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Ya'll know , do we really NEED CO2 gas enrichment? Or NEED high light? Well, depends on your goal, but the generally answer is certainly a resounding no, you do not. Folks love the haggle about ferts, but not CO2, or light, even though those are the two main drivers.

I still want someone to explain why I have never seen a single case of K+ excess causing a problem for ANY plant species? Look, I've played this game with folks going back to 2001 now. Every single time someone claims to have a found a plant that is sensitive to K+ and/or EI, I grow it and it...

I cannot kill any shrimp using EI dosing. I have perhaps a few thousand?

I cannot say either way, I'd need to add a lot of baking soda to my tanks to do it, but the R mac is a real weed. Every plant is at lower KH's, how much and which ones are not? That's a more difficult case to say. I could certainly set up the methods to do it, and add more and more baking...

If you look at Tropica's table matrix, you can see the differences in Relative rates of growth for Riccia with different light and CO2 levels that cover 95% of all methods used. So you have roughly 20X difference due solely to light and CO2 levels. Nutrients are independent in this test(eg, EI...

FYI, EI was developed using Tropica Master grow(Old name for their traces). I was using about 20 mls 4-5 x a week on my 90 Gallon, quite a bit more than the average planted tank hobbyist.

I know Claus C. and Troels A. personally. I asked Claus how often should we be dosing planted tanks back in 1998 with their Trace mix. 4-5 x a week, they say 1x a week because there are so many aquariums with just one or two plants etc, so they do the conservative thing, but folks that are...

I think you'll get about as well rounded advice here as anywhere. If you live in the UK, then it's even better. Trades, local get togethers etc. Then you can see the stuff in person, it's no longer voodoo. Then there's no debate, back and forth, you know.

He toasted the about 90% of the plants, most of the fish he removed in time, but the scape took a huge hit. So I get a call. Made a few improvements and we will see in about 3-6 months from now what it looks like. Another recent examples of the post look on the tank not even 1 month after set...

No need, 2-3x a week is enough for most any set up.

With newer tanks, I tend to do 3x a week for 2-3 weeks, then 2x a week, till the tank grows in well. Then, once a week thereafter. This seems good. ADA suggest a similar routine FYI independent of myself. Mostly to remove the NH4 in the start from the ADA aqua soil I suppose, but it also...

I'll be down there tomorrow to work on this tank again. Client left for a few weeks had a maintenance guy dose 10X the correct amount of Excel, well......you can guess the rest. I'll fix it up and make look pretty again. Fixing mistakes is most of what I do.

A better article for folks to read: Tropica Aquarium Plants - Rådgivning - Tekniske artikler - Vandplanters biologi - Interaktioner mellem lys og CO2 Stick with adjusting light and CO2. As you can see from Table 1, plant growth rates(thus demand for ferts) will vary by 20X almost over the...

Put another way, if you dose CO2 and light, fish etc, but do not add anything, then suddenly add ferts, well, yea, even if the amount is limiting, adding ANY ferts will yield more growth/better planted tank. The upper bound of dosing(non limiting) is a more useful tool in Science and for the...

You can run this modeling graphing calculator and see what the ranges will be: Concentrations of Stuff vs Time and Plant Uptake using The Estimative Index At standard EI: add 15 ppm 2x a week 50% water change weekly Now plug in water changes once a month, you'll start to see negative...

Well, ADA fan boys and many in the USA like to still think it all revolved around some special dosing routine. Liebig's law does not apply to them or their aquariums and we should ignore a basic agriculture law on plant growth rate and anything Tropica says as well. "What do those clowns...

This is one of the better articles written in the last 20-30 years on planted tanks: Tropica Aquarium Plants - Rådgivning - Tekniske artikler - Vandplanters biologi - Interaktioner mellem lys og CO2

I think any discussion would include Liebig's law of the minimum to understand how these things influence plant growth and other elements of growth. I would sub K2SO4 for KNO3. Keep with the weekly water changes. That's about the only modification you'd need to do.

I'd just do a weekly large water change, there's your NO3. Feed fish well. Dose the Easy carb daily and at a relative high rate. I'd switch K2SO4 with the KNO3 for dosing EI, and then use about 1/2 EI, maybe 1/3 EI ranges. Add some fish/algae eaters, Bushy nose plecos, gold nuggets etc, shrimp...

Several folks, groups may acknowledge that plants need ferts, but they will try and argue that a low residual and daily dosing are somehow better and able to "control algae". But as you can see from the graphs above, such dosing will place you into the A or B areas of the graph. Plants will...

And if things are low, med or high, say A, B or C/D in the graph above, then the plants can further optimize their enzymatic machinery: This takes some time and stability, but after a few weeks, things do settle down and they can do quite well under a wide range of conditions. These are...

Turn this on it's head, why does algae grow when we have low, absent or limiting nutrients? Riddle me that. Since the philosophy "less = best" is applied. This is a plant issue, much more than an algae issue, as we are trying to grow plants as the goal. How to grow plants best? algae...

Well, many that enter this hobby are not going to buy into this goal. Maybe later, after they suffer. But you can modify this goal easily with plant species choices. Or use less light,

Classic irony. Irony has no limit, it is highly selective however.

The hang up goes back 30-50 years of myth based correlation. So excessive nutrients are still a very ingrained part of the hobby lore. ADA, Dennerle, most of them, Tropica is an exception, myself, and a few others, but not most. They still cling to myths of yore and yesterday, even though anyone...

I came up with EI dosing more because I had much more light, but then I knew I needed more CO2 as a result of more demand. But it's just adding more PMDD and some PO4 basically, then doing a bit larger consistent water changes. Fear, more than innovation/common sense held most folks back. It...

I think the no# or ratio of actual H2CO3[aq] to CO2[aq] is about 1:400. So only 0.25% is actually as H2CO3. Which is not enough to have any influence of the carbonates when you inject CO2 gas into the water. It'd be cool if you could add CO2 gas and remove the carbonate by destroying it into...

Dosing @2x the EI range will not increase plant growth in any species I'm aware of. I would rather dose the normal amount and add more fish etc if this were the case. The NH4 from fish waste slowly "dosed" would be of some benefit perhaps.

I'll generally delete the KNO3 and switch to K2SO4 if the tap is high in NO3. A lot of european tap water is pretty rich in NO3. So a water change adds it free of charge. Call the local utility and see, say you have a baby and are concerned, they should tell you the range.

Want more accuracy? Want daily PMDD style EI dosing? - Aquarium Plants

Here's the plant without the NO3 limitation

Oh yea, the K+ is relatively the same 30-40ppm. Plants are actually as touchy healthier in the harder water. Can you guess why? There's no other shading or plants to compete with for light/CO2 really other than Lobelia which is not that aggressive. I also used the temporary limiting NO3 trick...

I've got a mass of L acurata right now in the 120 Gallon: Sounds like it might be more the KH, rather than anything directly with K+. Some aquatic plants may have evolved to grow in low KH systems, but I think that, not the K+, is what is at play there. KH and pH really affects the...

So this (Toby's claim and special N) is the latest source of the K+ myth? History repeated yet again. About every 2-5 years, a cohort repeats the same old myths over and over. Liebig's law applies. If you limit one nutrient, and see a response...........it often takes the demand/stress off...

Alright, let's have some names of these plants? P. stellata comes from rain fed low conductivity waters, many plants do, this does not imply they have any trouble with high K+ in the water column, it simply implied there's not much available in the water column. There may be plenty in the...

Yea, common sense prevails over typos.

It's not that hot in your home is it? Turn the heater down. You waste a lot of energy by having warmer than needed temps for many species of fish, if you have Discus, well.............not much way around that. Dropping 5-10C is a huge difference actually. Many shrimp keepers are around...

Plants also grow slower, perhaps 20-30% less at say 30C vs 22 C. So less CO2 is required metabolically............., this rather than the solubility issue, is likely much more the issue. Also, gas ppm's increase with colder water for all gases. This includes O2, which is very important to fish...

I dose 2 to 3 x a week, add everything at once. No issues, see the 120 Gal dutch something or another. Or the 180, or the 350 or or or....well, you get the idea. Light/CO2? Much more important.

I generally do 2 mixes..........one for the macros and one for the traces. This is more out of habit. I sometimes dose more Traces during the week.....and feed the fish more etc. So I will not dose the macros as much. You can do this at the individual level also, but for the wife.....may as...

Folks have made this claim going back to about 2002, and in EVERY CASE, I and other folks provide clear examples where this is not the case. I went to 50ppm and another guy went to 100ppm +. We chose the most sensitive species we could fine and had no issues developing nice healthy large stands...

Well, if....what Toby is saying above is true...then the Ca/Mg are not the factors, rather the NO3 is. If you add Ca(NO3)2 to water of KNO3, they both completely disassociate, in otherwords, the base salt will not matter, the NO3 is still the NO3 no matter what. Now some might argue adding NH4...

If.......it is ONLY a Nitrogen fert, then it's ONLY just that...........NO3 and/or NH4. Bringing in various K+, Ca, Mg .....more/less etc.........should not matter if those are added from other sources and are non limiting. Those need addressed isolated and individually per each user.and each...

Most of the breeders here avoid Excel/Easy carbo, some avoid CO2 gas......... These, much more than nutrients seem to be the key issue. TDS sits around 250-350 range. If you want max brood production, stay off the gas and the Excel dosing. You will see a noted difference in brood then, not any...

I know Tom Barr and he's always wrong. :lol: At least I think so Much like EI, adding stuff that is lacking in large amounts in tap or of the fert routine often has large impacts. This is provided you have good light/CO2 etc to begin with. GH booster is not that common from what I've seen in...

I know Tom Barr and he's always wrong. :lol: At least I think so

Re: Potassium Bicarbonate and Potassium Phosphate = overdosi I've yet to have seen this mythical pH crash, been in the planted CO2 enrichment for about 2 decades now. Pixie dust, I say. Regarding Vals, they are pretty cool plants, they actually can do something like CAM and bicarbonate uptake...

Not true unfortunately, why would they treat it with UV and freeze if freezing did the job? Many parasites and bacteria can survive freezing. This is hard to say what happened. We have hunches, but that's about all we ever have in cases like these. Just make sure to be proactive about...

While frozen bloodworms might be radiation treated, this might not get all of the parasites or the bulb they treat with might be old, there is ZERO auditing for fish food and I avoid any from Asia. They do not say how it is done. Could be they hit it with a little dinky UV light once for 2 sec...

Re: Sharing online calculators for ferts, glut, and dropchec Wet, while like myself, you want to offer everything to everyone, and folks keep asking more question, there is a risk much like with EI of over complicating things. Perhaps a simple tool for newbies, then go from there? New folks...

In order to induce on purpose..a K+ deficiency.....you'd need to drop below say 2-5ppm + or less......... I do not think that is possible with most KNO3/Kh2PO4 dosing schemes.

I think you need to push the NO3 to under 5ppm for BGA issues.......... 10-30ppm is a good overall range of NO3. Some keep it at 5-10ppm but fuss over it a lot more. Also, make sure to run a standard solution for NO3(see calibrating test kits). Your test kit might be saying 20ppm when it's...

One aquarist did a study on Chelated Fe........and the UV did appear to remove the Fe from solution faster. I've never noticed any issue with the plants themselves though. But I dose Fe pretty heavily.

Tobi, if folks see no growth in 3 days etc, this tends to be CO2.......not the ferts.......many blame the ferts when it's a CO2, flow, trimming etc issue.

I also removed all the livestock and snails even to remove as many potential sources of NH4 as I could and then added KNO3 alone for the N source. I used flourite since it lacked any N, unlike ADA AS etc. This produced amazingly good results. Maybe it was due to good CO2 since there was no...

I go through about 4ppm a day, but I cannot account for the plants entirely, the sediment may denitrify some. I've had pulses up to 8ppm a day on a hungry tank, ADA claims 15ppm a day on some their tanks recently, I have grave doubts about that claim. That's a massive amount of NO3 removal. For...

Damn Romans and their lead pipes..........look what they did to the place........

What is HMA?

That tank had DIY CO2. There was no Glut dosing back then, maybe in 6-8 years later....then we saw SeaChem Excel come around. I dosed about 5ppm 2-3x a week of NO3 as KNO3, but I also fed my fish well. PO4 came from the tap, at 1.1 ppm of PO4. I did 50-70% weekly water changes. Sometimes 2x a...

If you are using the tap water, then doing good sized water changes, then it'll be okay since you are adding some PO4 from the tap. In that case, you can leave it out. Or a simpler method is simply use PMDD which lacks PO4 in the dosing altogether. This is what I did back in the 1990's, till I...

I dose roughly 30-45ppm of NO3 a week, 1-2 ppm of Fe, 30-50ppm of K, 10-15ppm of PO4. This is for higher light stem plant growth tanks. For less, well, obviously, I use less. This is a slow process to dose and see. Dosing calculators can easily tell you what you need to add to a solution, or...

Should not matter, you might wish to add more PO4 to the recipe though. Ferts in general are fine, if you skip a day etc, this causes no issues.

Well , those were back when lean was really the in thing, and everyone thought algae was caused all by excess nutrients. Works better than many thought/think but could be improved and there was little risk due to ferts. Lighting was muc less intense, T12 and maybe T8 if you were ahead of the...

I like ADA As a lot, I had some in 1998, but did not give it a chance......thought it was weird, soft and too light and fluffy. In 2003 I think, I tried it again and really never looked back. I dose funny these days, generally 15ppm NO3 and 5ppm PO4 and about 0.5ppm of Fe every dosing, this...

The Original PMDD without PO4: Article: http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/ http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/pmdd-tim.html

Type of chelator and % Fe of the product? Brand name etc?

This water change issues can easily........go either way. But.........what is the goal of the individual using the a method? For intensive gardening, I'm going to do more water changes, for new set ups, I'm going to do more water changes, for high fish loads, I'm going to do a lot more water...

I think it's important to note that EI does use 50% as a simple starting point, it does not suggest that this is written in stone, that's NOT the purpose. You start with a safe non limiting amount and progressively TWEAK from there, eg, lower the dosing slow and progressively a little each...

See the 120 Gallon Dutch something or the other, I have shrimp infestation.

Another slight modification might be this Toby if you do a trace mix in conjunction: CMS + B or similar..... DTPA Fe gluconate Easy carb or Excel or generic at 1/4 strength A PO4 with KH2PO4 1/4 distilled white vinegar in the solution prior to adding the KH2PO4. The Vinegar will also do...

Next test is to remove the Mg from the solution and test that one. Urea and NH4 forms are a mixed bag, if the folks have few fish= big results, 10% better growth etc........with decent fish loads/feeding, this is less the case. I have run tanks on pure NO3 without any NH4 or fish, or sediment...

Have you tried it without the urea?

Another way to address it is treat them like you might Bonsai Trees. I often use richer clay soil vs the fracted cooked clay in the aquatic plants, vs the bonsai, but daily watering with dilute ferts is a good method. Another way to think about it: fertigation. This is how all the house plants...

They make pill boxes for folks taking medications, use those and put the food for fish in one, then the food for plants in the other, if you can reduce the light down some, say from 10 hr to 8, that would be good, and/or raise the light fixture up about 10cm more.

Toby, I was re reading the thread. The idea of a + charge on the N source and K+ which has a + charge as well may be why some folks have better growth. NO3 is a negative charge. The idea is that a mix of both NH4 and NO3 is BEST much like having a sediment type of source of Ferts (sediment...

Yep, the growth rates are faster with emergent culture, hence one of the many reasons nurseries grow them this way.

Non CO2 water column dosing: http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.ph ... O2-methods EI is more for CO2 enrichment only. We do not do much if any water changes for non CO2 methods in general.

Tank water works great for the moss and other cover, as well as for foliar applications. Fertigation basically.

Bonsai clubs are good to join, in a few minutes, you learn 10X vs reading. I hack the roots back and trim them good about once every 2-5 years, then repack fresh soil etc. This gives me a chance to make sure the tree is healthy and any training or trimming is done after or before this repotting...

The latest web steer manure argument against such stuff: "Tom Barr's tanks do not look anywhere near as good as Amano's, thus he cannot give advice, I will only do and listen to what Amano says. Amano is the Expert, not Tom" :lol: :lol:

EI grew from PMDD, mostly.....maybe 90% form the fert dosing side, PPS is virtually identical to PMDD, but....they seem to not give any credit at all to the obvious rip off. I'm still pissed and no admission or correction has ever been made. Still, dosing solutions, weights in grams, must add...

For a non CO2 tank, in general, there's no water changes, so in this case. some dolomite might be the answer. Or once every month or so, add some GH booster. Adding a bit more GH will not hurt. If it gets to 25 degrees, you might want to back off, the dosing, but otherwise, there's going to be...

This assumes you do water changes and all however:)

Your tap water is quite good. No need. You need to measure the Ca and Mg together as equivalents of CaCO3. General hardness.

This is one reason why I dose dry powers, but make a stock solution for traces. It's more a hold over from the old days when I dosed this way using TMG and then dry macros. Simple, easy and you can alter whatever rate of each individual nutrient. Rather than thinking and testing much, I noticed...

I measured about a max sustained uptake of 4 ppm of NO3 per day. NH4: about 0.8ppm per day. Pulse uptake rates where up to 8-9ppm of NO3 per day. NH4 remained unchanged in the pulse experiments. Likely limited by Nitrate reductase. More biomass, closer to the lights = more CO2 demand more...

Use 1/2 this light amount. :idea: More than enough to grow anything well. Regards, Tom Barr

You can get them at the various vendors here, AE (Aquaessentials etc) sells them........just ask them. Seems intimidating initially, after a couple of times, it's like "making" cereal.

Re: Help to check calcs, for first try with EI + easycarbo o Also, water changes are done typically once every week in the start, then later maybe once every 2-4 weeks

Re: Help to check calcs, for first try with EI + easycarbo o EI is often cut by 1/2 to only 1/3rd of the suggested typical dose for Excel or Easy carbo.

This tank appears to have high light, but it's under 4x 54 w T5's and a distance of 100cm from the light to the sediment and the tank is 120cmx60cm x 60cm. I was never quite happy with the tank's shape and went with a 45cm height and a 75cm depth. Regards, Tom Barr

CO2/Excel over dosing and lack of good current are 99% of death related issues in planted tanks. Ferts are lamost never the case....except if you really over dose traces in a shrimp tank maybe. Maybe if you ADD NH4 to the fert routine and over dose that or something as well. Otherwise, you got...

I re read the original post and the ingredients listing. One thing that is evident is a lot more Mg..... This is a macro nutrient. I use MgSO4 in large amounts, as do many using GH booster. I also add some to CMS. "Especially with Heminathus callitrichoides you can get problems. Leaves getting...

Thanks for the response. Well this is a bit like saying it works, but we do not know why it works. This does not offer any insight or rule out much. If I sent out placebos and told folks to observe carefully, many would report back "improvements" When I do any change to an aquarium, I watch...

Is it the ferts or is the concentration as well? Eg, is it the Fe additions? For many folks goals, plain sand is a useful thing aesthetically, and many have trouble making the leap to soil, commercial etc or DIY........so adding some more Traces would stand to reason and a source of NH4...

HAHA :lol: Plenty of folks have long dosed poorly and not enough traces, if they try something, they often pay more attention and keep up on things more. This has little to do with the dosing, make up etc and is much more the general care and watching of the aquarist. Still, for anyone that...

If you use other sediments, I think you will see more improvement than just with this alone. Until you do, you really cannot say much :idea:

I use a Tom's dosing pump, 15$ and then a 10$ timer. Works fairly well, not good for smaller tanks under say 30 liters.

I think Tobi's suggestion of a mix with some NH4, NO3 and Ca, Mg sources for NO3 is good in the same way as the GH booster hits several issues at once also: K+, SO4, Mg and Ca. While many taps waters are high GH, often low Mg is an issue is some, but not all. This alone can give very different...

I think overall, the product you suggets is good and wise for some folks that lack fish. It might be best for people that dose daily vs 2-3 x a week also. NH4=> NO3 is regulated by O2, same for Excel, easy carbo, these and Dechlorinatoers are all reducers and consume O2. So good O2 data is...