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getting worse..
- Thread starter dougbraz
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Karmicnull
Member
What @X3NiTH said. We use EI to make sure ferts are not the limiting factor. We get a decent amount of surface turbulence to make sure there is enough O2. Then we spend our time getting the balance right for light intensity and carbon availability as the two remaining factors. In a high energy tank the carbon is provided through CO2, and there's more of it, so you can have more intense lighting and consequently need more ferts. In a tank where Glute is being added you've got more bioavailable carbon than a straight low-energy tank, but a lot less than if you added CO2, so light intensity and ferts are correspondingly somewhere between the two as well.
Cheers,
Simon
Cheers,
Simon
dougbraz
Member
Excel is a carbon source. It provides a fraction of the carbon that you would have with CO2 injection, but it is an extra form of CO2 nonetheless. This means your tank is somewhere between a low-energy and a high-energy setup. The extra carbon will trigger plant growth and the plants will also require additional nutrients provided by fertilizers than what they would need without carbon. You cannot let the extra carbon source create a nutrient imbalance. This means that the main energy sources of the plants (carbon, micro/macro nutrients provided fertilizers and light) must be aligned.
Hi Andy,
Practically speaking, it can fall anywhere, depending on how much injected CO2 it is being compared to. Generally it is compared to the mythical "30ppm" of CO2 gas saturation and if that's the case then it may only be 2X to 3X the metabolism of plants in a low tech tank, but we know that that gas concentration levels of 30ppm rarely ever reaches the plant beds. Also, some folks using CO2 injection choose to limit their injection due to toxicity concerns. Also, those dosing liquid carbon can choose to dose the suggested bottle levels or they can dose up to as much as 3X the bottle suggestion depending on their concerns for toxicity. Since we can never be sure exactly how much is being dosed or how efficient someone's gas injection is comparatively, it's easier when dosing nutrients in a liquid carbon tank to start with the standard EI values and reduce from there if desired.
Cheers,
dougbraz
Member
Gentlemen - thanks for the clarifications. Will let u know how we progress.
Cheers
Doug
Flukeworld
Member
Reading the topic I am confirming my observations about light intensity importance, not so much about the hours of lightning period towards algae appearance. What I have still doubts about is fertilization.
I have around 30 litters of Dennerle scaper soil with Denerle 9+1 beneath on my semi community/planted tank. I am still struggling to identify the needed ferts dosage. I have been dosing heavily, I have been dosing low, still here and there I have some algae, slow growing plants are black on the corners. Lately, I observed the following effect - on the day I was dosing macros just an hour or so later the side glass covered with green algae. I was thinking - well, may be my fish load, plus the excess organics, the soil, and so on is already fertilizing my aqua, so pouring more macro causes suitable algae environment. Then I am reading in here that it is hard to get "over fertilization" as a reason for algae, its more likely the light and inconsistent CO2.
So, my question is - should I be worrying that my organic load is adding enough macro elements, so when I add more (following the EI guidelines) it causes excess, or most probably I have another issue and should not focus on dosage?
I have around 30 litters of Dennerle scaper soil with Denerle 9+1 beneath on my semi community/planted tank. I am still struggling to identify the needed ferts dosage. I have been dosing heavily, I have been dosing low, still here and there I have some algae, slow growing plants are black on the corners. Lately, I observed the following effect - on the day I was dosing macros just an hour or so later the side glass covered with green algae. I was thinking - well, may be my fish load, plus the excess organics, the soil, and so on is already fertilizing my aqua, so pouring more macro causes suitable algae environment. Then I am reading in here that it is hard to get "over fertilization" as a reason for algae, its more likely the light and inconsistent CO2.
So, my question is - should I be worrying that my organic load is adding enough macro elements, so when I add more (following the EI guidelines) it causes excess, or most probably I have another issue and should not focus on dosage?
Hi Flukeworld,
There are a couple of important reasons to worry about organic load and none of them have anything to do with nutrients. First and foremost is that another name for organic load is "water pollution". There are some complicated science associated with pollution, but simply put, organics in the water trigger the rise of bacteria, whose main function is actually to clean the pollution and to remove those organic compounds from the water. This is how your filter works, which is no surprise, however, the penalty you pay for the services of these bacteria is that they are aerobic and therefor they breathe oxygen. In so doing they compete with both the fish and the plants for this limited oxygen supply. The result is that both the fish and the plants fall victim to hypoxia. The fish become ill due to a decrease in their immune system and the plants become ill and their defense system is weakened sufficiently that they fall victim to algal attacks. We should therefore not depend only on our filters to solve this problem and instead we should make best efforts to remove the organics from the tank with frequent and LARGE water changes.
The second significant consequence of organics in the water is that they complex system turns these compounds into a bio-film which coats the plant leaves and the film becomes an impediment to the movement of nutrients and especially CO2 across the epidermal layer of the leaf.
Many people who do not understand EI love to talk about how the large and frequent water changes associated with EI is necessary in order to reduce the nutrient level, but this is COMPLETELY false and focuses on irrelevant factors. As we have discussed above, plants which are provided with a high nutrient load and CO2 greatly raise their metabolism, and in so doing they then produce significantly higher levels of organic waste. It is removal of this organic pollution that we are ridding the tank of when we perform the water changes and has nothing to do with "reset of nutrients" because if we wanted to reduce the nutrient level all we would need to do would be to stop dosing for a while in order for the nutrient concentration to naturally decline as the plants consume them. The EI dosing scheme would then look very different that what is described in the referenced article.
The fundamental cause of your algae therefore has to be investigated more thoroughly in order to find the real culprit. The appearance of the algae subsequent to your dosing is incidental. It is more likely that the tank was falling over the cliff due to other factor(s), which I would guess without even having all the data about your tank, that you have a CO2 shortfall or even a nutrient shortfall due to poor flow/distribution, possibly exacerbated by excessive lighting. Again, I do not know all the details. If you have a thread already in the algae section then kindly point us to it and we will investigate. The species of algae that appear in a planted tank is strongly correlated to the root cause of nutrient deficiency and is NOT related to excess of nutrients. I proved this to mysel long ago. The tank and plants you see in the referenced article was dosed with between 3X and 5X the EI dosing number. Think about that for a moment. That excess nutrients do not cause algae in a planted tank is a fact that MUST be your fundamental belief system first and foremost if you are to find root cause of problems and if you are to find the correct path to rectification.
Cheers,
MichaelJ
Member
That makes a lot of sense to me. There are actually a lot of EI lore that I've been reading that suggest that you do the weekly WC's for the purpose of somehow “resetting” the tanks nutrition (i.e. fertilizer) levels. Throughout the years I've always thought of WC’s as something you do to get rid of organic waste from plants, livestock, uneaten food, algae spores, unwanted bacteria etc. and you dose fertilizer to give back what was taken away due to the collateral damage caused by the WC plus whatever the plants consumed in-between the WC. Also, I’ve never experienced algae due to high nutrition levels (NPK), quite the contrary actually. Combined with proper light intensity filtration and flow, high NPK levels seems to make it much harder for especially GSA, BGA and Hair algae to get a foothold in my experience, but when push comes to shove it’s probably much more about the light intensity, WC and filtration/flow than NPK levels - as long as the plants are not malnourished due to lack of NPK or traces for that matter.
Cheers,
Michael
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Hi Michael,
Yes, it's easy to latch on to a sentence or paragraph and to then use it out of context. To be fair, we need to understand the situation at time at which Tom Barr first presented the EI concept. Hobbyists generally were wary because nutrients were always being blamed for problems in the tank. The most reluctant adversaries were the discus crowd who constantly preached water changes to remove NO3, considered to be a pariah. They could not understand the difference between NO3 resulting from the organic and dangerous sequence of events occurring in Nitrogen Cycle from the innocuous addition of adding inorganic NO3 salts. Barr was forced to argue that doing the water changes effectively would reduce any toxins including NO3, whether derived from organic sources or added as a salt. I've been out of the discus community for some time so I don't know if they have come to the realization that the NO3 at the end of the Nitrogen Cycle is actually the smoking gun of the damage that has already occurred from NH3 to NO2 to NO3 and that it is not the NO3 that is problematic.
Cheers,
Yes, it's easy to latch on to a sentence or paragraph and to then use it out of context. To be fair, we need to understand the situation at time at which Tom Barr first presented the EI concept. Hobbyists generally were wary because nutrients were always being blamed for problems in the tank. The most reluctant adversaries were the discus crowd who constantly preached water changes to remove NO3, considered to be a pariah. They could not understand the difference between NO3 resulting from the organic and dangerous sequence of events occurring in Nitrogen Cycle from the innocuous addition of adding inorganic NO3 salts. Barr was forced to argue that doing the water changes effectively would reduce any toxins including NO3, whether derived from organic sources or added as a salt. I've been out of the discus community for some time so I don't know if they have come to the realization that the NO3 at the end of the Nitrogen Cycle is actually the smoking gun of the damage that has already occurred from NH3 to NO2 to NO3 and that it is not the NO3 that is problematic.
Cheers,
Flukeworld
Member
Thank you Clive, seems I always geт an actual answer of my questions whenever you get to post. Which in the end saves me a lot of try'n'error situations.
Your posts are always great to read. I was gathering more with the plans to update my "Issues topic" as I have some updates like getting spray bar and observations for a month, I will do so soon, just need some spare time 🙂
Cheers,
I love this forum,
Fluke
Flukeworld
Member
Clive, I need some more elaboration on this:
Yes, I had loses but along with tetras I have livebearers and I am a carrying type of a guy for live-beings saving babies, raising them with good food and then seeing mostly their parents or bigger brothers dyeing. I never got complete mess with numbers, but lets say for 170 litter tank i had 230 centimeters of fish. Seems I have being providing a lot of stress. Now I can estimate like having a bit under the volume "fish" centimeters, but I am still learning, I keep changing a lot in regards to "lower the stress" following information I research on the web. I know my losses are not in vain, I keep improving my self 🙂
I know this is 1 millions dollar question, but does hypoxia could be easily prevented in a tank receiving agitation from surface, pump, good photosynthesis process for a good amount of hours and in the same time receiving around 45% of volume water changes weekly?
In this case, can I remove the hypoxia from the equation for my live stock losses? I had loses for sure from too much CO2 injection, or too aggressive water changes. Still sometimes I am trying to blame my fertilizations overdosing. Well, if its hard to answer I would love to see at least on a high level where hypoxia or overfertilization resides on a semi-smart driven tank.
Can I remove hypoxia from the equation for my algae problems? Or at least lower its priority.
Should I start cleaning my tank twice a week? I believe cleaning would help for sure, but may be not because I stopped hypoxia from happening in my ecosystem. Prove me wrong, hopefully, so I can afford less maintenance 😀
I want to know more on how this de-oxygenation happens, hypoxia if needed to be more scientific and specific. How aggressive and fast it is happening. Imagine for example a full agitated from surface movement tank with some additional oxygen pumped in including good length light period and CO2 injection. Do you observe this ass missive live stock decline or its "here and there" process. I actually had some deaths for a while until the stock got into normal numbers, thing I still feel as the most panful part of learning process. The truth is that I just keep trying to identify the "main" reason behind this.
Yes, I had loses but along with tetras I have livebearers and I am a carrying type of a guy for live-beings saving babies, raising them with good food and then seeing mostly their parents or bigger brothers dyeing. I never got complete mess with numbers, but lets say for 170 litter tank i had 230 centimeters of fish. Seems I have being providing a lot of stress. Now I can estimate like having a bit under the volume "fish" centimeters, but I am still learning, I keep changing a lot in regards to "lower the stress" following information I research on the web. I know my losses are not in vain, I keep improving my self 🙂
I know this is 1 millions dollar question, but does hypoxia could be easily prevented in a tank receiving agitation from surface, pump, good photosynthesis process for a good amount of hours and in the same time receiving around 45% of volume water changes weekly?
In this case, can I remove the hypoxia from the equation for my live stock losses? I had loses for sure from too much CO2 injection, or too aggressive water changes. Still sometimes I am trying to blame my fertilizations overdosing. Well, if its hard to answer I would love to see at least on a high level where hypoxia or overfertilization resides on a semi-smart driven tank.
Can I remove hypoxia from the equation for my algae problems? Or at least lower its priority.
Should I start cleaning my tank twice a week? I believe cleaning would help for sure, but may be not because I stopped hypoxia from happening in my ecosystem. Prove me wrong, hopefully, so I can afford less maintenance 😀
MichaelJ
Member
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😀haha first I need to find a publisher who is convinced that nutrients don't cause algae...
Hi Fluke,
Well this get very deep so I'll describe in general terms. Nature always has techniques to clean up. On the open plains/savannah for example there are vultures who eat carrion. They are immune to most diseases and they help prevent the spread of those diseases by eating rotted flesh that few other animals will touch. Hyenas hunt the weak or disabled and so prevent them from passing on weak genes.
When water is polluted with organic material the microorganisms in the water feed on this material because usually, the material, if it is organic, will always, by definition be constructed of carbon as well as of NPK to a greater or lesser extent. Urine, for example is a source of Nitrogen. When organic materials decay, one of the first products is ammonia. You may be aware of the bacteria Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter which are famous for eating ammonia and converting it to nitrite. But just look at the difference between ammonia and nitrite => NH3 and NO2. Can you see that nitrite is mostly (60% by weight) oxygen? Hobbyists usually don't consider that there is only one place this oxygen can come from and that is directly from the dissolved oxygen in the water.
Look at the next reaction; nitrite to nitrate => NO2 to NO3 Again, nitrite has two oxygen atoms and nitrate has three. Where does the third oxygen atom come from? Yes, from the same water column that the fish need to breathe from.
So the more pollution in the water the more microorganisms. There are more than just Nitrosomonas, Nitrobacter and Nitrospira, but species other than bacteria, such as archaea (which is said to actually do the bulk of the conversion). So there are millions of millions of these germs all stealing oxygen from the water to de-toxify the water, but in so doing they rob fish of this critical resource. Oxygen is NOT very soluble in water so fish really suffer because it only very slowly replaced by oxygen in the atmosphere. Even if they are not suffocated to death immediately, the hypoxia damages their immune systems and leaves them open to attack by other microorganisms so they die of other reasons.
One of the reasons that planted tanks are better for fish is specifically because during daylight hours the plants release oxygen into the water as well as into the sediment.
It must also be noted that plants have a symbiotic relationship with many other types of microorganisms. The CO2 you feed to plants is metabolized and is later released into the water and sediment as carbohydrates, such as sugar, upon which these microorganisms feed. This is the same organic material that will rot and wreak havoc in the tank if the water is not removed.
For year I've had to endure people bitching and winging about how EI forces you to do water changes, but we need frequent and massive water changes anyway specifically because of the problem of water pollution - even if there were no plants and no EI. I was programmed for water changes when I was 10 years old with guppies in a 5 gallon tank. I saw a direct correlation between water changes and survival rate.
I would be very careful about surface agitation during the day when plants are producing oxygen. Surface agitation works both ways. It can bring gases into the tank if there is more of that gas outside than inside AND it can send gases out of the tank. If your plants are producing oxygen then you could easily be sending the oxygen out of the tank.
The surface agitation is much more useful at night, when the plants are consuming oxygen and are not producing oxygen. Plants compete with fish and compete with bacteria for oxygen at night. During the day you should manage the agitation so that it is enough to off-gas excess CO2 but not so much that you off-gas the very commodity you are attempting to keep. Airstones at nigh really help with this and turn off the airstone during the day. Of course, this should also be in concert with frequent and massive water changes. I change 90% of my water at the end of the week. If the fish are having difficulty due to overcrowding or over feeding then do 90% change twice a week. Do not fear water changes. There are a lot of websites preaching minimalist water changes because you should "keep you water parameters constant" and of course hobbyists minimize their water changes, the fish perish and they then blame pH or other absurd reasons. When fish die change you water because something is in the water killing them. Change your water even when they don't die because it will minimize the effect of any toxin in the water.
Well CO2 is toxic as hell. This has to remain in the equation because it's the biggest killer in CO2 injected tanks. But if that is happening that means you are mismanaging your CO2. You can use LESS CO2 if your flow and distribution are excellent. Again, I do not know the facts about you tank but it's very easy to see the effects of CO2 poisoning. The fish behave strangely. They gasp at the surface. Sometimes they hide in an area that perhaps has a lower CO2 concentration. Co2 poisoning is called Hypercapnia and it is deadly. If you see these symptoms do a massive water change immediately to lower the CO2 concentration and reduce the injection rate.
Hypoxia actually can contribute to some algal blooms, but as always, we would need a full description of the tank configuration, filter data, photos of the distribution methods and so forth. It's very easy in a CO2 injected tank to have poor CO2 causing algal blooms at the same time that you have hypercapnia which damages the fish. I see this every day and it is usually due to poor management of the gas, poor water change schedule and poor filter flow/distribution.
Cheers,
MichaelJ
Member
dougbraz
Member
well, 2X40% water changes later (Saturdays chores), reduction of lighting to 6 hours and 40%, daily dosing of 2 capfuls of Seachem Excel, and an EI cocktail (50ml) every 2nd day being (three times only so far):
2.8 tsp KNO3
1 tsp KH2PO4
7.5 tsp MgSO4
dissolved in 500ml of filtered water
and it may be my rose tinted glasses, it may be too early to tell, but it at least SEEMS that the algae is receding and the plants overall seem healthier, less droopy. If this is me on the right track, I am well content and grateful for all the info supplied here.
Cheers
Doug
(messy jungle image attached)
Cheers,
Flukeworld
Member
Same here, some good progress. Did lately 90% water change as Clive advised and I can see my dormant for weeks nerite snails finally moving around. Seems the whole tank looks clearer and brighter, the stock also seems happy. I also lowered the light intensity and with much larger changes seems the algae on slow growers is declining in the moment. Fingers crossed 🙂
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