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Lean dosing pros and cons

Hufsa said:
@JoshP12 took me a hot minute to find it again šŸ˜
tiger15's original post + direct link
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What an excellent video! Love that guy. Rotala kill tank.

Itā€™s all consistent. You can actually a lot of the observations. My favourite is this photo:

This is exactly what we just said:

1641756382860.jpeg

With the root tabs, itā€™s stunting. You can argue toxicity. Or you can simply say turn up the light keep your co2 because the guy is using loads of it.

High column dosing can pull that nutrition out but it needs a stronger driver it can only go as far as the light.

With low column and root tabs itā€™s taking its fill properly.

Low column and tabs is sexier because itā€™s not being force fed. Iā€™ve already linked the N and P pathway at plant interface. And he refers to gavage feeding of foie gras. It has longer internodes because it needs more co2 to keep up and wants to get to the top. Fix the problem with more light and more co2. The left photo will look like the right.

Thanks for sharing that. Much appreciated.


Another piece is the CEC of the gravel - why we use root tabs instead of soil? Acidic soil, decaying humus, microbial assemblage - the partnership of biology - micro and macro - Bacter 100?

Use soil and root tabs. Real dirt. Go back to the old days. Your base layer needs to mimic kilometres of nutrients that the earth has. Fake it with clay and miracle gro/Osmocote or power sand. Then top it a bit more with dirt. Cap it with aquasoil or something inert. Literally mimics nature.

Load the traces, load the npk in the soil - replenish your + stuff daily because there are no remiwnralizkng rock we run to. And donā€™t bother dosing N and P ā€” stock hard and feed your fish.

Dose the negative stuff N and P if you feel like it. Keep co2 in excess. Crank the lights.

Make it nature.

Iā€™m off my soapbox! Lol


And Iā€™m still going!!!

Iā€™ve induced Mn deficiency with CSM and fixed it with CSM. The edta chelate accumulation does play into things but change your water and reset it because we donā€™t have billions of years of evolution in our substrate.
 
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@JoshP12

Pic #1 already have high nutrients in the water to begin with. root tab made no difference unless water column dosing was reduced or eliminated.
Pic #2 with root tabs and without root tabs, in pic #2 both are doing quite well, very likely due to leaching of Nutrients into the water, likely Urea/NH4 playing major role. fish will also add some NH4, furthermore if NO3 test for 0, this suggest there is small amount of NH4/NO3 being taken away rapidly by the plant before it becomes detectable by the test kits. I would expect plant in the left to suffer in the #2 pic in this case if this was not the case. but at the same time it appear as the plant on the left in pic #2 didn't grow much where it grew quite big in the Pic#2 with root tabs. now the question is what happened to the plant in the left in #2 without any root tabs if this experiment was to kept going.

far as the Toxicity goes, we will be going off topic but it will depend on how much root tabs are being used, how deep they are and weather they are mainly NPK based or weather they include Trace/Fe as well. am not concerned about the root tabs that are mainly NPK. but we do need to be bit more careful with root tabs that include Trace/Fe etc. as well, usually this is not a problem if you are adding them deep enough and leaching become less minimum. the heavy metal toxicity is a real thing, at least for those who are into farming or terrestrial plant. i had a serious problem once where i added so many root tabs osmocote plus into aqua soil, most of the plant went downhill which were previously doing well. in the terrestrial plant soil case, these heavy metal can go further down into the soil but in our aquarium they have to stay in minimum area and they cannot go anywhere unless you do lot of water changes or change the entire soil at some point.

many people watched his video and still ignoring this:
1. Vin, also talked about co2 is not always the case
2. Vin saw a strong relationship with nutrients and plant stunting
 
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All these observations are valid.

Iā€™m explaining routes to fixing the stunting and illustrating the relationships.

The high nutrients are EI and it is possible that the acquisition of those unbalanced nutrients is harder in root tabs soil because of the soil interactions and relative ratios. This is coulombs and is the premise of toxicity.

The explanation of the stunting has to do with the ability to acquire a particular nutrient. It jams the system.

Vins observation on nutrients and stunting is valid. And even on co2 not being the case.

But we have to stop thinking co2 this nutrient that. Itā€™s all connected. Pull back a nutrient, increase another, add light, reduce the interactions , change more water ā€” itā€™s all the same thing. So yes more co2 will always fix an issue (this is a statement that requires several paragraphs of qualifying but anyone reading this will get what I mean)

Grow it emersed in the same dirt and spray it with the same water. The thing wonā€™t be deficient. With enough light and enough co2 you literally have access to an abundance of energy and the plant can use that energy however it wants - create anti toxins, transport nutrients etc etc etc. but I mean this isnā€™t even valid since the pressure of water and leaf formation itā€™s all different since you need differ t morphology for atmospheric co2 - anyways.


Does that mean turn up your nozzle and kill your fish? No. Reduce your water column fertilization or change your N source to indirectly reduce the co2 demand to ensure the plant can fill it with what you provide.

There is a relationship with co2 and stunting to. Go turn off your co2 and watch everything crash. To think that it is nutrients or co2 is naive. Itā€™s both. And both are connected. And both can be used achieve the same goal.
 
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@JoshP12 I understand what you saying but my point is Vin also demonstrated that some of these hard to grow plant grew well un stunted even when CO2 wasn't applied. meanwhile people are still battling their CO2 system to grow them.
 
Happi said:
@JoshP12 I understand what you saying but my point is Vin also demonstrated that some of these hard to grow plant grew well un stunted even when CO2 wasn't applied. meanwhile people are still battling their CO2 system to grow them.
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I agree. Glad we are on the same page.

But we donā€™t need co2 to grow them. You simply reduce the co2 demand indirectly by using urea and ammonia and feeding fish - but this isnā€™t because these things are better for plants than nitrate - itā€™s that they allow the plant to reduce their co2 requirement which is the hardest thing to get into a plant since the nutrient source doesnā€™t need to be converted and isnā€™t forcing growth too high. And also redirect fertilization in water to substrate where the plant can pick what it wants. Urea gives a bonus co2 and even glut can help alleviate co2 requirement. The plant doesnā€™t care how it gets co2 - but it needs it. And if a way is by indirectly reducing what it needs, itā€™s happy.

Agree with this?

Need to edit and say this is where changing GH etc also Ifluence this - and time and rhizosphere and microbiology etc and lowering KH too
 
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medlight said:
View attachment 179646
This is an example of a tank without co2, 2.5 years old
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Looks beautiful mate.

High light, lean column, rich substrate (edit: potential varying N source, glut etc ā€” low KH water all this stuff inadvertently influences how the co2 demand on the system is being met). Is also old ā€¦ 2.5 years of microbiology, adaptations, stability etc.

You can also see HOB positioning favors flow pattern ā€¦ conscious decisions.


Clearly people are skimming what I write.
 
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Happi said:
like I said even if someone had 30 ppm Ca or the Marchner ratio is completely off in their aquarium, they should still get good results if they were to switch to Urea/NH4 based ferts and reduce their over all NO3 and K. Marchner ratio is not mandatory
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so, you say that even with gh around~4dgh. (18ppm Ca, 6ppm Mg) I can still use tropica OR Marschner ratio Macro nutrients as long as N is from Nh4/ urea and k levels are in balance.

for dosing i should do micros and macros everyday? any issue with iron and po4? or is that not an issue with stronger chelator such as dtpa+lower ph.

so far i think my plan is marschner macro and your micro numbers.
N 3ppm from UREA only.
K 2ppm from k2s04
P 0.36ppm from kh2po4
Fe 0.1 Fedtpa
B 0.014 h3bo3
Mn 0.067 mn edta
Zn 0.014 zn edta
Cu 0.014 cu edta
Mo 0.003 (NH4)6Mo7O24

weekly numbers with 50% water change. macro and micro separate solutions but dosed every day at the same time.
calcium and magnesium 18ppm:6ppm
how much nickel do you think i should add?
once again thank you for all the help, your personal experience is extremely helpful.
 
anyway, I grew up in India and we use to use cow dung for some of our gardening. we would let it dry first and then add it to our dirt. we used the well water to feed our garden and we never had to add any fertilizer, plant grew like crazy. I guess you can call this a organic gardening.

I personally think we donā€™t even need to add any root tabs If you were to use organic soil, cow manure under your substrate, I personally know some people in Asia who are into planted aquarium, and they use this approach. Some people add osmocote along with organic soil, truly the soil is doing the major work providing NPK than the root tabs.


Maybe some of us should try this approach again but this time we will modify it as needed. We can start with:

1ā€ cow manure/Organic soil

sprinkle Some kind of root tabs rich in NPK with small amount of Fe/Trace

cover with aqua soil 4ā€ to 5ā€

use RO water

Add Ca and Mg to the water

Run the tank with High lights and CO2 (15-20 ppm)

add small amount of Micro/Fe in the water such as Tropica Premium or DIY

Keep an eye on TDS

Only top off the evaporated water

Only change water if TDS goes really high


For those who already have a running tank, they can add the organic soil and few pellets into the empty capsule and add it deep down into the substrate.
 
plantnoobdude said:
so, you say that even with gh around~4dgh. (18ppm Ca, 6ppm Mg) I can still use tropica OR Marschner ratio Macro nutrients as long as N is from Nh4/ urea and k levels are in balance.

for dosing i should do micros and macros everyday? any issue with iron and po4? or is that not an issue with stronger chelator such as dtpa+lower ph.

so far i think my plan is marschner macro and your micro numbers.
N 3ppm from UREA only.
K 2ppm from k2s04
P 0.36ppm from kh2po4
Fe 0.1 Fedtpa
B 0.014 h3bo3
Mn 0.067 mn edta
Zn 0.014 zn edta
Cu 0.014 cu edta
Mo 0.003 (NH4)6Mo7O24

weekly numbers with 50% water change. macro and micro separate solutions but dosed every day at the same time.
calcium and magnesium 18ppm:6ppm
how much nickel do you think i should add?
once again thank you for all the help, your personal experience is extremely helpful.
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I use to use 0.0005 to 0.001 ppm Ni with that micro. am not too worried about PO4 and Fe reaction while using DTPA, so you can dose them on the same day. its best to dose the tank daily but if you choose to dose like EI style 3x a week, that is fine too, its your choice. weekly water changes are not needed with this approach, but its up to you.

dose something like 0.05 Fe with Micro on day 1 and day 3
dose something like 0.42 N daily with Macro
 
Happi said:
I use to use 0.0005 to 0.001 ppm Ni with that micro. am not too worried about PO4 and Fe reaction while using DTPA, so you can dose them on the same day. its best to dose the tank daily but if you choose to dose like EI style 3x a week, that is fine too, its your choice. weekly water changes are not needed with this approach, but its up to you.

dose something like 0.05 Fe with Micro on day 1 and day 3
dose something like 0.42 N daily with Macro
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I think i will dose everyday, otherwhise I forget haha. if not doing weekly water changes accumulation will be much higher no? how often and how much do you change water, and do you adjust dosing according to how much you change water?
and for Calcium and magnesium, 18ppm and 6ppm will work well with marchner macro and your micro numbers?
 
plantnoobdude said:
I think i will dose everyday, otherwhise I forget haha. if not doing weekly water changes accumulation will be much higher no? how often and how much do you change water, and do you adjust dosing according to how much you change water?
and for Calcium and magnesium, 18ppm and 6ppm will work well with marchner macro and your micro numbers?
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I use to change water as needed, maybe once a month. the accumulation is very little due to the chemicals being used and also they are much leaner. the dosing for Micro and Macro stays the same weather i do 50% water change or more. there is very little accumulation happening with this approach.

am not too worried about the Ca and Mg levels at this point. down the road, we can work on them if needed. at this point add your Ca and Mg to the water and forget about the Ca and Mg, focus on NPK and Fe/Micro mainly.

#153 take a look at this post if you truly want to Experiment something similar to Marchner.
 
Happi said:
use to change water as needed, maybe once a month. the accumulation is very little due to the chemicals being used and also they are much leaner. the dosing for Micro and Macro stays the same weather i do 50% water change or more. there is very little accumulation happening with this approach.

am not too worried about the Ca and Mg levels at this point. down the road, we can work on them if needed. at this point add your Ca and Mg to the water and forget about the Ca and Mg, focus on NPK and Fe/Micro mainly.

#153 take a look at this post if you truly want to Experiment something similar to Marchner.
Click to expand...

Ok, perfect, i will use these numbers and water change 50% per week at first but slowly reduce to see the affect it has on the system.

i will go with these numbers:
N 3ppm from UREA only.
K 2ppm from k2s04
P 0.36ppm from kh2po4
Fe 0.1 Fedtpa
B 0.014 h3bo3
Mn 0.067 mn edta
Zn 0.014 zn edta
Cu 0.014 cu edta
Mo 0.003 (NH4)6Mo7O24
Ni 0.001 Niso46h20
do the micro salts seem alright? worried about the Mo because i couldn't find a reasonable amount of sodium molybdate.
will order the salts some time next week and start the dosing maybe a week or two from then. cheers!
 
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