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Lean dosing pros and cons

plantnoobdude said:
high tech doesn't always mean lots of water changes. I do water changes every two weeks and I believe Happi used to go a month or so between water changes and maintain low tds.
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Interesting, thanks. High tech is definitely on the horizon at some point - or more likely "mid-tech" @Hufsa-style!
 
GreggZ said:
Hello everyone.

I was reading this thread and wanted to thank those who have posted support.

As some might know I have kept a long running journal on TPT for many years.
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Hi @GreggZ Big Welcome to UKAPS! 🙂 I have rarely visited TPT and was never a member, so I guess I missed out on your journals etc!

Cheers,
Michael
 
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dw1305 said:
I'm not a <"CO2 user">, but as soon as I realised that aquascapers were raising (and rapidly) lowering their pH by one unit every day, and <"had very healthy fish">, it becomes obvious that it isn't pH change itself that is damaging to fish and that acidosis and fish death are both symptoms of underlying issues, rather than the former causing the latter.

cheers Darrel
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Hi Darrel, One thing I am still wondering about - and sort of the reason why I still add some buffer capacity (CO3) is the significance of the pH level the drop might happen from - say if you have a 0.5 pH or larger drop from a pH ~5.5 (resulting in a pH at or below 5.0 which is borderline lethal( is it?) territory for many species including beneficial bacteria). On the other hand, other than CO2, I am also asking myself what could possibly incur such a large drop in an otherwise healthy and well-maintained low-tech tank?

Well, at least for the sake of being able to even measure pH with our test kits you need some KH there I suppose.

Cheers,
Michael
 
MichaelJ said:
Hi Darrel, One thing I am still wondering about - and sort of the reason why I still add some buffer capacity (CO3) is the significance of the pH level the drop might happen from - say if you have a 0.5 pH or larger drop from a pH ~5.5 (resulting in a pH at or below 5.0 which is borderline lethal( is it?) territory for many species including beneficial bacteria). On the other hand, other than CO2, I am also asking myself what could possibly incur such a large drop in an otherwise healthy and well-maintained low-tech tank?

Well, at least for the sake of being able to even measure pH with our test kits you need some KH there I suppose.

Cheers,
Michael
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I believe pikez kept rainbows at ph in high 3s, various other high tech softwater tank owners keep their ph in high 4s low 5s. I doubt a ph of 5 would be lethal to fish/shrimps. you;d reach the co2 toxicity limit far before the ph alone becomes the issue. i'd think
 
plantnoobdude said:
I believe pikez kept rainbows at ph in high 3s, various other high tech softwater tank owners keep their ph in high 4s low 5s. I doubt a ph of 5 would be lethal to fish/shrimps. you;d reach the co2 toxicity limit far before the ph alone becomes the issue.
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Hi @plantnoobdude Interesting. I am only familiar with Cardinals being able to sustain the high-mid 3 range for a longer period of time. Anyway, very low pH (<5) is definitely unfamiliar territory for me personally, and would like to understand it better vs. livestock and plants.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Hi, i got a fertilizer which contains small amount of micros despite the fact that it's not an aquarium fertilizer, could you tell me if it safe to use in tank ? could you also help me covert % in ppm ? thx

ready-to-use mineral nutrient solution fertilizer + water-based polish containing trace elements

0.07% total nitrogen (N) of which : 0.023% ureic, 0.023% nitric, 0.024% ammoniacal. 0.04% phosphoric anhydride (P2O5) soluble in water, 0.06% potassium oxyde (K2O) soluble in water, 0.01% magnesium oxide (mgO) total.

Trace elements soluble in water: 0.00012% Boron (B), 0.000025% Copper (Cu), 0.0002% Iron (Fe)*, 0.00012% Manganese (Mn), 0.000012% Molybdenum (Mo), 0.000025% Zinc (Zn).

**EDTA chelate, * DTPA chelate
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Hoo boy this thread has turned into a bit of an umbrella thread :lol:
Maybe it would be more organised if we split into a few new threads?
At least one for the effects of low kh and ph, and maybe also one for Eminors micro question?
 
Hi all,
MichaelJ said:
...... and sort of the reason why I still add some buffer capacity (CO3) is the significance of the pH level the drop might happen from - say if you have a 0.5 pH or larger drop from a pH ~5.5 (resulting in a pH at or below 5.0 which is borderline lethal( is it?) territory for many species including beneficial bacteria).
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Unfortunately it is unknown territory for me as well. I've always used rain-water, and that has some carbonate (dKH) buffering, so I don't really know how low the pH goes. During the day it is always well above pH7, but that just reflects that the water is fairly fully saturated with dissolved oxygen. I know the pH must go below pH7 during the night, because of the shell attrition on the snail shells, but I don't know how low it goes.

I've settled on 80 - 140 microS as my conductivity range, but that is really because 140 microS is about the highest conductivity value that we get in the rain-water (late summer). During the winter that goes down to about 30 microS (after very heavy rain or snow).

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

Unfortunately it is unknown territory for me as well. I've always used rain-water, and that has some carbonate (dKH) buffering, so I don't really know how low the pH goes. During the day it is always well above pH7, but that just reflects that the water is fairly fully saturated with dissolved oxygen. I know the pH must go below pH7 during the night, because of the shell attrition on the snail shells, but I don't know how low it goes.

I've settled on 80 - 140 microS as my conductivity range, but that is really because 140 microS is about the highest conductivity value that we get in the rain-water (late summer). During the winter that goes down to about 30 microS (after very heavy rain or snow).

cheers Darrel
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Hi Darrel, A little bit off topic, but on the topic of extremely low pH there is a fascinating paper on the significance of DOC in extreme low pH environments.

From the abstract: "The so-called “blackwaters” of the Amazonian Rio Negro are rich in highly coloured dissolved organic carbon (DOC), but ion-poor and very acidic, conditions that would cause fatal ionoregulatory failure in most fish. However these blackwaters support 8% of the world’s ichthyofauna. We tested the hypothesis that native DOC provides protection against ionoregulatory dysfunction in this extreme environment."

As I am sure you know Darrel, the pH in Rio Negro is routinely in the 3.0-5.5 pH range (I've seen as low as 2.8 pH quoted other places as the extreme low end).

Cheers,
Michael
 
Hufsa said:
Hoo boy this thread has turned into a bit of an umbrella thread /forum/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/icon_lol.gif
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Hi @Hufsa Good point. I guess as long as we are talking about things that are lean, we're still kind of on-topic, I think :lol: ... but it kind of brings me back to the topic of asking the moderators (@LondonDragon et. al) to setup an "alternative fert approaches" or "alternative methods" section, that I, among others, have promoted in the past to keep things more on topic.

Anyway, I am as guilty as anyone else at squatting threads with unrelated topics :lol:

Cheers,
Michael
 
plantnoobdude said:
I just thought that was what we were supposed to do!!!:lol:
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Haha... Yes, I guess to a certain extent its unavoidable and probably what makes a discussion forum like this vibrant and engaging. If we had the mods coming down hard on us every time we would divert the discussion it wouldn't be as much fun I guess.

(and here we are... at it again, going off topic :lol: )

Cheers,
Michael
 
John q said:
Mmm, could be wrong hopefully @Happi Will correct me on this but suspect lean dosing works better when the ph and kh are low?
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Hi @John q It is at least my distinct impression that lean dosing goes hand in hand with extremely low KH and relatively low pH to improve uptake and availability of nutrients. It's unclear to me exactly how tight the relationship is though. But a very good question!

Cheers,
Michael
 
what michael said is spot on.
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if you take a look at mulders chart, you will see that various hard water nutrients that come with kh, Ca, Mg, K....
inhibit uptake of other nutrients, Ca for example doesn't improve uptake of any nutrients. so having it in excess can mean you have to dose more micros, I believe @Happi has had this experience and can confirm.
 
MichaelJ said:
Hi @John q It is at least my distinct impression that lean dosing goes hand in hand with extremely low KH and relatively low pH to improve uptake and availability of nutrients. It's unclear to me exactly how tight the relationship is though. But a very good question!

Cheers,
Michael
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maybe we need to collect some data points? Here's mine

Gh 6
Kh 3.5
tapwater pH (degassed) 7.5

Weekly Water column dosing (APT EI + Epsom Salt) [exclude substrate feeding]
NO3 5.8ppm
PO4 1.9ppm
K 7.9ppm
Fe 0.22ppm
Mg 3.7ppm
 
erwin123 said:
maybe we need to collect some data points?
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For data purposes only. Not suggesting these numbers will work.

Kh 1 (Soft tap water)
Gh 2~3
Tank ph range 7.2 ~ 6.4
Tank temp 25.2 Celsius

Ca 2 ppm (added with water change)
Mg 1ppm (added with water change)

Weekly ferts added.
No3 7ppm
P04 2.27ppm
K 8.42ppm
Mg 1.35ppm
Fe 0.25ppm (from csm+b)
Fe 0.09ppm Dtpa

Heavy fish stocking.
 
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