Lean dosing pros and cons

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Basically all plants require fertilising with the same nutrients

A bit different on low dosing regarding low energy no CO2. IME less dosing but dosing all nutrients when needed as Duckweed Index.

I do agree with the consistent Dosing but it doesn't has to be the higher amounts that are being suggested.

Those ones really. Personally I don't want optimal plant growth (and lots of stems that need trimming every week), I just want some active plant growth. It doesn't matter whether you use EI or the Duckweed Index, you need to supply all fourteen of the essential plant nutrients.

cheers Darrel

 

[MichaelJ]

you need to supply all fourteen of the essential plant nutrients.

Hi Darrel, Are CO2 and O2 counting towards the 14 ? if So I guess its CO2, O2, Ca, Mg, N, P, K, S, Fe, Mn, B, Zn, Cu, Mo. ... What about Chloride? I also noticed some trace ferts contains Nickel and Cobalt and one that I know of (Seachem Trace) some really exotic elements such as Rubidium and Vanadium. Nickel is an interesting one.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Angus]

Chlorine (Cl).... well i didn't know that... thanks Darrel....

 

[MichaelJ]

Chlorine (Cl).... well i didn't know that... thanks Darrel....

Haha thats funny. ....not Chlorine ... Chloride ... as in Potassium Chloride or Calcium Chloride. ... Just making sure so no one starts to dose Chlorine in their tanks. Chlorine is OK for a Hot-tub or pool ... but you will still have to go pretty lean with this nasty stuff Chloride is in fact a negatively charged ionic version of Chlorine.

Cheers,
Mihael

 

[Angus]

Haha thats funny. ....not Chlorine ... Chloride ... as in Potassium Chloride or Calcium Chloride. ... Just making sure so no one starts to dose Chlorine in their tanks. Chlorine is OK for a Hot-tub or pool ... but you will still have to go pretty lean with this nasty stuff Chloride is in fact a negatively charged ionic version of Chlorine.

Cheers,
Mihael

As always this forum teaches me more than i ever learnt elsewhere... thanks Michael this answered a lot of my subsequent questions. Aquatic plants fertilizer - Aquascaping - Aquatic plants - Aqua Rebel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Are CO2 and O2 counting towards the 14

No, that is just the mineral ones, so you need to add, carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O). That number is surprisingly variable and more modern references may list up to seventeen mineral nutrients.

some trace ferts contains Nickel and Cobalt and one that I know of (Seachem Trace) some really exotic elements such as Rubidium and Vanadium. Nickel is an interesting one.

Even the "full" list of seventeen occasionally has other elements (silicon (Si) etc) added to it. The elements that plants need in <"trace amounts"> are often supplied as impurities in other salts. If you used DI water and had an inert substrate and didn't have any fish etc. you could conceivably end up with an "exotic" nutrient deficiency, but otherwise it is pretty unlikely, because fish feed etc will supply the trace elements plants need.

Chloride is in fact a negatively charged ionic version of Chlorine.

That is it. It is only ions in solution that we are interested in, so potassium (K) is only plant available as the K+ ion etc. This often causes some confusion, particularly with <"iron (Fe) and silicon (Si) etc">. Nitrogen (N) would be another example, where N2 gas is basically inert and we are only interested in <"fixed nitrogen">.

cheers Darrel

 

[ceg4048]

so lets say if 10 users are using Tropica fertilizer for example and out of those 10 users, 2 of them have the issues with plant growth. does that mean they need to increase their dosing or does that mean there is some user errors or water chemistry issue?

This argument is not reasonable and giving an answer "yes" or "no" would also be unreasonable. Whenever someone has a problem in a tank it is first necessary to determine what it is that they are doing or not doing. The answer is not a choice of binary options. An analysis must be performed on the tank using as much data, provided by the poster, as possible. Only when the data is processed can the true answer be determined - and the answer might be a single nutrient issue or it may be any one of several possibilities having nothing to do with the nutrient dosing. I think you do agree with this based on the last statement.

Most people who have high lights and dosing higher nutrients seems to have more algae problems. In year of 2021 they are still trying to fix their co2.

This premise is entirely speculative. There is real data here on this site where users reduce the lighting and doing this, problem is either greatly reduced or solved. In fact it can be clearly demonstrated that many hobbyists who subscribed to websites which support high light and who continued to experience problems solved their problems here when they reduced the lighting.

The argument is about we are told that high light mean we need to dose high fertilizer and add lot of co2, this is a myth. This myth is similar to high po4 solving GSA when GSA has nothing to do with this. If true then both myth should hold true when someone is using tropica fertilizer because not only it's lean, but it also adds very little po4.

Again, these are your arguments, not ours. You also clearly have misread or have read from a poster who has not fully understood. GSA is highly correlated to any combination of poor CO2+ poor PO4. The data is clear and is available for review here in the Algae section. It can be seen that if the hobbyists CO2 is good, but if their PO4 is poor then adding PO4 resolves the issue. If the CO2 is poor then adding PO4 may not solve the issue, but fixing the CO2 will.

It is not necessarily an issue of whether the average CO2 is 20ppm or 30ppm. It is an issue of whether the gas is being distributed properly and whether it's being diffused and retained properly.

I agree with you that there are many user errors, from misinterpretation of information to inept application of the principles. I also fully agree with you that many posters who are answering the questions and who should know better, immediately suggest adding nutrients instead of performing a logical analysis and OK, perhaps this situation forms the basis of your arguments. I often find that I need to interject a correction into the thread to caution the OP and others that conclusions should not be jumped to and that "add more nutrients" is not always the answer to a particular problem.

Having said that however, it is clear that light intensity drives the demand for nutrients/CO2 and if you disagree then I suggest that your information is faulty. It may be that the person reporting is not adding as much nutrients to the water column but does have a rich sediment - and if so, this counts as high dosing, NOT lean dosing. Were you aware, for example that Amazonia contains 100X the EI nutrient levels? Anyone using new Amazonia and are not dosing the water column CANNOT claim lean dosing. Many households may have a high nutrient level in their municipal water supply. Hobby grade test kits are not a reliable source of information. Folks in these categories also cannot claim lean dosing. Also, most people do not have any idea about their PAR as they do not have access to a meter, nor do they have access to a CO2 meter. So this makes it very difficult to determine exact numbers.

So there are a lot of uncontrolled factors that may render your arguments false unless you have access to reliable information - and that may be the only thing that is usually in lean supply.

Cheers,

 

[Happi]

1 ppm Fe from Miller Micro weekly, Urea as N (Very High Dosing of Micros) PAR 100








0.1 ppm Fe weekly custom Micro, Urea N, lean dosing, PAR 100








0.1 Fe custom Micro weekly, Urea as N (Very Lean Dosing) PAR 80-100




0.07 Fe Custom Micro (lean dosing) Par 80-100




Osmocote, high Nutrients leaching into water, PAR 40-50


0.07 Fe weekly Tropica Clone, very lean dosing, PAR 40-50






Lean dosing, different sources of Nitrogen, Algae everywhere, PAR 80-100



Very High Traces, High Dosing, plant damage, PAR 80-100

 

[tiger15]

Happi, you have demonstrated by pics that you can grow healthy red plants without algae by lean dosing. But what is your definition of lean dosing? Dosing is the input, not what is left in the water column which is input minus uptake. Do you have N,P and iron concentration data to demonstrate your water column is “lean”. It appears you lean dosed iron and micros only, not macros. If your macro source is primarily root tabs (urea and osmocote), then it may not necessarily be lean depending on how much NPK have leaked out to the water column.

 

[Wookii]

Happi, you have demonstrated by pics that you can grow healthy red plants without algae by lean dosing. But what is your definition of lean dosing? Dosing is the input, not what is left in the water column which is input minus uptake. Do you have N,P and iron concentration data to demonstrate your water column is “lean”. It appears you lean dosed iron and micros only, not macros. If your macro source is primarily root tabs (urea and osmocote), then it may not necessarily be lean depending on how much NPK have leaked out to the water column.

Also all the tanks look to be using pre-enriched aqua soils, so again as Clive says@

It may be that the person reporting is not adding as much nutrients to the water column but does have a rich sediment - and if so, this counts as high dosing, NOT lean dosing.

Also what about source water change water. If RO, then the nutrients added are known. If tap water, then it is likely nutrients exist in the water supply. I couldn't hope to lean dose with my tap water which has decent quantities of nitrate, phosphate and potassium in it.

 

[Happi]

Happi, you have demonstrated by pics that you can grow healthy red plants without algae by lean dosing. But what is your definition of lean dosing? Dosing is the input, not what is left in the water column which is input minus uptake. Do you have N,P and iron concentration data to demonstrate your water column is “lean”. It appears you lean dosed iron and micros only, not macros. If your macro source is primarily root tabs (urea and osmocote), then it may not necessarily be lean depending on how much NPK have leaked out to the water column.

Macros under lean dosing were 2 ppm K, 0.8 ppm Mg, 2 ppm N weekly, test kits showed No3 levels from 0-5 ppm and they never exceeded those levels. Some tank had very old aqua soil and some had a year old aqua soil. It was also 100% RO water used on all tanks. The more vibrant red coloration were observed under lean dosing under same setup. Lean dosing and higher lights were demonstrated right in front of you. Algae was also demonstrated right in front of you, all I had to do was change the source of Nitrogen compounds. Plant leave damages were demonstrated under varies dosing. I have tons of more pics which I could show but this is good enough to prove my point.

Clive can only twist things around to fool some of the people, but not everyone. Apparently he been falsifying everyone for decade now and ended up falsifying his own claims. His argument about aqua soil leaching nutrients into the water is only correct for some time but it too will fade away or become so little that your test kits will tell you, you are more than welcome to test it yourself. You have a choice to make here, weather you want to live in the darkness or get out of it and explore more things. You will be surprised that what you have been told till now could be easily falsified.

We had similar arguments here, since Clive has excluded the NH4/Urea from the fertilizer, his point about aqua soil leaching nutrients which is NH4 based is still in question

Worsening algae after starting EI dosing

Hi guys, I have been using EI dosing for 11 days now. I have followed all the instructions and made my macro and micro bottles and have been dosing according to the instructions. I seem to be having a progressively worsening of this blue-green (my guess could be wrong) algae which is worst on...

www.ukaps.org

 

[MichaelJ]

Hi @Happi Nice plants! You obviously knows how to grow plants - which is what this forum is all about and in my book commands respect! (I knew that already from your prior postings elsewhere...). But what I am dying to understand is this concept of "lean dosing" ? What makes it lean? is just that you dose very "little" proactively and rely on very rich soil so you don't have to dose much of anything? Perhaps your water is very rich in certain nutrients etc. (I guess I am just repeating what @Wookii mentioned above 🙂 ... stop posting before me ).

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Happi]

Also all the tanks look to be using pre-enriched aqua soils, so again as Clive says@



Also what about source water change water. If RO, then the nutrients added are known. If tap water, then it is likely nutrients exist in the water supply. I couldn't hope to lean dose with my tap water which has decent quantities of nitrate, phosphate and potassium in it.

These tests are controlled test so obviously all the water parameters were under my control from adding nutrients to Co2, the starting water was 0 tds. We had some members test on inert substrate with lean dosing and results are no different from the above pics. These tanks were especially designed for such tests. So no excuses here

 

[MichaelJ]

Clive can only twist things around to fool some of the people, but everyone. Apparently he been falsifying everyone for decade now and ended up falsifying his own claims.

This is totally unfair @Happi... Could we please stay civil here and refrain from personal attacks. No one is trying to fool anyone... Clive, among other experts here, have been helping a tremendous amount of people in this hobby over the years, you could as well ... Yes, I am big fan, but I am also a big fan of alternative approaches and new ideas... if they can be proved to work, that is.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Happi]

Hi @Happi Nice plants! You obviously knows how to grow plants - which is what this forum is all about and in my book commands respect! (I knew that already from your prior postings elsewhere...). But what I am dying to understand is this concept of "lean dosing" ? What makes it lean? is just that you dose very "little" proactively and rely on very rich soil so you don't have to dose much of anything? Perhaps your water is very rich in certain nutrients etc. (I guess I am just repeating what @Wookii mentioned above 🙂 ... stop posting before me ).

Cheers,
Michael

I didn't mention much about the water parameters because I was waiting to see what other excuses people would come up with. Instead of accepting that it can be done, they will keep on throwing all kinds of excuses untill they get their way.

 

[Happi]

This is totally unfair @Happi... Could we please stay civil here and refrain from personal attacks. No one is trying to fool anyone... Clive, among other experts here, have been helping a tremendous amount of people in this hobby over the years ... Yes, I am big fan, but I am also a big fan of alternative approaches and new ideas...

Cheers,
Michael

Well if Clive stop falsifying others then we can stop as well

 

[Geoffrey Rea]

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[MichaelJ]

Well if Clive stop falsifying others then we can stop as well

What I think would be tremendously helpful is when we make controversial claims - something that goes again commonly accepted advice, that has proved to work, such as most of the advice given by the experts around here, we should state our case in great details to underpin our claim with as little wiggle room for misunderstanding as possible. This will ensure a more fruitful debate on controversial matters. We cant just rush in and call approaches a myth without making a good case for why it's a myth. When Clive makes his cut and dry statements you can always do some searching around for posts (usually from years ago...) when he explains in much greater details why a certain issue, reaction or observation is so and qualify the advice to greater depth - and you can often validate from the feedback that it works as well. Just my 3 cents.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Happi]

You guys wanted to know if lean dosing is possible without algae right? With lower CO2 and high lights? The answer is YES

You guys wanted to know if you need to add more co2, fertilizer if you have a high light? The answer is NO

 

[tiger15]

Lean dosing means lean in the water column, not in the substrate. With 0 to 5 ppm nitrate, Happi’s setup is indeed lean on macros as evidenced by intense red stems from nitrogen limitation. Stem plants are most impacted as their root system is light relying heavily on foliage uptake. If micros are dosed on top of Osmocote, micros may not be lean though. The stunt stems in the last two pics may be attributable to trace poisoning due to double dosing of micros.