Practical application of lean fertilizer dosing

[JoshP12]

I for one would dearly love a chart which shows the optimum parameter for each plant - both macros and micros, KH and GH


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This is very hard to procure. I’d say “APT complete” weekly dosed on day 1. Those are optimal target parameters. (To start, arguably so is EI lol like when Tom says start EI then go all the way down - but this is just to cover myself).

These numbers will be easier to deal with:

These are roughly:
Nitrate 6
Phosphate 3.6
Potassium 16

Then get calcium 24
Magnesium 8

Micro ~ .015 Fe proxy (@Geoffrey Rea) using any mix … just make sure concentrated solution so you get highest likelhiood of getting all ratios good — daily dose at lights on.

Pair with good substrate to compensate

Then daily potassium - steal from ADA - ~1-2ppm a day?

Weekly water change - dailies on startup.

High light - no ramp - steal from ADA.

Low KH as you got - unless your fish need more (bumblebee goby is example for breeding) -and the lower it is the “less” co2 ramp time you need.

And you must feed your fish

 

[Hufsa]

Struggled with that with my tap water with 130ppm Ca and 5ppm Mg. Having a high baseline [Ca] and then trying to correct with adding salts and hitting certain ratios is a nightmare.

Think for 'the experiment' using RO water and adding the salts to remineraliser is a must, as its the only way you know what you have got in the water. The trouble with using RO water is the cost of RO water produced reduces any cost benefits of lean dosing - esp if very hard water

RO water would be ideal I agree, however most of the people trying out Happi's method are doing so with the conditions they already have, so some of us have soil, some have gravel/sand, some have soft tap water and some use RO. Not sure if we have any using hard water, that would also be interesting.

Not directly related to your post Zeus but I wanted to write my opinion on the "testing" conditions we have.
Any "results" that I get from my setup (with all the conditions specific to my tank), I will not claim to be some sort of universal truth, because if it works, I can only claim that it works for my tank. And if it doesnt work, I can only claim that it doesnt work for my tank.
Also, even if something here works for me, it doesnt mean it is the only way to do it.

I think that the amount of people able to try it out would be closer to zero if requirements were RO, low GH (keeping of neocaridina shrimp excluded then) and 2 (or 6) tanks under identical parameters and setup. The money and time it would take to set up such conditions are simply not there for most people.
This will never be a proper scientific experiment, and I use terms like "for science" tongue in cheek
At best we are going to have a handful of observations that some may find interesting.
I freely share pictures from my tank in my journal along with what I think is going on, with the hopes that I may learn a thing or two, and maybe someone else learns something as well. Any theories or apparent results we should keep in mind are relative to the specific situation, and as humans it is always possible that we are looking at it all wrong and totally mistaken

 

[GreggZ]

Yes, there is a system or an approach there that is something different. Whatever @Sudipta, @Happi and others are doing differently is at least working beautifully for them.

View attachment 186387
Sudipta mythical lean tanks
I am going to keep posting this picture to remind us that this is an ultra lean, no/low CO2, high-light tank thats been running for a while ... How can we replicate this... step by step!?




All right, Now that Josh have answered all the questions we can all go home now.... I mean lean ... we can all go lean now ... But joking aside, good takes on the individual questions there Josh - will obviously need a lot of elaboration!

Cheers,
Michael

As @Hanuman mentioned temperature plays a big role in Sudipta's tanks. He freely admits that when temps go up tank health goes down.

Also his dosing is much different from Happi's. Here's a quote from him.

I also regularly use a commercial all in one liquid fertilizer (Nilocg ThriveS) which contains very small amounts of N and P but has a decent concentration of K, Fe and other micro elements except copper (this product is actually developed for Shrimps, although tiny amounts of copper won't harm them).

So he's dosing very low N but higher K, which from what I can tell is the opposite of the Happi method higher N and lower K. And also higher micros vs. lower micros.

But the biggest thing that is overlooked with Sudipta's tank is horticulture. He very, very rarely uproots any plants, only trims the tops. Many times not for a year or more. So after trimming plants will go through a period of not looking well until they start gaining back steam. If he does uproot them he says it's rough on the plants as there is very little energy available to establish new roots. So a deep healthy undisturbed root mass is one of the big keys.

 

[Happi]

@Djoko Sauza I am also trying this lean dosing approach with only sand substrate. It will be very interesting to see, as inert substrate is the main reservation I have against this method working. As a bonus, @plantnoobdude is growing some stems in his tank in cups of sand, he otherwise uses soil substrate. I think it is a bit too early to tell how his experiment is going, but it will add another data point to the collection.

I will get some H. pinnatifida for "scientific purposes" and also because @Karmicnull said I should. Me and that plant have an old score to settle..

I am very fond of epiphytes and my first concern around lean water column was whether or not epiphytes would get enough nutrients. I have several ferns, anubias, buce and many mosses, so will be monitoring them closely. I suspect that they may do surprisingly fine, many of them have such low growth potential that they may be able to grab what they need from the relatively scarce water column, because they may need quite little. Just my theory though.


I have a practical question for @Happi , how does one know when to increase the starting dose of 1.75 ppm N?
I have been doing the starting dose for a week and monitoring the TDS daily. Some readings were taken before the photoperiod was over for the day.
The TDS has been rising by an average of ~1.7 ppm daily. My meter is not a very expensive one so measurements should be "taken with a pinch of salt".
Monday: 128
Tuesday: 133
Wednesday: 135
Thursday: 137
Friday: 139
Saturday: 138
Sunday: 140
Aside from TDS, is there any other way we can measure or guesstimate what dose we should be at?
My micros are higher than prescribed at the moment, 0.3 Fe DTPA (as proxy) for the past week, although some of my plants are still showing chlorosis. I will increase to 0.5 for this coming week, but if that doesnt help I am calling foul play somewhere because more than 0.5 Fe for such a low dose of macros seems outrageous. I am using Hydrocotyle tripartita to check for improvement as this plant grows very fast, hence the one week periods before changing dose.

We do not use TDS to guess what dose to add, TDS has nothing to do with it. The only thing TDS will do is that it will rise anytime you add anything in the water. However, the TDS can also fall if your soil is rich in CEC and also a choice of your fertilizer that is low in several elements such as Cl, Na, S etc. and NPK etc. are rather up taken by the plants and used by the soil which will result in lowering the TDS. You will also see a rise in TDS if naturally occurring NO3 for example is building up in your water. The idea about keeping the TDS low while using a different fertilizer was based on using a salts that are low in Cl, S etc. to begin with which will add less to the TDS compared to the salt that are high in these elements.

@plantnoobdude was having a similar issues, he could probably explain what was happening in his case. But if you are showing chlorosis even with 0.5 ppm Fe that mean you are either low on Mn, Mg or something is interfering with the Iron at that point.

 

[Easternlethal]

Weekly water change - dailies on startup.

Anybody tried fewer water changes on lean dosing? because using less ferts is great but reducing water changes is a potential game changer.
This is type of questioning nearly got me banned from tpt

 

[JoshP12]

Anybody tried fewer water changes on lean dosing? because using less ferts is great but reducing water changes is a potential game changer.
This is type of questioning nearly got me banned from tpt

Yes.

Water change resets you back to “baseline”. Ya move gunk and stuff but that just consumes oxygen.

Water change is paired with remineralization and re-dosing. So the point of water change is primarily to bring the system back to an estimative standard.

In my tank, I postponed water change with slow growth by - after lots of trial and experiment - guessing how much K (and used as proxy with other stuff) was needed to keep consumption on point. Can use TDS as a proxy with best guess on what the minerals are … but it’s a best guess . See ADA does this but they change water weekly or 2x and overdose K. If we find sweet spot K and proxy the rest marginally (if we dont we exhaust substrate and eventually cyano).

So at 100% water change I dose 100% of my target ferts. The. Daily I dosed 5-10% of my that same dosing solution with daily micro.

Kept TDS and plant growth constant. Other option is Darrel’s method - 10% daily JUST WATER - and top off 10% dose. I did this and kept my tank growing constantly for months. High tech, sexy plant forms etc. I automated the water change.

Why need to water change then? If you do massive trim and let the plants leak out all the juices and disturb substrate and make ammonia or a fish die (bullying, breeding etc) - simple … water change (remember Best guess TDS is constant ) 2x back to back, 100% target fertilizer and move on with day.

EDIT: This is concept of PPS-Pro ... and Edward did it. But here is the catch -- water change is a tool. Don't be afraid to do some small ones during the week water only, thjen every two weeks do a big one (provided you are on point with minimal dosing with TDS best guess proxy and watching plant forms etc). So one week you can do a 50, one week you can do a 20, one week you can do 4x 10s ... that's mastery.

 

[JoshP12]

Yes.

Water change resets you back to “baseline”. Ya move gunk and stuff but that just consumes oxygen.

Water change is paired with remineralization and re-dosing. So the point of water change is primarily to bring the system back to an estimative standard.

In my tank, I postponed water change with slow growth by - after lots of trial and experiment - guessing how much K (and used as proxy with other stuff) was needed to keep consumption on point. Can use TDS as a proxy with best guess on what the minerals are … but it’s a best guess . See ADA does this but they change water weekly or 2x and overdose K. If we find sweet spot K and proxy the rest marginally (if we dont we exhaust substrate and eventually cyano).

So at 100% water change I dose 100% of my target ferts. The. Daily I dosed 5-10% of my that same dosing solution with daily micro.

Kept TDS and plant growth constant. Other option is Darrel’s method - 10% daily JUST WATER - and top off 10% dose. I did this and kept my tank growing constantly for months. High tech, sexy plant forms etc. I automated the water change.

Why need to water change then? If you do massive trim and let the plants leak out all the juices and disturb substrate and make ammonia or a fish die (bullying, breeding etc) - simple … water change (remember Best guess TDS is constant ) 2x back to back, 100% target fertilizer and move on with day.

EDIT: This is concept of PPS-Pro ... and Edward did it. But here is the catch -- water change is a tool. Don't be afraid to do some small ones during the week water only, thjen every two weeks do a big one (provided you are on point with minimal dosing with TDS best guess proxy and watching plant forms etc). So one week you can do a 50, one week you can do a 20, one week you can do 4x 10s ... that's mastery.

But this is insanity .... and it is where the HEART of EI comes along and says -- why are you wasting your life worrying about this? Change water 2x a week, pour in the ferts, and focus on other stuff ... lol. An anecdote on water changes?

Ironically, EI is harder to manage.

The best - a hybrid. Change water AND dose lean (without a magnifying glass lol). Perfection. Steal from ADA -- substrate -- and dose the middle road ... Tropica/APT. Save money by DIY copy cat those ferts.

Edit: all that is left is GH/KH. Moderate or soft water - you’re laughing throw co2 with lights and call it a day.

Hard water is tougher. You need more of everything. Because acquisition of nutrients is “harder” -- not because or free nutrients.

I will add if anyone sees issues in what I say please help support our communal growing of knowledge and help grow our intuition.

 

[Easternlethal]

maybe its a bit orthogonal to lean dosing to be asking about water changes - but if lower ferts + substrate can concentrate biological activity to where we want it most (ie the plants) there will be less dissolved organics ending up in the water and less need for water changes

This is something that can easily be measured by a carbon analyzer if I can find a cheap one. Would be interesting to know

 

[JoshP12]

maybe its a bit orthogonal to lean dosing to be asking about water changes - but if lower ferts + substrate can concentrate biological activity to where we want it most (ie the plants) there will be less dissolved organics ending up in the water and less need for water changes

This is something that can easily be measured by a carbon analyzer if I can find a cheap one. Would be interesting to know

I look forward to it - this is why I pursue pure maths not science ... tests LOL.

I think you are bang on. The removal of waste piece of water change (along with reset column params).

Edit - this intuition very good @Easternlethal — also eludes to increased oxygen demand by excess potential waste that bacteria will control … as a result taxing system even more, further explaining the increased challenge with EI and why EI works very well with wet/dry filter and high light.
Thank you for sharing.

 

[plantnoobdude]

@plantnoobdude was having a similar issues, he could probably explain what was happening in his case. But if you are showing chlorosis even with 0.5 ppm Fe that mean you are either low on Mn, Mg or something is interfering with the Iron at that point.

am convinced it is co3 at this point. my tonina is growing in higher light than hufsa at 0.083ppm Fe weekly. hufsa is using same micros as me and similar macro. am trying out some stems of tonina in sand to rule out substrate differences. been I think two weeks and it is still growing fine. no difference.

 

[MichaelJ]

Well, will be interesting to see how @MichaelJ 's experiment goes, considering he's using inert substrate.

Hi @Djoko Sauza Thanks. Yes, I am a bit torn on the state and suitability of my substrate. I have no plan of changing it out.

@MichaelJ are you planning on using root tabs?

I am not at the moment. But I may do so if the plants are having a hard time getting started or starts to deteriorate (I just put the stems in yesterday after having them floating for almost a week).

Cheers,
Michael

 

[plantnoobdude]

I am not at the moment. But I may do so if the plants are having a hard time getting started or starts to deteriorate (I just put the stems in yesterday after having them floating for almost a week).

I wouldn't suggest them to be honest. dose urea/nh4 in collumn and you're good. root tabs can cause algae outbreaks in my and many other people's experience. they leach fairly quickly so it is similar effect as dosing to collumn.

Osmocote plus disaster

I was currently testing the osmocote plus for over the month or so, I added handful of osmocote deep into the aqua soil just to see what will happen. I already knew what was likely to happen because I have done a similar experiment before. But this one was more intense compare to the last one...

ukaps.org

 

[MichaelJ]

I wouldn't suggest them to be honest. dose urea/nh4 in collumn and you're good. root tabs can cause algae outbreaks in my and many other people's experience. they leach fairly quickly so it is similar effect as dosing to collumn.

Thats my thinking as well at the moment... I haven't see a whole lot of benefit from root tabs in the past - except perhaps when I set up the tanks initially and just popped in a some (First Tropica and then Seachem tabs) to prime the pump. Did it make a difference? I do not know to be honest.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[JoshP12]

I wouldn't suggest them to be honest. dose urea/nh4 in collumn and you're good. root tabs can cause algae outbreaks in my and many other people's experience. they leach fairly quickly so it is similar effect as dosing to collumn.

Osmocote plus disaster

I was currently testing the osmocote plus for over the month or so, I added handful of osmocote deep into the aqua soil just to see what will happen. I already knew what was likely to happen because I have done a similar experiment before. But this one was more intense compare to the last one...

ukaps.org

What if you turned up the CO2 right after doing that? So plunk in tabs and turn up CO2 at same time.

 

[MichaelJ]

As @Hanuman mentioned temperature plays a big role in Sudipta's tanks. He freely admits that when temps go up tank health goes down.

@GreggZ and @Hanuman Yes, I believe low temp helps - especially in a low-tech environment. It's an important one-two-punch; it lowers the plants metabolism and at the same time bump the available/dissolved CO2 in the water column. The same can be said for mature substrate due to increased microbial activity... more CO2 - still low of course.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Hufsa]

Just a reminder to folks that this thread is for the practical part that spawned from the pros and cons thread, anything very theoretical, abstract or comparing different regimes should go in the pros and cons thread to avoid cluttering this one.
Thank you for helping

 

[plantnoobdude]

What if you turned up the CO2 right after doing that? So plunk in tabs and turn up CO2 at same time.

sure, you could do that, you would meet the co2 needs per N (atleast that's how I think it works). the plant cannot keep ammonia out, with all this N in tissue, it needs more co2, demand isn't met. resulting in stunted trashy growth. but why complicate things, it's the same reason Happi advises me not to disturb the substrate, avoid influx in N, keep co2 demand stable, pretty growth forms. I would imagine this has something to do with why sudipta doesn't uproot plants often aswell.

 

[MichaelJ]

maybe its a bit orthogonal to lean dosing to be asking about water changes - but if lower ferts + substrate can concentrate biological activity to where we want it most (ie the plants) there will be less dissolved organics ending up in the water and less need for water changes

This is something that can easily be measured by a carbon analyzer if I can find a cheap one. Would be interesting to know

I am not sure dosing lean necessarily means you can do less WC's. I think of WC's mainly to get rid of waste - known and unknown organic waste, algae spores, pathogens etc. - for the benefit of my livestock, and to a lesser extent the plants. I do measure ORP and TDS that can be a somewhat dicy endeavor to interpret - but as long as I don't see much deviation week over week I take it that the tank is doing well and is stable.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[JoshP12]

sure, you could do that, you would meet the co2 needs per N (atleast that's how I think it works). the plant cannot keep ammonia out, with all this N in tissue, it needs more co2, demand isn't met. resulting in stunted trashy growth. but why complicate things, it's the same reason Happi advises me not to disturb the substrate, avoid influx in N, keep co2 demand stable, pretty growth forms. I would imagine this has something to do with why sudipta doesn't uproot plants often aswell.

Totally ... could skyrocket light to help use up the ammonia demand.

Is more so about what do you do if it happens.

And sometimes you want to uproot ... what if you want to replant? What if you substrate weakens couple years down the road and you have a 6 foot display that you don't want to uproot and rescape since you don't have a crew like Amano to do it for you! -- you need to replenish with root tabs at some point.

I think this also illustrates the power of EI ... by dosing such high N in the column, you have more stability and you don't need to worry about avoiding substrate - a kid can get their fingers in there and you don't need to worry about algae. How else do we keep the hobby going?

For me, it's about power and control - nothing is an issue - we need to be able to use all of the tools in our toolkit to have perpetual success.

 

[JoshP12]

I am not sure dosing lean necessarily means you can do less WC's. I think of WC's mainly to get rid of waste - known and unknown organic waste, algae spores, pathogens etc. - for the benefit of my livestock, and to a lesser extent the plants. I do measure ORP and TDS that can be a somewhat dicy endeavor to interpret - but as long as I don't see much deviation week over week I take it that the tank is doing well and is stable.

Cheers,
Michael

But "could we get away with less by the virtue of what we pour in"? Grin. Complete control.