Substrate dosing

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Just thought I'd check, thinking of dosing my substrate and I can remember someone mentioning Osmocote. I just have plain gravel as this tank I adapted from a standard un-planted community tank. Looking back through some pics of my tank I noticed there was a period when my plants seemed to look a lot healthier and wondered what difference there was then to what I do now and can only suggest I used plant tabs at the time but did away with them after switching to EI dosing.
Anyway I'll give them a try are these ok http://www.greenfingers.com/superstore/ ... id=LS5957D and how would I add them? Thought these would be better than putting some granules in a ice cube to get them under the gravel but I'm a bit weary of any chemicals that might have been used to bind the pellets together.

 

[ceg4048]

...Looking back through some pics of my tank I noticed there was a period when my plants seemed to look a lot healthier and wondered what difference there was then to what I do now and can only suggest I used plant tabs at the time but did away with them after switching to EI dosing.

As a cautionary tale, it's always an incredibly bad idea to attempt an assessment via the casual memory (rear view mirror) method. Unless you can exercise tight control of all variables, there are just too many of those variables to account for to merely remember one or two things, and then to try to correlate that to growth performance. Suppose the difference at the time was due to light, or CO2, or flow distribution, for example? If you're dosing EI you ought not to need much else, although having sediment which affords accessible nutrients is never a bad thing. Again, if you're having growth performance issues in an EI dosed tank then your problems fundamentally may lie elsewhere.

Anyway I'll give them a try are these ok http://www.greenfingers.com/superstore/ ... id=LS5957D and how would I add them? Thought these would be better than putting some granules in a ice cube to get them under the gravel but I'm a bit weary of any chemicals that might have been used to bind the pellets together.

The ice cube method is an excellent option. Otherwise check the thread help with osmocote please

Cheers,

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Thanks for the info on the Osmocote, I think you may be right though with looking back at tanks and all the variables. I think it's just a knee jerk reaction to a couple of photos I found from back in the day and just thought y tank looked better then than now.
This is the tank from back in the day


At the time I was dosing PMDD with DIY co2 into a reactor. In this pic it's my current set up. Following BBA issues we have discussed before I have improved circulation with a Koralia, switched to pressurised with a diffuser as well as keeping a diy diffuser going at the opposite end and switched to EI. As well as reduced the lighting duration to 6hrs. This systemised set up is a PITA and eats more co2 than the plants ever could. Hence the diy running 24/7, if I don't I wake up to a bluer than blue DC. The DIY keeps the DC green and the pressurised kicks in 4 hours before lights on. It's the only way I can keep levels from fluctuating. I have just started on dosing Easy carbo as well. You'll notice the holes in the leaves on the far back right Amazon sword. My problem is I work away and the diy didn't get started probably down to not keeping the yeast in the fridge and it was the last of the container. I came back to a bit of a mess and this was after a thorough clip out.

My dosing is for this 165 ltr
heaped 1/4 teaspoon kno3 3 x
1/16 po4 3x
1/8 Pottasium Sulf 1 after water change
1 teaspoon mag sulf after water change
1/16 traces 3x
CO2 as mentioned and now back to EC at 4ml per day, I know this may be a little bit shy on the KNO3 but I often have ro go 2 week without a WC and I just keep my dosing the same and perform a bigger change when I can.
Anything about my ritual standing out there as a prob Clive?



Apologies for the quality of the photos, also I couldn't get them to rotate and save with image shack. So it looks like I have took one photo of that tank at it's best and one when it was not so. It just seems to me at the minute that there's something missing. Back then I did have my share of problems but the plants seemed to grow a bit better.



Something must be going right though I got a bit of bobbling action the other day which is the first I have seen under the tanks lighting. I do manage to get some when natural light hits the tank from a window in one corner. BTW the Kribs there are free to good homes or donations to UKAPs if anybody wants them. I have about 20, the male died and I have been waiting for the young ones to be old enough to be sexed so I can keep a pair. Unfortunately my lfs has shut his fish room down to get systemised tanks in until July.


The original male on a nice background of BBA Not sure if it's a sub species or just a colour variation with the red zig zag on tail.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

:idea: I'm thinking maybe I could be masking my co2 issues again and by increasing ferts=higher demand on co2 and not filling the demand