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Everyone is right ...

On oxygen and light:

Under this framework, specifically the interconnected web, we need to consider the root of life - oxygen. As a nutrient, it also falls into leidbigs and with wanting it in slight excess (or in this case it's importance more excess) as we do for all nutrients, we need to consider it. We don't dose it - perhaps we should. There are two ways to introduce it into the system: mechanically or chemically.

Mechanical is capped by the use of wet/dry filtration and this give good oxgygen, but without wet/dry, we are left with surface agitation.

Chemically, we are left with plants who oxygenate both the water and the substrate. They do better though, they super saturate. In this hobby, there was a movement towards reducing light and the goal of this was to make plant growth more manageable: This goal was at the expense of oxygen generation, the foundation of the rest of the life in our tanks: in particular, our microbial assemblage which is equally important to a healthy system.

The only way thing we have control over chemically is how much light we pump into the system. More light = more oxygen, provided it doesn't drive the demand on nutrient acquisition out of the ability of your plants to acquire them either via chemically or mechanically. -- but if the plant can moderate how much light it uses ... does it matter? ... and the answer is yes - by assumption 2 - light is a ripple in electromagnetic field and it will interact with anything which has non-zero electromagnetic components (everything in our tank - including the nutrients such as Calcium ... since it has an electron) ... so we can have too much and it also falls into the web -- but what is that? Is it fair to light to say you can have as much as you want of it but nitrogen is the boogey man? Or you can have lots of nitrogen but light is the boogey man? Light plays into this as well ... but it is a game of economics and perhaps reducing it from a maximum that I do not know is not worth the benefit. Perhaps not, however, if your flow is poorly distributed.

In many ways, I wonder if the tool of water column fertilization with frequent water changes (EI) is better implemented with high light, though I will not make this claim.

As a result, this discussion is leading us to optimizing the aquarium for maximum probability of success. If oxygen is as important as we think it is, then withholding light from your tank may be as much of a mortal sin as running CO2 all night and not during the day (which I have done).

I am not so sure that I am ready to draft a list of optimal parameters just yet -- but soon.

Josh
 
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Sorry for my lack of clarity Zeus. In reality, I think there are two camps in this hobby: 1) EI 2) Anti-EI ... anyone in between is probably just following ADA scheme or Dennis Wong scheme, and making beautiful scapes and not thinking too much about it. So I suppose my everyone is simply that EI and anti-EI are both operating under the same framework and the articulation - connection between the two - simply hasn't been procured yet

Well that changes everything and I can agree with the conclusion as many fert regimes work well for lots of folk :thumbup:.
I see it as plants are not fussy about brand of nutrition or where it comes from, from WC or substrate as long as its there, some plants will do better when its in the WC and other are fine with it in the WC, I see light being the main drive factor which determines how much ferts and CO2 the plant needs, as long as the regime (+/- CO2) has enough for the light/photons all is good.
I am a fan of EI dosing and advise it for folks who are starting in the hobby as its cheap (£0.005 per 1.0ppm N per 100litres - plus that covers the rest of the fert as well) and easy to follow. However I don't dose EI ferts any more and non of my tanks have any substrate active or inert ATM as part of a little casual experiment since moving house, plus I use urea as source of Nitrogen dosing small amounts about 100 times a week via auto doser.
ADA fert regime is low in N and PO4 but the substrate is loaded with it and they charge you a fortune per 1.0ppm N (£0.36 per 1.0ppm N per 100l - and all you get is N) which is an ammonium based fert as well.
Finding the sweat spot with ferts is tricky to find whats the minimum you can get away with, @dw1305 'Duckweed Index' and TDS monitoring is a great way to do the minimum ferts and WC's IMO, plus very eco friendly.
 
But what if we could control how much maintenance we have to do ... instead of the other way around. < This tank >had 30ppm NO3 and 10 ppm PO4 dosed weekly along with loads of iron from Plantex: great growth, healthy fish, lots of trimming, a nice state of inertia. TDS didn't change -- but I decided that I didn't want to change water every week (make time for other things) ... and I noticed on day 8/9, crinkling was induced on some plant species. To correct this, implement 2x water change weekly ... as time passed, 2x weekly was required (burnt through nutrients in substrate) ... it's too much. So I reduced dosage ... voilla: less water change was required BUT still crinkling if I postponed ... When I stopped daily dosing and dosing all at once at water change ... it lasted longer ... stability, consistency ...
@JoshP12 The the idea of being able to know and control how much maintenance we have to do and how much dosing we have to do etc, and still being able to run a successful tank is an interesting goal for sure. We may find some temporary optimum for maintenance (wc/cleaning/dosing) with the current stocking level (and fish sizes), plant mass, decay and waste buildup, growth of beneficial/unwanted bacteria, flow/circulation, available CO2 vs. plant mass etc. etc. these are all dynamic variables and movings targets... But how can we ever know without basically acting after-the-fact - i.e. when we start seeing signs of algae, plant malnutrition etc.? I am not aware of any means by which we can reliably gauge any of this, except for probing our tanks with our eyes - and when you start to see the trouble, we know it's already been troublesome for a while. In addition to my eyes, I do use my TDS meter as a sort of gauge for my maintenance sufficiency... if it goes up week over week I take it as an indication that something is amiss, but how about when it's stable ? is that really a sign that all is good...? not everything good or bad shows up as TDS (I assume), or perhaps something wanted (showing up as TDS) was replaced with something unwanted (also showing up as TDS) in roughly equal quantities and I get a reading that is deceptable stable... how would I ever know.

What so far has been working in my case for both my tanks is that one big (40-50%) weekly WC combined with dosing and a dosing again (often smaller) mid week - I have never seen any drawbacks from running my tanks at elevated macro levels (NPK) either btw. The limiting factor for my tanks is by far available CO2 as I am not injecting. So I have to be really careful about trimming down plant mass on a regular basis in combination with keeping my light levels (intensity and not hours...) on the very low side and temperature on the low side as well in order to encourage low plant metabolism. I also make sure I have good flow throughout the tanks. It works! I have slow, but steady growth and zero algae to speak of. I really don't know what else there is to ask for? Well, if one WC every month or every other week would suffice I would prefer that, but if there is no way of knowing other than trial and error, I'd rather just stick to my current routine and avoid the tightrope.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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All very over simplified I know, but it shows why standard advice, particularly for beginners, works so well. Don’t set lighting too high...
Hi @Wookii

I do wish we could easily quantify lighting intensity in a way that beginners and others could replicate. It would be much better than relying on the human eye. Half-decent PAR sensors (particularly the submersible variety) are around the £300 mark the last time I looked. I do know that Seneye with their latest offering, the Spectra, are hoping to make these available for rental from aquatics outlets. As the name suggests, it also enables the spectrum to be viewed.

The electronics of PAR sensors and associated circuitry is not difficult. But making a unit that is robust and waterproof adds a good deal of extra work. Personally, I'd prefer to opt for one of the Apogee offerings.

JPC
 
Mechanical is capped by the use of wet/dry filtration and this give good oxgygen, but without wet/dry, we are left with surface agitation.
Hi @JoshP12

When using a surface skimmer, I have good reason to think this is an effective oxidizer/aerator. I don't own a DO meter but measurement of ORP would tend to indicate oxygen levels of 8 - 10 ppm. This is O2 saturation level and I doubt that wet/dry could improve on this. Or, perhaps I'm wrong. Hang on a minute - didn't you once have a datalogging DO meter?

For the benefit of anyone reading this and not being familiar with the abbreviations, DO = dissolved oxygen and ORP = Oxidation/Reduction Potential.

JPC
 
The the idea of being able to know and control how much maintenance we have to do and how much dosing we have to do etc, and still being able to run a successful tank is an interesting goal for sure. We may find some temporary optimum for maintenance (wc/cleaning/dosing) with the current stocking level (and fish sizes), plant mass, decay and waste buildup, growth of beneficial/unwanted bacteria, flow/circulation, available CO2 vs. plant mass etc. etc. these are all dynamic variables and movings targets... But how can we ever know without basically acting after-the-fact - i.e. when we start seeing signs of algae, plant malnutrition etc.? I am not aware of any means by which we can reliably gauge any of this, except for probing our tanks with our eyes - and when you start to see the trouble, we know it's already been troublesome for a while.
Hi @MichaelJ

I am of the view that measurement of some key parameters may give us the warning signs that we need. As an example, I have an experiment running at the moment, which has enabled me to bring cyanobacteria* under control.

* specifically, Oscillatoria

JPC
 
Hi @MichaelJ

I am of the view that measurement of some key parameters may give us the warning signs that we need. As an example, I have an experiment running at the moment, which has enabled me to bring cyanobacteria* under control.
Hi @jaypeecee I agree. I always do a TDS measurements prior to WC, and of the WC water to make sure I got the remineralization and macro dosing that I mix in right. I also do a somewhat redundant measurement of the tank again a few hours after adding the WC water. That all make sense to me - and take 5 seconds. If the tanks health (livestock and plants) appear good I do not test on a regular basis - I have no reason to and I don't really have the means to give me reliable and consistent results worth monitoring on a regular basis anyway that would give me the warning signs, other than say an unanticipated rise in TDS, which I already monitor. But yes, I do occasionally (getting to be rarely truth be told) use my API test kits to get those ballpark indications that they provide.

Yes, I remember an older thread where you discussed cyano outbreaks. Have you come to any conclusions yet?

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Hi @JoshP12

When using a surface skimmer, I have good reason to think this is an effective oxidizer/aerator. I don't own a DO meter but measurement of ORP would tend to indicate oxygen levels of 8 - 10 ppm. This is O2 saturation level and I doubt that wet/dry could improve on this. Or, perhaps I'm wrong. Hang on a minute - didn't you once have a datalogging DO meter?

For the benefit of anyone reading this and not being familiar with the abbreviations, DO = dissolved oxygen and ORP = Oxidation/Reduction Potential.

JPC
I think we would need to look at the rate of relative change - I did notice with the DO metre that the tank pearled at the same saturation daily and then at that point it super saturated.

Purely mechanical won’t give us that super saturation that plants can I don’t think.

I think the wet/dry will yield a larger rate of gaseous exchange, constantly topping up the O2. Perhaps it will play a factor in this.

Josh
 
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@JoshP12 The the idea of being able to know and control how much maintenance we have to do and how much dosing we have to do etc, and still being able to run a successful tank is an interesting goal for sure. We may find some temporary optimum for maintenance (wc/cleaning/dosing) with the current stocking level (and fish sizes), plant mass, decay and waste buildup, growth of beneficial/unwanted bacteria, flow/circulation, available CO2 vs. plant mass etc. etc. these are all dynamic variables and movings targets... But how can we ever know without basically acting after-the-fact - i.e. when we start seeing signs of algae, plant malnutrition etc.? I am not aware of any means by which we can reliably gauge any of this, except for probing our tanks with our eyes - and when you start to see the trouble, we know it's already been troublesome for a while. In addition to my eyes, I do use my TDS meter as a sort of gauge for my maintenance sufficiency... if it goes up week over week I take it as an indication that something is amiss, but how about when it's stable ? is that really a sign that all is good...? not everything good or bad shows up as TDS (I assume), or perhaps something wanted (showing up as TDS) was replaced with something unwanted (also showing up as TDS) in roughly equal quantities and I get a reading that is deceptable stable... how would I ever know.

What so far has been working in my case for both my tanks is that one big (40-50%) weekly WC combined with dosing and a dosing again (often smaller) mid week - I have never seen any drawbacks from running my tanks at elevated macro levels (NPK) either btw. The limiting factor for my tanks is by far available CO2 as I am not injecting. So I have to be really careful about trimming down plant mass on a regular basis in combination with keeping my light levels (intensity and not hours...) on the very low side and temperature on the low side as well in order to encourage low plant metabolism. I also make sure I have good flow throughout the tanks. It works! I have slow, but steady growth and zero algae to speak of. I really don't know what else there is to ask for? Well, if one WC every month or every other week would suffice I would prefer that, but if there is no way of knowing other than trial and error, I'd rather just stick to my current routine and avoid the tightrope.

Cheers,
Michael

I suppose exactly that. It’s unique to each fish keeper.

But there should exist a set of guidelines that yield the highest probability of success independent of the fish keeper.

on ferts
Some struggle with excess
Some struggle with lean.
Some struggle with moderate.

Must be a common variable amongst the some.

Josh
 
Hi all,

I purposefully have not mentioned the A word.

ALGAE … ahhh!!!!!

To say a single thing causes algae is futile.

Our tank is history: the maturation process includes civil wars, revolutions, famines
Etc, and how far back you are in history, the more diversity of algaes you have.

A tank which facilitates unyielded nutrient acquisition is a developed country and has issues, but with less magnitude.

To say <insert favourite thing> causes/reduces algae is equivalent to saying that free education will solve poverty. Well, it “helps” (what if the education isn’t implemented properly … or perhaps it perpetuates systemic ideologies that oppress minorities etc)… but it won’t fix it and if we say these things, we perpetuate misconceptions and deter people from understanding the relationships of the system.

But this framework provides a way of thinking: ok what lever am I going to pull to bring this tank back to a happy inertial frame, a balance.

Will keep posting.

Josh
 
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A good question is why does time work?

time allows the plant to reconfigure, optimizing it’s ability to acquire nutrients.

time allows for microorganisms to grow/manifest, many of those in symbiosis with plants (I.e. rhizosphere) which could, for example, neutralize ammonia (reduce the amount forcibly entering and burning the plant … necessarily increasing its ability to survive) or facilitate nutrient acquisition.

To me, the model works. What we need is a set of guidelines that yield the highest probability of success under a series of goals for the fishkeeper, ultimately catering to the needs of a new comer into the hobby.

I would appreciate if anyone can provide a counter example for us to work through.
 
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Hi all,
A good question is why does time work?............time allows for microorganisms to grow/manifest, many of those in symbiosis with plants (I.e. rhizosphere)
My guess is that <"is a lot of it">.

There is quite a lot of scientific research in this area from "constructed wetlands" in the treatment of waste water. This is from <"D.D. Silveira, P. Belli Filho, L.S. Philippi, M.E. Cantão, A. Foulquier, S. Bayle, T.P. Delforno & P. Molle (2020) In-depth assessment of microbial communities in the full-scale vertical flow treatment wetlands fed with raw domestic wastewater, Environmental Technology">.

........... The samples were collected under different conditions, such as operational time (presence/absence of sludge layer on the surface of the filters), season (winter and summer), sampling depth (0, 15 and 30 cm) and operation cycle (rest and feed periods). A structural disparity was noted in the upper layers, whereas higher similarity at 30 cm was observed highlighting the effect of organic matter on bacterial diversity...........

I think it is probably analogous to the situation in the filter, where the microbial assemblage becomes <"fine-tuned"> to the prevailing conditions.

A useful "filter" reference for this is: Barthelme, R et al (2017) <"Freshwater Recirculating Aquaculture System Operations Drive Biofilter Bacterial Community Shifts around a Stable Nitrifying Consortium of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Comammox Nitrospira" Front. Microbiol., 30>.

cheers Darrel
 
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Thanks Darrel @dw1305.

That microbial assemblage needs oxygen to grow and it is by far more important than anything, I must agree - including our own gut.

This further supports, in my eyes, the necessity to not withhold light.

I reckon that the highest probability of success will include high light to foster sufficient oxygen levels for these mini heroes.
 
Thanks Darrel @dw1305.

That microbial assemblage needs oxygen to grow and it is by far more important than anything, I must agree - including our own gut.

This further supports, in my eyes, the necessity to not withhold light.

I reckon that the highest probability of success will include high light to foster sufficient oxygen levels for these mini heroes.

I think promoting or pursuing 'high light' as an objective, and certainly recommending to beginners, is a complete folly. Excessive light is up there in the top three - alongside inadequate CO2 application and insufficient fertilizer dosing - as predominant causes of planted aquarium issues for beginners.

Plants don't need high light to grow well, nor do they - in a densely planted aquarium - require high light to saturate the water column with DO. By far the most influential factor on photosynthesis rate in my experience is sufficient CO2 levels - adjust CO2 injection rate up and down, and you see significant variance in O2 production. Of course this requires and assumes 'sufficient' light - and we may well be falling foul of using purely subjective terms like 'high', 'low' and 'sufficient' without any objective value to determine them (my 'sufficient' could you your 'high' for all I know). As John (@jaypeecee) says we lack an easily accessible method to determine values.

However 'sufficient' light is a lot lower than I think many people start their tanks out on, with modern high power LED lights. As I mentioned in my last post, light is the main driver for plant growth. Driving the lights too high, especially very early on, will only lead to plant deficiencies and algae, and runs the tank on more of a knife edge for failures to occur. Having the lights at more reasonable levels reduces CO2 and nutrient demand, and gives the aquarist more time to react and correct inadequate CO2 implementation, or nutrient deficiencies, particularly early on in the aquariums development.

I suppose exactly that. It’s unique to each fish keeper.

But there should exist a set of guidelines that yield the highest probability of success independent of the fish keeper.

on ferts
Some struggle with excess
Some struggle with lean.
Some struggle with moderate.

Must be a common variable amongst the some.

Josh

To be honest I've never seen someone applying excess nutrients struggling as a result of those excess nutrients, only ever as a result of insufficient nutrients or insufficient CO2, or excess light (which ultimately results in there being insufficient nutrients or CO2), and perhaps fourthly inadequate maintenance.

There are existing guidelines that have been used for decades now. The two main ones in opposite camps are the ADA system and EI system, and both have been proven time and again to be equally successful. Both offer a clear prescriptive route to success, however the former really requires the aquarist to buy into a complete ecosystem of products to stand the best chances of success, but in essence both are a largely a bit like painting by numbers.

Where people come unstuck, and run into problems within those systems, is when they don't keep the paint within the lines - they mess with their dosing, or run their lights too high, or don't optimise their CO2 properly or keep it consistent, or don't perform enough water changes at the right time etc etc - they treat these things as 'levers' as you described them, when they shouldn't be considered as such within these systems, they should be considered constants. If all beginners just followed the prescriptive guidelines of, say EI, to the letter, with sufficient (not excess) light levels, and stuck steadfastly to the guidelines, there'd be far fewer posts in the Plant Help and Algae forums.

Two caveats I should mention here is a) I'm talking strictly 'high tech' CO2 injected tanks, low techs are a different animal (thought several of the same factors still apply), and b) I'm talking beginners/inexperienced planted tank owners. In respect of the latter, there are numerous highly experienced aquarists on this forum, that successfully run their tanks with very high light, and highly customised and flexible nutrient dosing, and are hugely experienced at tweaking things based on plant observations and application of that experience (take a look at @Geoffrey Rea's various journal threads to see what I mean), but it takes an awful lot of time served to get to that point (I don't consider myself anywhere near that level).

For more inexperienced aquarists (myself included), EI (and likely other complete prescriptive systems) provide a framework that actively seeks to remove variables, to remove those 'levers', and enables myself and others to achieve healthy, largely algae free aquariums.

I suppose time, patience, itself is a lever as well hehehe.

Well, I'd consider it a constant in terms of an aquarium, though Einstein would agree with you otherwise lol . . . joking aside, you always see it with a brand new tank, it often has a rocky start bouncing between issues here and there, and then suddenly just seems to slip into a groove after about 3-4 months - plants start growing well, algae disappears, and everything starts trucking along. It's probably no coincidence that 3-4 months is often the point where the aquarist settles into the game too - they stop tweaking the CO2, get into a consistent routine with the dosing, get used to the chore of regular water changes, and just generally stop messing with things. The tank hits a level of consistency and balance, most likely as a result of the maturation of the biological assemblage that @dw1305 mentions, but also helped by the consistency the new aquarist achieves by that point also.

In my own experience though, you can significantly reduce that settling period using a mature filter and more importantly, a mature substrate, so that microbial assemblage is definitely key.
 
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