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EI Dosing Tweaks

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Fuzzy Shaq

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Hi everyone, hope you are all well. I have a issue with my EI Fertilizer dosing regime, would greatly appreciate it someone with more experience could give me some advice. I recently bought a EI starter kit from aquarium plant food.
I've been dosing my 200L high tech tank 40ml of micro as per instructed and only 20ml of Macros. I initially dosed my macro the full ei dose of 40ml, but my nitrates raised too much. I have 20ppm nitrate from my tap water and am lightly stocked ATM.
So I decided to buy potassium chloride, to add enough potassium while reducing my. Nitrates.
What would you guys recommend how I dose my tank? I'd like to add some nitrates but only half as much as the aquarium plant food website recommends . Should I make up a potassic nitrate solution separately so I can easily increase it if needed?
Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
 
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Thanks everyone for your advice. I'll just stick to the original EI dosing amounts. It's tried and tested, plus the test kits aren't accurate and is making my head spin 😂.
What happens say if I can't do a water change on day 7? Should I still carrying on dosing or stop until I carry out my water change.
 
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While high nitrate levels may not be immediate harmful (In the past I've run both my tanks in the 40ppm range - at times higher -(pic below) for a very long time with shrimps and delicate tetras without any apparent issues), it's just grossly unnecessary to maintain very high levels. If not for any other reason, I would try and keep the NO3 levels as low as practically possible (without fretting about it) due to its relatively high contribution vs. other fertilizers to TDS. High TDS makes osmoregulation (flushing toxins) more difficult for a lot of tropical freshwater fish and invertebrates due to the higher osmotic pressure. Most of our livestock are from habitats with extremely low TDS levels - which are mostly impractical to emulate in our fish tanks.

PO4NO3.jpg

Cheers,
Michael
 
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seedoubleyou said:
Where can I find a thread on this EI dosing? I’m not familiar with it. (I have searched but couldn’t t find anything?)
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The Estimative Index

Quoted from The Barr Report: The Estimative Index - What is it? The Estimative index is a simple method to dose nutrients for any tank without test kits. In a nut shell, the aquarist doses frequently to prevent anything from running out (plant deficiency) and does large weekly water changes to...
www.ukaps.org www.ukaps.org
 
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Fuzzy Shaq said:
What would you guys recommend how I dose my tank?
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Just add 2 tsp of potassium nitrate to your ei mix and see how it pans out. Dose the full suggested dose, ie 120ml of the rest of the mix.
Potassium levels will be reduced a bit, but doubt you'll wake up with k deficiencies tomorrow.

Ei isn't set in stone, increasing or decreasing the mix WON'T summon the voddo dolls of algae.

😀
 
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John q said:
Ei isn't set in stone, increasing or decreasing the mix WON'T summon the voddo dolls of algae.

😀
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Agreed. Very few successful people I know dose actual full EI levels.

Traditional EI is dosing NO3: PO4: K at 22:4:22 with 50% water change. In my opinion more than most any tank I have ever seen needs. Right now I am running 12:4:15 and it's more than enough for my very heavily planted tank.
 
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Fuzzy Shaq said:
What happens say if I can't do a water change on day 7? Should I still carrying on dosing or stop until I carry out my water change
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You can do your EI dosing regime independently of the water changes. My water changes vary between 6 and 10 days depending on work and life. My plants stay happy. Theoretically you could dose slightly less if you are doing water change less frequently, but I would get started with vanilla EI, let your tank bed in, and then once everything has settled down you can start tinkering if you feel the need.
 
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Fuzzy Shaq said:
Thanks everyone for your advice. I'll just stick to the original EI dosing amounts. It's tried and tested, plus the test kits aren't accurate and is making my head spin 😂.
What happens say if I can't do a water change on day 7? Should I still carrying on dosing or stop until I carry out my water change.
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Water changes directly affect the amount of accumulated nutrients in the water column. Instead of listing dosing as weekly we should really list it as the amount dosed between water changes.

I would skip the dosing until you perform a water change or your nutrient levels will rise. Keeping levels stable is one of the keys to a successful planted tank.

And dosing every other day is really not the best way to dose EI. When you perform a water change you remove 1/2 the nutrients. It's best to dose the tank back up to keep things stable. Personally I have been dosing all macros right after a water change for many years. Others dose 50% after a water change then two 25% doses during the week.

Keep in mind EI is not a rigid system. It's a starting point and there are lots of ways to implement the basic strategy.
 
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GreggZ said:
Keeping levels stable is one of the keys to a successful planted tank.
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Hi @GreggZ That is what I have come to realize over time as well; stability is paramount. I suppose one way to ensure stability is to front-load Macros (as we both do), and really not do much else other than dose a bit of traces once or twice during the week in-between WC's.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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palcente said:
I used to get 30ppm of nitrates from the tap, factored that in EI until one day it all changed, nitrates in tap went to barely readable and everything in the tank stunted.
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Yep! that's the tricky one when you rely on tap supply for any of the major macro (NPK/Ca/Mg/S) nutrients as it tends to fluctuate over time - sometimes a lot. Of course, if your levels fell through the floor you would end up with deficiency issues.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Thanks Everyone for all your advice. I won't worry about my nitrates, I'll just dose as per instructions. I'll try front loading the macros a try and see what happens.
Does anyone have alternanthera reineckii mini? Mine seem to be getting eaten either by my trumpet snails, Amano shrimp or cherry shrimp. It's definitely not a nutrient deficiency.
 
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