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Possible EI Micro Mix Product?

Most people add traces to achieve the fe ppm content they wish. As sulphur is in the trace mix we tend not to worry how many ppm we add as it is normally enough if the fe target has been reached.

Plants need and Benefit from all trace elements.
 
Yep, fully agree with Geoff. Sulfur is a non-issue and is also an important micronutrient used in the production of amino acids, which are the building blocks of all proteins. Sulfur is also used in the synthesis of chlorophyll. Also, probably the most well known plant application of Sulfur is it's use in the important family of Iron-Sulfur proteins known as Ferredoxin, which plays a critical role in the movement and transfer of electrons during photosynthesis.
Here is an image of a typical Ferredoxin protein found in the chloroplast. In the center is a cluster of 2 Iron(dark orange) and 2 Sulfur (light orange) atoms, surrounded by other groups of organic molecules
Fd2Fe2S.jpg


Normally, there is plenty of Sulfur in the form of Sulphate (SO4) in tap water. Because of it's abundance, it is not very often that folks run into trouble with Sulfur and, like all the other nutrients, adding more than you need is never a bad thing.

Cheers,
 
Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for the very quick and informative information.

Time to grow some plants! :D
 
It's been a couple of weeks of dosing the following EI on my 125g

3 times week:
1 tsp KN03
1/2 tsp Monopotassium Phosphate
3 tsp Magnesium Sulphate

2 times week:
1/2 tsp trace elements

These values were recorded just before my 50% weekly water change today:

pH: 6.0
NO3: 40
PO4: 1.8
Fe: 0.8
GH: 6
KH: 2

I'd just like to know your thoughts on the above values before I ask follow-up questions.

Thanks.
 
Hello,
The dosing numbers on top look typical to me. The numbers on the bottom are completely meaningless. What you have not reported, and what is more important than any of the data you have listed in your post is the condition of your plants. Are there signs of deficiency? Is there any discoloration? Are there nutrient deficiency related algae? You would do well to stop measuring things and look at the plants. They will tell you more than any test kit can possibly dream of doing.

Cheers,
 
Hey,

I'll try and explain whats happening and it would be great if you could offer some advice.

Tank Info:
Tank is a Juwel Rio 400 (125g) with pressurised CO2 using a 50mm DoAqua! Ceramic Diffuser. It's currently positioned below the internal filter's outflow which blows the bubbles down and along the back wall. EI dosing as mentioned above.

Current lighting is T5 daylight bulbs and set to back 2 bulbs for 2 hours, all 4 bulbs for 2 hours, front 2 bulbs for 2 hours. CO2 comes on 2 hours before lights on and goes off 2 hours prior to lights off.

I do have 2 mirror reflectors for the bulbs but these are not being used. Would it be a good idea to put them on?

I have purchased an Eheim 2262 and currently working on how to integrate into the tank (I have a thread running in the DIY section). Plan is to remove the internal filter and just use the Eheim with a 1 to 1.2m spray bar along the back wall.

Anyway, things were going well until a week ago. I'm trying to carpet Staurogyne repens, along the sand parts and towards the front. They were in perfect condition and about 1.5 to 2 inches high. I then decided to cut them in half and replant the tops. Since then 90% of the leaves have slowly developed holes and then fallen off, from the tops and bottoms. I also noticed the SAE eating around them as well which is causing some uprooting.

Here you can see the leaves becoming transparent prior to holes developing and then falling off




I did have quite a few green spots on the glass which I manually removed around 7 to 10 days ago. Since then only a few have come back


There are also quite a bit of green appearing on the rocks




I currently have 2 drop checkers in the tank which I move around and they always end up light green, might take a few hours but eventually they go green.

My Heteranthera zosterifolia is in direct flow of the CO2 and is growing like crazy and constantly full of bubbles




I am hoping the circulation will be improved with the new filter/spray bar but could there be something else causing problems? This is why I posted my liquid test values above.

Finally, here are shots of the full tank


Left side


Right side


Thanks in advance
 
Hi mate,
Yes, this is a CO2 issue. Transparency and leaves falling off are a CO2 related issue. GSA can be causes either by poor CO2, or poor PO4, or both, so you you should not be using 4 bulbs until you fix the problem. Limit your lighting and you will be in a better position to help the plants to recover. Adding more reflectors adds more light which causes more CO2 issues. When you have CO2 problems the very first thing you should do is to limit the intensity of the lighting because light drives the CO2 uptake demand.

Since you have already purchased your CO2 diffuser it's a bit late to be telling you this but on this sized tank it's always a better policy to use an in-line CO2 device. It is very difficult to distribute CO2 evenly and thoroughly over that much water.

The DC should be light green when the lights go on. There is very little point in having it go green "eventually", so it might help to turn the gas on even earlier than it does now.

H. zosterfolia is a weed and will dominate most environments. That does not mean that every other plant is as successful and efficient as zosterfolia. You cannot use this plant as an indicator of how things are in the tank because it is bulletproof. Staurogyne is a much weaker and less efficient plant so it starves in conditions in which H. zosterfolia thrive.

Cheers,
 
Thanks Clive

By CO2 issue, do you mean bad circulation or not enough CO2? I guess these are related and bad circulation causes not enough in some areas.

When I tested my PO4 prior to the WC it mentioned 1.8ppm. In your tutorial (http://www.ukaps.org/EI.htm) you mention a recommended value of 3.0ppm. Could this be causing problems or should I just ignore for now?

The internal filter is only rated at 1,000 lph where as the new eheim is rated at 3,400 lph so i'm hoping this coupled with the spray bar should make a noticable improvement.

Your comments on the lighting make sense and i've changed the lights to 3 hours back 2 bulbs then 3 hours front 2 bulbs for now.

I'll stick with the diffuser for now. Plan is to put it below both the intake and one end of the spray bar. I'll start to read up on in-line devices.

Algae: So would you say I have GSA on both the rocks and glass? Should I be cleaning it from the glass or just leaving it alone?

Plants: So general opinion is improvements need to be made in the tank before Staurogyne will improve/thrive. It's just strange as this was doing well until a week ago.
I also have Ludwigia repens 'Rubin' in the back left corner but the top side of the leaves are refusing to turn red. They are redish underneath.

Thanks.
 
Howdy,
Yes, poor CO2 comes in different flavors as I tried to describe at the bottom of the second page of the thread viewtopic.php?f=19&t=23201&start=10

You really ought not to be testing for PO4. The test results mean nothing. Our suggested number is derived by calculating the amount of powder is added to a certain amount of water. So you should dose the amount given in the tutorial, NOT measuring it. You will cause more problems than you will ever solve if you hypnotize yourself with test kit readings. If you are not dosing as instructed in the tutorial then I have no idea what your number means because it is completely unreal. I can't stress this point strongly enough.

When analyzing the phenomenon of nutrient deficiency the idea of something happening overnight or just last week is always an illusion. You are just now seeing the symptoms of deficiency but the deficiency has been occurring for longer than that. What happens is that the plant builds an emergency food reserve when nutrition is available. If conditions do not improve over time then the reserve is drained and that is when you start to see the damage which has been happening. Imagine your bank account where there are only withdrawals and no deposits. You'll show up one day and the balance slip will say zero, right? Would you conclude that this happened overnight? So what we need to do to maintain plant health is to continually ensure that deposits are being made into the account. H. zosterfolia is a miser, but Staurogyne is a spendthrift so you must deposit more into it's account to avoid running out of funds.

You would also do well to forget about red for now. Red is a very complicated issue and it starts with nutrition, so fix nutritional issues first.

Cheers,
 
Thanks Clive, really appreciate your input. All makes sense.

I'll stick to the reduced lighting until I get the external filter installed and improve the CO2 flow, and will forget about the test kits and red plants for now.

Is there anything I should be doing with the GSA? Or should I just ignore this for a while? It's most noticable along the lower part of the back glass.
 
Hi Ric,
Well definitely remove the GSA by hand if you can. A microfiber cloth if possible or a sponge if necessary. Since it's on the glass you can use peroxide or Excel or whatever you have to get it off. Make sure that you are dosing the proper amounts of PO4 and even double the amount, just to make sure that you don't also have a PO4 deficiency. We never need to worry about overdosing PO4, so this part is so easy to address that it's almost absurd.

We do know that the tank has a CO2 issue and that is much, much more difficult to solve, so when dealing with GSA, because it's not always clear whether the fault is PO4 or CO2, then the best approach is to "belt & brace" it by immediately doubling the PO4 and then by addressing the more difficult CO2.

Reducing the light intensity is a powerful weapon against all algal types because light is fundamentally one of the root causes of algal blooms.


By the way, you can read up on Red in any of the following threads:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19900
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11574
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=17965

Cheers,
 
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