Not sure if it's ironic or genuine. My point is not to be argumentative but to point out that the tank posted by @LondonDragon does not seem to fit the bill from what I believe is suppose to be discussed here yet that post gets praised and "gets away with murder". I guess the benefits of being an admin 😉. Please correct me if I am wrong so I can review my understanding. Does the "Practical application of lean fertilizer dosing" thread imply high light and so called difficult plants, or not?
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Practical application of lean fertilizer dosing
- Thread starter MichaelJ
- Start date
aquanoobie
Member
You said it, I see it too. The thread title should be more like "Practical application of lean dosing with high light and CO2".
I suppose you meant "no-Co2" perhaps 😉 or at the least moderate to low CO2?
We will be exploring all options, including high lights no co2.
MichaelJ
Member
Hi @Hanuman, I was being genuine! Irony doesn't really play well in this environment - differences and misunderstandings that gets squared out in a split second in a face-to-face conversation seems to explode on our faces on these forums. I always try and make it abundantly clear when I am joking around. And 5-6 year old 10w LEDs above a 60 L tank (I missed that originally) is not high light - but obviously we cant really make a 100% clear-cut assessment from a picture how low or high it actually is.
Well I feel Paulo laid it out pretty well with the back-story of the tank and all.... And I agree, it doesn't 100% fit the bill, I agree with that.
Yes... that was at least part of the objective for me personally - more challenging stem plants, high(er) light, low CO2.. and lean dosing.
Cheers,
Michael
aquanoobie
Member
This thread is called "Practical application of lean fertilizer dosing", right? Maybe it's not descriptive enough, maybe it should be called "Practical application of lean fertilizer dosing, high light and CO2 injection". Do you agree?
🙏 - I appreciate the clarification.
I'm really going to sound like the guy who is nick picking here but 10W in a 60p is very low wattage. The picture in this case does not really provide significant information. The specs of the light do however. Obviously the higher you get to the light the higher the PAR but if we are talking about substrate level PAR then that is most probably in the 30PAR to at very max of 50PAR region specially considering that's a very cheap ebay light. Even at 50PAR that would be considered low tech all the way.
I don't know what it should be called. I didn't make the thread. I am simply trying to grasp what it should be. My understanding is that "no to low-co2" is actually what @MichaelJ is trying to achieve and disscuss here. But it seems not everyone agree. You and @Happi seem to be looking/considering beyond low CO2.
So what's the deal guys?
aquanoobie
Member
No carbon no go. How do you want to get around it?
No injected CO2 is what I believe is being implied. There is always some level of CO2 in the water and the lower the temperature the more of it you get to a certain point obviously. Bacteria, fish and plant also produce CO2. Lower temperatures will enable you to sequester that CO2 longer.
Easternlethal
Member
this is getting into voodoo territory but we know that water is not just carrying nutrients and waste around. for example we know about redox and that it can react with the substrate and plants also. Even walstad talks about in her book. so perhaps leaving water in the tank for longer does affect this ability and that might explain why some scapers swear that water has a 'memory'
temperature affects this too
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LondonDragon
Member
I did not see any mention on the starting post about it being non-CO2, just about lean dosing, otherwise you should change the title "High Tech/High light with lean dosing" (which to be fair there are examples in this forum already, I dose a third of the EI recommendations on my CO2 injected tank). My point is you can achieve good results with whichever method you choose, there is no exact science, there are many many variables, you start at a certain point and then you tone it down until you reach the point where both plants are healthy and algae is at bay, you only learn this by practice and EI (or any other commercial fertilizer) is the starting point recommended to ensure you have all the right nutrients from the go. Higher demanding plants to be honest it's mostly about the constant levels of CO2 in the tank, and this is where most fail, not how overdosing the tank causes the problems.
I do feel this is being over complicated for the sake of complication, but good luck with the experiment, if you follow Filipe Oliveira for example, you will know he practices lean dosing on his tanks too, it's nothing new and to achieve the redder in plants you need to starve the tank of nutrients which he does to good effect. Anyway, I will keep away from your theoretical practices in that case, since practical examples are irrelevant.
Good luck!
Tim Harrison
Member
Everyone knows London tap water is magic...😛
Yes, it is so easy to misunderstand what was meant in a post sometimes, can be better/quicker to have a chat/facetime and then if what you have said is mis interpreted you ask/correct straight away. Myself and @Hanuman clear stuff up much quicker with our chats, like M8s down at the pub (except he's by the pool and I am sheltering from the wind and rain). Plus some folk like me are dyslexic and what we post makes sense to us at the time but is written so 'bad' it is hard to make sense off 😳. Then UKAPS has a very international set of members which again puts another twist on it - you get up in the morning and folk from a different time zone have been very busy posting
Hi all,
I think Paulo's (@LondonDragon) magic London tap water may be relevant to this, it will contain quite a lot of nutrients and it will continually add dKH and dGH.
cheers Darrel
I think Paulo's (@LondonDragon) magic London tap water may be relevant to this, it will contain quite a lot of nutrients and it will continually add dKH and dGH.
cheers Darrel
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GreggZ
Member
Agreed.
Tom Barr said this yesterday..........Ferts are pretty easy, but many aquarist place TOO MUCH importance on them.
I think sometimes people get so caught up in the ferts they can't see the forest through the trees.
Still I am following this thread with great interest. Really looking forward to seeing results.
Hi all,
cheers Darrel
I couldn't agree more. Some people will be after optimal growth of difficult plants, but for most of us a much more <"ad hoc"> approach <"works just fine">. I'd guess most long term planted tank keepers end up with a <"structural backbone"> of plants that grow for them without too much fuss, and add occasional new plants in to see how they get on.
cheers Darrel
I agree that there needs to come a point in time when you "finalise" your water column dosing amount, and then shift focusing on the other things that matter (CO2, circulation, tank maintenance etc). My tank will benefit more from a proper trim to reduce the overcrowding/shading than yet another tweak to fertilisation.... 😁
In a sense, I'm glad I'm just dosing ferts from a bottle... I'm unable to alter the ratios so all I can do is to settle on how much I dose daily. 😅
Yes doing DIY traces is very time consuming (and costly), going for certain ratios in traces just increases the complexity of it all. Without using RO water using ratios on traces elements may be a little pointless IMO as your tap water may be half full of your some trace elements [target] to start with.
eg. thought my tank may be low on Ni (Nickel) got the water report did the maths and the Ni levels was acceptable
I also know of RO water users who dont add Ni and yet their tanks are fine, maybe its in substrate or excreted in fish waste etc
Hi all,
Deficiencies of the <"macro and meso nutrients"> are much more likely, and <"within them valency"> is going to be a <"good indicator of solubility">.
That is why I like a <"green floating plant"> as my <"nutrient canary">, it takes CO2 and light out of the equation, although it is not optimal for those with <"red-green colour blindness">.
cheers Darrel
The problem is the one that @Happi mentioned, we are looking at ppb (10^-9) levels in terms of plant requirements and still relatively low levels <"in terms of plant toxicity">. You can get <"deficiencies of cobalt (Co)"> (or any of the other essential micro-nutrients for plant growth)., but in most cases they are unlikely.
Deficiencies of the <"macro and meso nutrients"> are much more likely, and <"within them valency"> is going to be a <"good indicator of solubility">.
That is why I like a <"green floating plant"> as my <"nutrient canary">, it takes CO2 and light out of the equation, although it is not optimal for those with <"red-green colour blindness">.
cheers Darrel
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