Unlimited nutrients using E.I.

[Mortis]

Dude you are dosing much more than 2x EI. My tank is about the same size and my mix is almost the same. 6tsp KNO3, 2tsp KH2PO4, 2 tsp K2so4 and 3 tsp MgSO4 in 600ml water and dose 15ml 3x a week. CSMB 1.5 tsp in 600ml water and dosed 3 x a week. Are my doses too low ? I calculated this by multiplying the number of doses (600/15 = 40) by each of the single dose tsp amounts for my size tank as given by Tom Barr in his EI simplified thread

 

[Reuben]

@Ceg 4048; Those are great photos you have, the plants look superb.

@Mortis; Yes I might be more that 2x dosing. Since my original post I have reduced to NPK 50ml every other day, Trace 25ml every other day -using the same recipe.

The utility with EI is really this: it rules out limitation of the ferts. Thus makes ferts INDEPENDENT, so....you can focus on adjusting light, or CO2, which i much more fruitful for growing plants, gardening, dealing with algae and controlling/managing rates of weedy growth.

Well that sounds good to me, and is what I am hoping to achieve. I've never understood the hang up about adding nutrients. As an example; if a gardener had a veg patch and got weeds among the crop, he wouldn't remove all the nutrients to 'starve' the weeds, as obviously this would damage his crop. Surely it's much the same in our case where the aquatic plants are like the veg, and the algae like the weeds. Unless these nutrients were harmful to fish, I struggle to understand the problem people have adding them?

 

[plantbrain]

The hang up goes back 30-50 years of myth based correlation. So excessive nutrients are still a very ingrained part of the hobby lore. ADA, Dennerle, most of them, Tropica is an exception, myself, and a few others, but not most. They still cling to myths of yore and yesterday, even though anyone with a few brains cells can see it's not true independent of other factors.

Then you get many that still know that it's not the case, but then think there's got to be something to it, so they still leave the myth open to possibly being correct even with 100% falsification, hop damn sam.
One thing to only have a few brain cells, but then to not even bother to use them and use semantics and every non local double speak trick in the book to make your case?
It's insulting.

Here's a long list of bad logic used in this hobby and on the internet, it should be beaten with a stick and repeated as often as needed
I've seen virtually ALL of these used in the hobby. Some have used it to support me, but I tend to be equally harsh there as well

Fallacies

Which is amazing how many try the same manure over and over.
Sometimes we have been taught to use this same bad logic, but we really should undo that teaching!

 

[Yo-han]

The hang up goes back 30-50 years of myth based correlation. So excessive nutrients are still a very ingrained part of the hobby lore. ADA, Dennerle, most of them, Tropica is an exception, myself, and a few others, but not most. They still cling to myths of yore and yesterday, even though anyone with a few brains cells can see it's not true independent of other factors.

Then you get many that still know that it's not the case, but then think there's got to be something to it, so they still leave the myth open to possibly being correct even with 100% falsification, hop damn sam.
One thing to only have a few brain cells, but then to not even bother to use them and use semantics and every non local double speak trick in the book to make your case?
It's insulting.

Here's a long list of bad logic used in this hobby and on the internet, it should be beaten with a stick and repeated as often as needed
I've seen virtually ALL of these used in the hobby. Some have used it to support me, but I tend to be equally harsh there as well

Fallacies

Which is amazing how many try the same manure over and over.
Sometimes we have been taught to use this same bad logic, but we really should undo that teaching!

Yes, working at a lfs I know all about it. Most people when they have algae start reading the internet. First thing they always find: too much phosphate and nitrate. Really giving me a headache explaining them all those people are wrong and that they must believe a young fellow like myself instead of all the internet sources. I often let them google EI after giving them a brief explanation or throw some phosphate in one of our algae free showtanks. This convinces most of them.

The other day someone came in for nitratesomething because they had algae. I grabbed a bottle of potassium nitrate and start explaining how much to add... Add? NO! They needed nitrateminus because they had 5 mg/L of nitrate and that was causing the algae the neighbor told them. I really admire your patience Tom!

 

[tim]

Funny though, if you try to start a myth that too much light causes algae everyone ignores that myth straight away

 

[Yo-han]

I think most people know. Everybody knows sunlight on a tank = algae. Most people just want lots of light to make the plants nice and red and pearl. Upping EI to make it work, but overlooking CO2.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

As an example; if a gardener had a veg patch and got weeds among the crop, he wouldn't remove all the nutrients to 'starve' the weeds, as obviously this would damage his crop. Surely it's much the same in our case where the aquatic plants are like the veg, and the algae like the weeds.

Not really, there are photosynthetic organisms across all the different taxonomic groups that are adapted to conditions of low or high nutrients, this means that some "plants" & "algae" occur only in nutrient rich (eutrophic) conditions, and some occur only in nutrient poor (oligotrophic) conditions, most are somewhere in the middle (mesotrophic). A similar range of organisms occur along pH and salinity gradients as well.

To use the vegetable analogy you might add lots of manure to your Brassicas and Potatoes, but you wouldn't to your Onions or Garlic. Brasiccas need lime, but it makes Rapsberries go chlorotic. Beet-root and Asparagus might appreciate a bit of sea salt, but other crops certainly wouldn't, and you can only grow non-containerised Blueberries or Cranberries if you garden on a peat bog.

One effect of adding nutrients in the natural environment is that aquatic eutrophic situations are characterised by huge algal blooms, and often have a total lack of macrophytes (higher plants). You get a similar result in agricultural situations (in silage, cereal fields etc.), where you ideally want a single palatable grass species with a high growth response to added nitrogen (Wheat, Rye-grass etc). The problem comes that high nutrient levels also favour the growth of other weedy plants from naturally eutrophic conditions, that are either unpalatable or actively poisonous, like Docks, Nettles, Hemlock, Wild Oats etc. and you can only sustain yields with active management (herbicides etc.)

In the aquarium what we describe as "low light" plants are really plants with fairly low potential growth rates, things like mosses, ferns, Anubias, Cryptocoryne, Tonina, Eriocaulon, Blyxa, Utricularia etc. They won't grow very quickly whatever you do to them.

Other plants can make use of higher levels of PAR, nutrients and CO2, and will grow extremely quickly when grown high tech. As you add light, nutrients and elevated levels of CO2, you are adding the potential for faster growth, but you are also adding the potential for things to go wrong (become unbalanced) extremely quickly.

I'm not interested in "maximal" or "optimal", I want sustainable stability.

Low nutrient levels give you stability, as an analogy you can think of this as the orchid, bromeliad, fern, succulent or alpine growing approach, it is aimed at growing plants with low potential growth rates in nutrient poor conditions.

On my allotment I add fertilisers and do a lot of weeding. In the garden I practice nutrient deprivation on lawns, borders and pond, the outcome of this is that I don't do any weeding and only occasionally have to mow the lawn.

Have a look at these threads for some more discussion and images of my pond, tank and garden: <Problem with El Natural | UK Aquatic Plant Society>

cheers Darrel

 

[plantbrain]

Funny though, if you try to start a myth that too much light causes algae everyone ignores that myth straight away

Classic irony.

Irony has no limit, it is highly selective however.

 

[plantbrain]

Hi all,
I'm not interested in "maximal" or "optimal", I want sustainable stability.
cheers Darrel

Well, many that enter this hobby are not going to buy into this goal.
Maybe later, after they suffer. But you can modify this goal easily with plant species choices.
Or use less light,

 

[Reuben]

Not really, there are photosynthetic organisms across all the different taxonomic groups that are adapted to conditions of low or high nutrients, this means that some "plants" & "algae" occur only in nutrient rich (eutrophic) conditions, and some occur only in nutrient poor (oligotrophic) conditions, most are somewhere in the middle (mesotrophic). A similar range of organisms occur along pH and salinity gradients as well.

Well I suppose I was oversimplifying a bit. But doesn't the point still stand to some degree, particularly so, when almost every book on the subject tends to say 'problem with algae - you have excess nutrients that must be removed'. But I do take your point.

Low nutrient levels give you stability, as an analogy you can think of this as the orchid, bromeliad, fern, succulent or alpine growing approach, it is aimed at growing plants with low potential growth rates in nutrient poor conditions.

So in our case is there list of which aquatic plants require high nutrients (though I realize the demand is generated by light and Co2 availability) and which are adapted to low. Or is it more the case that they can all make adaptations to the water they are in, still I suppose some must of evolved to occupy certain niches?

I'm not interested in "maximal" or "optimal", I want sustainable stability.

I just want the plants and tank to look as good as they can, and the 'low tech' method does appeal. I have seen yours and others aquariums on here an they look great. I do like the tinkering about that the 'high tech' option has for now, and I'm really still learning how to grow things well. Maybe I need two tanks after all

Thanks.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I love plants, but my main reason for having them in the tank is to improve water quality.

But doesn't the point still stand to some degree, particularly so, when almost every book on the subject tends to say 'problem with algae - you have excess nutrients that must be removed'.

I'd look at as much more if you have conditions suitable for plant growth "plants" will grow, the problem from most peoples point of view is that they want plants, but they don't want algae, but my point would be that they are all plants.

Adding CO2 or using EI isn't a route I've ever been down, but it obviously works, as long as you follow the "rules".

I think that as aquarium keepers we are always juggling light and nutrients, I'll include CO2 in this, but by adding CO2 and nutrients you are juggling a lot more balls, are lot higher, and unless you are a very skilled juggler, who fully understands the trajectories of all the balls, the potential for something to go wrong is much increased. I want stability more than anything else, and low nutrients, and as lower juggle as possible, gives me this.

Have a look at this one, it probably explains a little more where I'm coming from: <http://www.britishcichlid.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=7161>.

cheers Darrel

 

[Michael W]

Well I suppose I was oversimplifying a bit. But doesn't the point still stand to some degree, particularly so, when almost every book on the subject tends to say 'problem with algae - you have excess nutrients that must be removed'. But I do take your point.

To be honest In my opinion algae growth in the aquarium is more to do with poor plant growth to compete with them. Poor plant growth can be a result from several factors such as giving plants too much light which drives and plant for nutrients and CO2 as you know. If the light is high and you don't provide enough nutrients and CO2 then algae can appear because they can adapt to changing conditions better than aquatic plants. When plants reach their critical concentration (the point where the plants have enough nutrients to grow) when taking up nutrients the excess nutrient is still taken up but stored yet this does not mean the plant will have their growth rate increased because if the light and CO2 is still a limiting factor the plant won't be able to take advantage of having the excess nutrients. While excess nutrients can still cause algae due to their better adaptation to lighting levels it is unfair to truly pin point the cause of algae to just excess nutrient as you can see from my explanation, but instead a combination of light CO2 and nutrients. People use floating plants to rid algae because they have the aerial advantage meaning that they have excess to CO2 due to leaves having access to CO2 directly from the atmosphere and being closer to the source of light. This leads them to being able to take up and use the nutrients faster than algae not because the excess nutrient is removed but rather plants being able to out grow algae- survival of the fittest.

My tanks are all low tech tanks with floating plants consisting of Riccia, Duckweed and Pennywort. They help me to limit the light source and out compete algae in growing due to the aerial advantage. This automatically limits the needs of CO2 and nutrients therefore slowing the growth of my plants which do not have access to the atmosphere. Yet this does not cause algae because the plants at the surface out competes the algae. I keep low demanding plants in these tanks due to the reasons listed by Darrel in these tanks. On the other hand if you have a HI-Tech tank you are prone to algae and other problems. HI-Tech tanks aim to increase plant growth through high light, nutrients and CO2 levels, the opposite of low tech tanks.For example, If you limit the CO2 you essentially limit the growth rate as Carbon is what grows plants and due to the high light your plants won't do well as the higher the light the more CO2 is needed therefore, the plant is not being able to compete as efficiently as it was with high CO2 against algae.

So in our case is there list of which aquatic plants require high nutrients (though I realize the demand is generated by light and Co2 availability) and which are adapted to low. Or is it more the case that they can all make adaptations to the water they are in, still I suppose some must of evolved to occupy certain niches?

+

I just want the plants and tank to look as good as they can, and the 'low tech' method does appeal. I have seen yours and others aquariums on here an they look great. I do like the tinkering about that the 'high tech' option has for now, and I'm really still learning how to grow things well. Maybe I need two tanks after all

I don't think you can really short list plants into those sections as I think plants will adapt to both low and high nutrient levels and other factors. Instead try asking what you yourself want. Do you want a low maintenance tank and not mind about slow growth of plants? If so plants like Anubias, Java Ferns and mosses etc are the plants you want to keep. Do you want to enjoy a tank that will fill up quickly with plants and not mind spending a lot of time in maintaining the tank? Then go for a High Tech tank. Both setup in my opinion can grow any plants but getting them to look "nice" is a different matter. Say making a HC carpet in a low tech tank for example, the HC may still grow at a slower rate but it will most likely grow tall and lose lower leaves instead of forming a carpet. This can be happening because of the limited carbon, yet it does not mean this plant is dying but rather changing its form. Therefore, some people chose different plants for High Tech and Low tech due to their appearance rather than the ability to grow the plant.

I hope this might be useful. I too am only just starting to enter the planted side of the hobby and this is my understanding so far and you know there may be parts that I may have not understood well enough and might be wrong and I might not have phrased particular parts as clearly as I could potentially do so I'm welcoming a more experienced member to correct me if I'm wrong.

Michael.

 

[plantbrain]

Turn this on it's head, why does algae grow when we have low, absent or limiting nutrients?

Riddle me that.

Since the philosophy "less = best" is applied.


This is a plant issue, much more than an algae issue, as we are trying to grow plants as the goal.
How to grow plants best? algae free? Well, emergent obviously. But........who wants no fish and water? Hey, the tank is easy to grow, no water changes, plenty of nice healthy growth, no CO2 enrichment?

Too much devil there, sorry.


But Liebig really hits the point across, you can farm crops easier, or add more labor, fertilizer etc.
But you get more production.

So how much more? In terms of Aquatic Plants? Tropica's article Claus, Ole and Troels anyway hits the nail on the head, we see about 20X(2000%) differences in plant growth rates over a range of light and CO2.
So there's a massive range for nutrients as well, and in all cases, the plants still "grow".

Tropica Aquarium Plants - Rådgivning - Tekniske artikler - Vandplanters biologi - Interaktioner mellem lys og CO2

The article explains why non CO2 and high light CO2 enriched aquariums(or any combo or low, med or high light or CO2) both grow plants well, the differences? Mostly the RATE at which they grow.
Once you see this, you have the holistic picture.

 

[plantbrain]

And if things are low, med or high, say A, B or C/D in the graph above, then the plants can further optimize their enzymatic machinery:



This takes some time and stability, but after a few weeks, things do settle down and they can do quite well under a wide range of conditions.

These are common uptake vs growth or plant yield graphs from most any basic agriculture text. You will note, they are non linear.
Hobbyist RARELY measure dry weight biomass or other methods for nutrient content or relative growth rates. So comparing the rates of growth is very difficult amongst hobbyists with ferts, let alone getting a decent standard method for measuring CO2 based on a known solution.
Or light........

Light and CO2 also have a similar shaped graph that the nutrients do.

So if you took the light and CO2 matrix that Tropica did, then added a row of low, med and high nutrients, now you have gone from 9 blocks, to 27 blocks. And you are still just talking about one plant species.
And you also need to do several reps for statistics, say you do n= 5 => 5 x 27, oh, and you'll need to repeat this experiment to publish it also. So 2x 5 x 27= 270. Say you want to have a generalized result from several common but different types of aquarium plants?
Say 5 species: Anubias/Crypt, Egeria, Rotala, Gloss, Hygro, Riccia.

270 x 5= 1350.

This would be a lot of work, but would answer a fair amount. Who would fund this? Not many. You can see why Tropica chose just the CO2/Riccia combo.
Adding algae into these systems, and measuring the growth is fairly straight forward. Do you add lots of algae eaters? Or none? Or a few? Water changes? Water temps?
As you can see, there's a lot of variables. It can be overwhelming fast. Given this, go for the low picked fruit and things you know are not true.
Falsification is your friend.

 

[ceg4048]

This leads them to being able to take up and use the nutrients faster than algae not because the excess nutrient is removed but rather plants being able to out grow algae- survival of the fittest.

As explained by plantbrain, there is no competition between plants and algae. Plants will lose every time. It's better to think in terms of predation, where algae are the predators and the plants are the prey. They do not compete for the same resources. Predators do not attack strong, fit prey. When there is a weakness the predator will attack.

Cheers,

 

[Michael W]

As explained by plantbrain, there is no competition between plants and algae. Plants will lose every time. It's better to think in terms of predation, where algae are the predators and the plants are the prey. They do not compete for the same resources. Predators do not attack strong, fit prey. When there is a weakness the predator will attack.

That does clear up a misconception quite well. Thanks for the example..

 

[plantbrain]

Several folks, groups may acknowledge that plants need ferts, but they will try and argue that a low residual and daily dosing are somehow better and able to "control algae".
But as you can see from the graphs above, such dosing will place you into the A or B areas of the graph. Plants will still grow, but they will not grow as wel/as fast as the non limiting nutrients.

What I find interesting is all the debate over this issue with ferts, less= best... but virtually nare a single word is uttered when it comes to "limiting" Light.
Which as we can plainly see from Tropica's article that growth rates can be massively altered by changes in intensity.

So why do hobbyists, even ones that have a lot of skill and experience, still cling to this myth?
Why do companies still state such things?

It is only under dependencies will you ever see any nutrient control of algae, which means you have to have dependent conditions like poor CO2, too much light etc.
When those dependencies are removed, now you no longer have those algae or plant growth issues.

Does this imply you will be NOT be fine dosing LESS than EI? Absolutely not, in fact, in most cases, everyone can dose less than an upper non limiting range and still have nice plants/growth, this is frankly, expected.
That's why it is called "non limiting"

So you can use EI as an upper reference, then slowly and progressively lower the dosing rate till you hit the C or upper B range and then return to the last prior highest dosing rate.
This is the optimal range for your tank at that point in time. This is done by observation. Once you are fairly comfy with that routine and plant growth/health, then you can generally reduce either the frequency or the % of water changes.
This will = less work and labor and better efficiency overall.

This range will be different for every tank, and the observations are in essence, your "test kit". the plants themselves, not some arbitrary ppm of N or P.

 

[Reuben]

What I find interesting is all the debate over this issue with ferts, less= best.

I'm still a bit puzzled why this is too, in this thread we've covered the concern with increased TDS, but there was nothing conclusive in what the actual problem was with that increase, -right?

So why do hobbyists, even ones that have a lot of skill and experience, still cling to this myth? Why do companies still state such things?

I don't know! Can anyone explain the answer?

So you can use EI as an upper reference, then slowly and progressively lower the dosing rate till you hit the C or upper B range and then return to the last prior highest dosing rate.

Okay, but why bother, I still don't see a real need?

This range will be different for every tank, and the observations are in essence, your "test kit". the plants themselves, not some arbitrary ppm of N or P

Yes well that's sort of full circle to the original question and I'm still not totally clear on what the actual fact based reason is for trying to work out or attain some ppm level of nutrients. Perhaps there isn't one, and it's just some peoples preference, but it does allude to nutrients/bad so less=best.

Anyway as long as the plants are healthy then I guess it doesn't really matter what approach people take. I just wanted to learn the rationale behind this thinking, still a bit unsure of it to be honest!

 

[Michael W]

plantbrain said: ↑ So why do hobbyists, even ones that have a lot of skill and experience, still cling to this myth? Why do companies still state such things? I don't know! Can anyone explain the answer?

In my opinion this is all down to the lack of knowledge from the early years of the hobby mixed with theories and opinions which slowly grew into "facts" in people's mind therefore they don't pay too much of attention to other factors because all the years with keeping a planted tank they held on the belief of high nutrients = aglae blooms.even when faced with charts and evidence I too myself had once agreed this until a bit of trial and error enlightened me.

I have always ran low tech tanks planted tanks. I only say I'm new to this side of the hobby because its only now that I start to truely understand a planted tank. I had always wondered why algae infest in one of my shrimp tanks, I tried to manually remove it but it comes back. I tried to float some water sprite to soak up the nutrients and block some of the light but eventually it just rotted away and Cyanobacteria overran my tank. At this point I was quite disappointed as I thought I followed the "rules".

Then what I did was teared down the tank scrubbed every plant free of Cyanobacteria and replanted them and added loads of duckweed and planted quite new plants here and there. I then reduced the time in which I have my lights on. Prior to doing this I have always heard about using 2w a gallon so I was ok with keeping this light. But it was wrong.I do still but I now have lots of floating plants and reduced hours. From here on my plants grew very slowly but they were not dying like the water sprite had. I had java fern, anubias, micro swords, java moss, duckweed, elodea and vallis and all grew well. This led me to think that my plants out competed the algae until this thread came about as Ceg commented that algae would not harm healthy plants. By reducing the light by plants could finally grow according to whats available in the tank, previously the high light increased the metabolism of the plants but with this increase I did not provide the CO2 nor nutrients to keep up the plant's needs resulting in unhealthy plants and ultimately algae. But now the plants are growing slowly yet healthy and not algae can be seen with the naked eye.

I think companies comment on the the idea that the high nutrient content will cause algae as some kind of idea to lure novices to buy fertilisers from their company since the idea of high nutrient causes algae talked about so much. I think that a lot of commercial bottled ferts contain labels where they say X is not contained to keep your tank free of algae.

 

[gmartins]

As explained by plantbrain, there is no competition between plants and algae. Plants will lose every time. It's better to think in terms of predation, where algae are the predators and the plants are the prey. They do not compete for the same resources. Predators do not attack strong, fit prey. When there is a weakness the predator will attack.

Cheers,

Actually I disagree. Plants and algae share the same resources for the most part: light, co2, nutrients. They probably require different amounts of each, but they do use the same resources.

It's just that algae and plants have two very different ecological strategies. Algae have an R-strategy: fast growth, lots of progules, highly influenced by environemtnal conditions, simple structure etc... Plants have a K-strategy: slow growth, less fertile, less vulnerable to environmental oscillations, complex structure and 'organs'.

It's like comparing an elephant with a mouse.

If we have stable conditions and generally good conditions for plant growth, plants will thrive, be strong and grow steadily. Algae, generally, need some environmental change (an external trigger). They bloom, reproduce and dye.

My view...