did you look for pin holes on the lower leaves ?
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Lean dosing pros and cons
- Thread starter Riverside Scaper
- Start date
plantnoobdude
Member
yeah, there were a few. now its not too bad. the old growth has some holes, but it's not gettnig worse so i think its good.
we just need to figure out if those holes are truly K related or something else. such as previously damaged or been eaten by something. plus your soil is new so I doubt there should be any K related issue.
Thats a definite no to Magnesium deficiency for me
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John q
Member
Just thought I'd report back with a little old update to let you know how much of an improvement the extra 2ppm of N03 made...
Erm... actually it's made no difference.
There's been a little bit of growth in the last two weeks but I think we can put that down to being a bit closer to the light. Still puzzles me how this plant would previously require trimming every few weeks under the same lighting, similar ferts and in the last 4 weeks its only grown about 6 inches.
The plants now been trimmed and re planted in a slightly more open space to see if improved flow makes any difference. Could well be that my overgrown jungle is a bit overgrown and I need to re tune the Co2 and flow? Who knows, maybe I'm clutching at straws.
Here's the picture from post 764. 16th March.
This picture was taken on the 26th March, two new sets of leaves. 🙄
Cheers.
Aleman
Member
Wow, Just Wow 😱
I have just finished reading the entire thread ... I am so glad I found this place ... information from facebook groups is pretty poor in a lot of cases, and this one thread has convinced me why they should be avoided for real information.
Thank you all, for contributing your ideas, and experiences. It has started to sink in, and will just sit and cogitate in there until it goes explodes, and I have a new plan ... Yes another one!
First things first, I guess is not to make any changes to what I'm doing, algae has mostly gone now, just need to keep cleaning up the dying BG. I have finally managed to persuade my Jebao autodoser to actually dose nutrients every day (Full Ei 😉 ). For the moment I'll carry on with 50% water changes, but I'm going to cut the remineralisation of my RODI water down to almost nothing ... I was trying for 5KH and 6 or 7 GH, and have got pretty close to that (6.5 and 6), but want to drop it lower, and go for lean dosing, again, eventually. I now understand a little bit more about it, so will probably be more successful this time ... possibly 😀
I won't clutter this thread up with any more junk, but will tomorrow, start putting my journal together. I will have lots of questions though.
I have just finished reading the entire thread ... I am so glad I found this place ... information from facebook groups is pretty poor in a lot of cases, and this one thread has convinced me why they should be avoided for real information.
Thank you all, for contributing your ideas, and experiences. It has started to sink in, and will just sit and cogitate in there until it goes explodes, and I have a new plan ... Yes another one!
First things first, I guess is not to make any changes to what I'm doing, algae has mostly gone now, just need to keep cleaning up the dying BG. I have finally managed to persuade my Jebao autodoser to actually dose nutrients every day (Full Ei 😉 ). For the moment I'll carry on with 50% water changes, but I'm going to cut the remineralisation of my RODI water down to almost nothing ... I was trying for 5KH and 6 or 7 GH, and have got pretty close to that (6.5 and 6), but want to drop it lower, and go for lean dosing, again, eventually. I now understand a little bit more about it, so will probably be more successful this time ... possibly 😀
I won't clutter this thread up with any more junk, but will tomorrow, start putting my journal together. I will have lots of questions though.
plantnoobdude
Member
Gh (Ca, Mg) is actually quite useful and is part of EI, High levels of Ca and Mg inhibit the uptake of toxic trace metals. I used to dose something like 35ppm Ca and 15 ppm Mg, any lower and I would see "deficiency" this was when i was dosing EI. I believe that lowering the gh was inducing toxicity of heavy metals. low gh and high traces does not work well. as for Kh there isn't much need. maybe 2-3 degrees if you want to keep livebearers but those aren't my specialty. There's a reason EI is prescribed as a whole package🙂
Surely that’s the ultimate success @John q very slow clean growth. Trimming stem plants on a weekly basis soon becomes a chore!
JacksonL
Member
- Joined
- 27 May 2015
- Messages
- 120
Bit of an update on my lean dosing adventure.
First the tank currently:
So first, the negatives:
I had a decent outbreak of GSA, mostly on the glass and old buce leaves. I have upped the PO4 dosage and it appears to have stopped claiming more leaves and there has been almost none showing up on the glass.
The positives: most, but not all, of the rotala stunting I was getting has ceased. There are still a few stems that are suffering, especially the rotundifolia.
The aromatica has basically become a new plant. The smaller green leaves with skinny stalk has become a pink and purple beast with a stalk like a mini tree trunk. It has taken to the urea amazingly.
The ludwigia super red has gone, well, super red funnily enough.
Plant health is definitely trending sharply upward. At this stage, with the increase in PO4 I am pretty much dosing exactly at APT Complete recommended levels, except for potassium where I am slightly lower. with my gradual lowering of KH (I use potassium carbonate to remin) I think I will have to add some potassium sulphate into my fert mix.
Overall a very positive experiment so far, I definitely feel like the urea is probably responsible for most of the change, as I doubt lowering total nitrate will have made a lot of difference in 4 month old soil.
First the tank currently:
So first, the negatives:
I had a decent outbreak of GSA, mostly on the glass and old buce leaves. I have upped the PO4 dosage and it appears to have stopped claiming more leaves and there has been almost none showing up on the glass.
The positives: most, but not all, of the rotala stunting I was getting has ceased. There are still a few stems that are suffering, especially the rotundifolia.
The aromatica has basically become a new plant. The smaller green leaves with skinny stalk has become a pink and purple beast with a stalk like a mini tree trunk. It has taken to the urea amazingly.
The ludwigia super red has gone, well, super red funnily enough.
Plant health is definitely trending sharply upward. At this stage, with the increase in PO4 I am pretty much dosing exactly at APT Complete recommended levels, except for potassium where I am slightly lower. with my gradual lowering of KH (I use potassium carbonate to remin) I think I will have to add some potassium sulphate into my fert mix.
Overall a very positive experiment so far, I definitely feel like the urea is probably responsible for most of the change, as I doubt lowering total nitrate will have made a lot of difference in 4 month old soil.
GreggZ
Member
Might be a false assumption. The only way to know for sure is to test it. Once the tank is super stable stop dosing urea and dose NO3.
I've tried this before and so have numerous people I know in the hobby. It's pretty much always turned out it wasn't the urea. It was always something else.
JacksonL
Member
- Joined
- 27 May 2015
- Messages
- 120
I am always keen for an experiment. I will continue with the urea dosing for now and in a few months see what happens when I withdraw it.
@JacksonL
You might be interested in reading this:
www.ukaps.org
You might be interested in reading this:
Dosing with Ammonia and Urea
Decided to open a new thread on this very interesting subject rather than carry it on in the Good Algae Article thread - http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=905 Here's what been said so far: As George alluded to, some vendors use ammonia salts as their source of N, which I find completely...
www.ukaps.org
plantnoobdude
Member
what did it turn out to be usually? I am interested.
anyways did you get the EI ammannia pedicellata pics from Barr? I am quite curious to see those.
GreggZ
Member
It's always hard to say. Could be better maintenance, could be fert levels have remained very stable, could be CO2 concentration is better, could be fert mix changed a bit, could be better horticulture, could be substrate has been cleaned, etc, etc.
We all have different frames of reference. I've discussed urea dosing with dozens of the best plant growers in the world. If I listed their names you would know them. We've all tried experiments with urea many times over many years and we all come to pretty much the same conclusion. If there is any difference at all it's negligible. And there are loads of things that make more difference.
It's the same with K limiting. It's been discussed and tried many times by many people. 95% agree more K is better. And their tanks speak for themselves.
In fact someone very, very well known in the hobby was asked by a so called group of "researchers" to validate the lean dosing and Marchener ratio theories in his Dutch tank. It failed terribly. For his trouble he was banned from their group. They do not welcome any theory other than their own.
The reality is that if you focus on the right things you can get by well on a pretty wide range of dosing. With the folks I speak to on a regular basis it's just not that big of a focus. Dose enough but not too much. We talk about all of the other things that make a tank succesful.
And I will reach out to T. Barr to see if has some pics.
@plantnoobdude
Several people don’t realize that when they have huge fishes in their aquarium, plant are highly up taking the NH4, while most of the NO3 is being ignored. Even if you were to add KNO3, most of the NO3 will be ignored until NH4 becomes a limiting factor, only then plant will be forced to uptake the NO3, this is where several plant species start to struggle. When someone have a huge fishes in their aquarium and are adding KH2PO4 and KNO3, plant are truly only benefiting from the K, because there Is abundance of N and P in the aquarium to begin with, but you just added more and then attempt to remove it with water changes few days later.So where is most of the NO3 going? Depending on how the system is setup, most of it can be removed by bacteria and converted into Nitrogen gas, this is likely the case for those who add 30 ppm NO3 and it just vanish after few days. Some of these people hardly even have any plant in their aquariums.
Far as the effectiveness of Urea/NH4 goes, like I said it has been well documented and is used by many well known brands. Some of these companies don’t even add any NO3 at all, some of those companies include ADA and Tropica. Both has been around for ages, if Urea/NH4 was that bad and wasn’t effective, they would have switched over to KNO3 for their N fertilizer long ago. Tropica grow majority of aquatic plant and I have yet to see any major changes to their fertilizer.
even if one was to add lot of K, the effectiveness of Urea/NH4 isn't reduced, actually you will be trimming stems more often, good for those who want to make extra bucks selling plants.
So far all the articles and the books that I have read, seems to support that NH4 is main preferred source of Nitrogen for aquatic plant
ADA Brighty Nitrogen:
Seachem Nitrogen:
Seachem Aqua Vitro Nitrogen:
John q
Member
I think
I think Mr barr was a big advocate of having lots of fish and feeding them plenty 😉
Seriously question Happi, If one has a large fish load like myself how do we dose our tanks to fit in with the idealistic approach of lean dosing, is it simply a case of limiting the things we can control like k, fe, and other micro nutrients?
I think Mr barr was a big advocate of having lots of fish and feeding them plenty 😉
Seriously question Happi, If one has a large fish load like myself how do we dose our tanks to fit in with the idealistic approach of lean dosing, is it simply a case of limiting the things we can control like k, fe, and other micro nutrients?
Hi all,
I would suggest that you feed your plants in the same way that you feed your fish, <"when they need it">.
If your fish are pretty obese and mainly disinterested when you are feeding them? and even the addition of live black worms can't raise them to more than a brief, desultory chase? You feed them less, or you feed them an alternative food source, and it is <"exactly the same with the plants">.
cheers Darrel
I'm not @Happi, but this is a serious answer.
I would suggest that you feed your plants in the same way that you feed your fish, <"when they need it">.
If your fish are pretty obese and mainly disinterested when you are feeding them? and even the addition of live black worms can't raise them to more than a brief, desultory chase? You feed them less, or you feed them an alternative food source, and it is <"exactly the same with the plants">.
cheers Darrel
it will depend on how much N and P they are providing and if it meets the Criteria, in such case you should truly be only adding K, Fe and traces. you cannot control the N and P coming from the fish but it will surely be removed by the plants, if you are seeing high N and P in your aquarium, why would you want to add more N and P? at this point the limiting factor would be K, Fe and traces.
in case of low N and P being detected even with huge fishes in your aquarium, it would make sense to add small amount of N and P at this point. this case might apply if your plants are growing very fast and if the plant mass is very high to begin with.
MichaelJ
Member
Thats the one I am curious about when following the lean-regime. Other than monitoring the plants (which should always be the main indicator). When using Urea/NH4 only, can we use our NH4 test kits to reliably gauge the NH4 uptake?
Also, with the preference for NH4 over NO3, assuming your only dosing one or the other (not both), does this also mean that 1 ppm of N from Urea/NH4 gets consumed faster by the plants than 1 ppm of N from NO3 ?
Cheers,
Michael
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GreggZ
Member
I have to disagree. I have a tank with what most would consider a large fish load for a planted tank and that has not been my experience at all. With 20+ large Rainbows you would suggest my tank only needs some K and that is not the case. I can tell you in my tank that I just pretty much ignore the fish load and dose based on the response from the plants. I still dose 12 ppm NO3 and 4 ppm PO4 weekly. If I get any lower the plants suffer. I've tested this numerous times over the years. And this is also the case with a large number of people who I am in contact with who have set up tanks very similar to my own.
Now this is in the context of a high light tank packed full of stems. And in my experience I have not seen a heavily planted high light tank that does well with fish waste alone and no additional NO3/PO4.
I don't think anybody said Urea/NH4 was bad or not effective. What I said is that in my experience knowing a great number of people who have tried them is that there is little to no difference between that and NO3 dosing. I could start posting pics of all of the stunning tanks that don't dose Urea/NH4 but I doubt that would do much.
In the end folks need to experiment themselves and draw their own conclusions. Learn to listen to the plants and they will tell you what they need.
