, even though I did some other things to increase flow like regularly cleaning the filter and removing 50% of the filter media and all the filter floss. The only way have managed to reduce BBA is to put the Koralia back instead of the skimmer. I had forgotten how much better the flow is with this pump!

My aquarium is 125 litres but the filter (Eheim 350T) has only 1050lph. The Eheim Skim 350 only added a few hundred lph and got blocked very quickly. Now with the Koralia back I have an extra 900 lph and it makes the output of the filter more or less irrelevant. If I add up all the flow, it's 1950lph which is well above the 10*aquarium volume guideline.

So what is your filter and how many lph does it put out?

Regarding the difference with the ADA approach, their soils have massive amounts of nutrients in them so this makes up for the EI water column dosing. The ADA ferts are just about replenishing things as they get used up from the soil...

P
 
pepedopolous said:
Regarding the difference with the ADA approach, their soils have massive amounts of nutrients in them so this makes up for the EI water column dosing. The ADA ferts are just about replenishing things as they get used up from the soil...

P
Click to expand...
Right, but lots of people following the EI approach do use enriched substrates and we still dose massive amounts of ferts as we know they do not cause algae. It looks like opposite strategies, one dosing unlimited nutrients and the other limiting them. We can see amazing tanks from people like Viktor Lantos and others working with massive amounts of light and limiting nutrients...assuming optimal flow and co2, tank husbandry, etc are necessary in both approaches why do both work?

Jordi
 
pepedopolous said:
Sorry! Are you absolutely sure that your flow/distribution is OK? I dose EI too. I also have a powerful LED light and I'm currently (fingers crossed) on top of BBA in my aquarium.

P
Click to expand...

BBA is the worst in area's with the most flow 😕
Pump is 700 l/h for a 60 L aqurium, well maintained and any more flow would just press the fish into a corner.

parotet said:
Right, but lots of people following the EI approach do use enriched substrates and we still dose massive amounts of ferts as we know they do not cause algae. It looks like opposite strategies, one dosing unlimited nutrients and the other limiting them. We can see amazing tanks from people like Viktor Lantos and others working with massive amounts of light and limiting nutrients...assuming optimal flow and co2, tank husbandry, etc are necessary in both approaches why do both work?

Jordi
Click to expand...

Actually I forgot about that! Substrate is ADA Amazonia. Plenty rich in nutrients as well, half a year old.
 
I guess the answer you will have is too much light, but I have seen lots of ADA 60p with AquaSky light following the ADA fert path and they work... That's what I don't understand.

I'm sure this has been already discussed in ukaps, isn't it? 🙂
 
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pepedopolous said:
Has anyone measured the PAR for an Aquasky?

P
Click to expand...
I'm sure someone has done it... Anyone out there? 🙂
I would love to know how much light it gives. Also for ADA Mini S and M which are frequently reported in some forum for having very bright lights for such a small volume

(Sorry Arne we are hijacking your thread...)

Jordi
 
BBA is a CO2 deficiency and has nothing to do with nutrients. Either reduce the intensity or improve CO2/timing or improve flow/distribution or any combination of those.

Cheers,
 
By reading Big Clown's link it seems that ADA AquaSky delivers a high to very high PAR... AquaSky 602 seems unmanageable, and 601 needs some expertise to have no algae problems. But we all know people using the ADA method obviously achieve nice results with these tanks. So once again, low nutrient system (especially low N) and high lights? How?

Jordi
 
Viktor Lantos' last pics on Flickr are of incredible ADA setups using 601 and 602... Let's see if he can hear us 🙂

Ardjuna's website (the one you include in your post) is absolutely fantastic, I am a great fan of this webpage, probably the most reliable one for planted tanks. In this site the ADA fert line salt contents are detailed... the only nutrient provided in high levels is K, but NO3 and PO4 are extremely limited even if you would dose the whole set or even you would dose the double amount.

Jordi
 
Amazonia has very high Nitrates which a majority of plants are happy to use. Epiphytes such as bolbitus, anubias etc will obtain what they need from dosing as lower levels are needed from slower growth.
I would also hazard a guess that most ADA nano users will 'tweak' the standard ADA dosing as needed with higher light as even very skilled scapers have said the lights are almost unmanageable.
That doesn't change the fact that BBA is un effected by nutrients, it is solely a co2 issue. Any correlation to nutrients and BBA are likely misinterpreted results....
 
According to my level of knowledge I would say that for all kinds of algae the light and nutrients are crucial (this is where I have to disagree with Clive alias ceg4048). But at the same time I believe that there are some factors which inhibit algae, like algivores (shrimps, oto's etc.), high O2 levels, high redox, low organics, good filters, regular maintenance, frequent & big water changes, and probably high CO2 levels also. I have read in one scientific paper that Audouinella (= BBA) likes quite low CO2 levels (around 5-10 mg/L if I remember well), so if you keep your CO2 above that, this kind of algae won't like it too much. Also lower pH may (or may not) work as one of the factors.

Still I think that the most important thing in having nice (and "algae-free") planted tank is good filtration, big numbers of plants, and well working microbes. If your microbes are doing good job, than they reduce organics into minerals quite quickly, which will lead to clean substrate and clean water. And to have well working microbes you need good filtration and big numbers of well growing plants, which will supply them with enough oxygen (to water, as well as into the substrate via their roots). Also I believe that if you want good levels of oxygen in the water and substrate, the easiest way is to use your plants. If you use high lights, your plants will photosynthetize well, and will produce enough oxygen to saturate the water with it. All this contributes to high redox (ORP). In my tank I have redox around +400 mV (the same redox has one friend of mine). We both have no algae issues, plants are in excellent condition, critters multiply well, water and substrate is extra clear. Right now I'm working on another article on redox which I will publish soon on my website (http://www.prirodni-akvarium.cz). I measured the redox for 7 days in each tank, so I have quite solid data. Still I want to measure it in few other tanks to have more data.

Marcel
 
Hi all

Excellent explanations of the elements that contribute to a healthy tank. Also, most of use in this thread understands that BBA is not nutrient related, but the question is still there:

Comparing two equal setups, both using aquasoil, with high-medium light levels (we’ve seen that not all the ADA setups use low lights) and all the above mentioned optimized settings (Co2 injection and diffusion, filtration, flow, tank husbandry, etc.,): why ADA strategy relies on very low level of nutrients and EI on unlimited amount?

(please don’t reply that ADA Aquasoil will provide nutrients: lots of EI users use indeed enriched soils and keep on dosing unlimited amounts; the amount of light is also out of question as mentioned before, there are low and high light ADA setups, like in any other method that might be followed; failures also exist in both sides I know but let's focus on experienced aquascapers that master all the settings). My guess is that everything would be exactly the same in both tanks except the dosing system. I'm sure you already have in mind several good examples of brilliant tanks using these two different approaches in this forum.

Sorry to be a pain, I am a convinced EI user but I also want to understand other approaches… or maybe understand that such differences does not exist. :dead:

Jordi
 
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I would guess in both situations all the feeding requirements are met. EI by providing plenty and use waterchanges to combat excess and ADA by giving just enough to cover all bases, combined with the nutriënt rich soil, low light and daily tempering/maintenance. I do know Amano had algea troubles for years too, but if you have a handfull of minions cleaning and pruning the tanks every night you can hide a lot of troubles.
 
Edvet said:
I would guess in both situations all the feeding requirements are met. EI by providing plenty and use waterchanges to combat excess and ADA by giving just enough to cover all bases, combined with the nutriënt rich soil, low light and daily tempering/maintenance. I do know Amano had algea troubles for years too, but if you have a handfull of minions cleaning and pruning the tanks every night you can hide a lot of troubles.
Click to expand...
According to Marcel's calculations regarding ADA fert dosing (http://www.prirodni-akvarium.cz/en/index.php?id=en_compareFert the difference would be very high... Not even 1 ppm of nitrates dosed to the water column using the most enriched fertilizer versus 40 ppm for EI (weekly doses). That would mean 39 ppm of nitrates leached by the substrate (well, numbers here make no sense, let's say the 90%). If this is what is really happening why am I dosing that much having aquasoil in my tank? Why don't we simply rely on it and keep on dosing high amounts?
Unless plants can get used to a different dosing regime from the very beginning.... Does it happen?
Regarding the minions, I also use myself this as a joke, but we all know that if a tank has a serious algae bloom, even having minions, the tank would look horrible.

Jordi

P.S. The substrate leaching hypothesis would be ok to me if we knew that ADA ferts system tanks once they are old have to be closed or dosed following the EI system (as the substrate cannot leach more nutrients thus have to be dosed in the water column). Anyone knows if this happens? We know EI planted tanks can last ages...
 
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This is something that has been bugging me too. I have never had my 300L tank not have BBA. Even when I inject 7-8bps and get a yellow drop checker and the fish are just 1 bps from suffocating. My flow is plentiful (3400 lph in a 300L tank)but distribution is probably far from perfect. Even when I run 54W x2 and plants are starting to suffer a bit, BBA still comes back week after week.

You can say Amano has an army of minions to clean his tanks on a daily basis but that doesn't explain his customers who have beautiful tanks on a full ADA system including Aquasky (I'm looking at you Viktor).
 
Recently I did an analysis of ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia (New) in the lab: http://prirodni-akvarium.cz/index.php?id=analyza. From the data you can easily compute how long will that amount of nutrients suffice to our plants. The only variable in this equation is the exact amount of nutrients which will be used by plants. This no one knows, and it seems to me that no one really cares! Tom Barr suggests that 30 mg/L NO3, 3 mg/L PO4, 20 mg/L K, and 0.5 mg/L Fe should be enough for the most demanding plants. But no one did verify this information. So it´s theoretically possible that our plants need a LOT less. Maybe that´s the reason why ADA ferts or Tropica ferts are as fine for our plants as EI ferts.

Also I don´t think that the fertilizer method is the only thing that differs (but that´s another story). Also you have to account for microbes doing it´s job to mineralize organics. So quite amount of nutrients in our tanks are produced by microbes without our help. Nutrients are being produced in our tank all the time. So this adds nutrients to ADA all the time.
 
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