Hi Anne,
It hadn't dawned on me until recently, that like you, a lot of people were confused by the fact that the EI recipes vary so much from website to website. I'm gonna stick with the food analogy because it's the most appropriate. How many recipes for lamb stew have you seen? Scores of them. And they all are a bit different. Some call for more salt, others add carrots. In the end, they all fill your belly and even though some may taste better than others, any one is about as nutritious as the other. The idea is to fill your belly.
Since I value simplicity I try to use the minimum number of ingredients and to get the most bang for buck. In the recipe you listed, the mixture stays the same and the volume dosage varies as tank size changes. This is also how the commercial bottles function. In my recipe I do the opposite and vary the initial mixture, based on tank size, but keep the volume dosages the same. The effect is identical. The difference is in the chef.
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Your tank is 65L, which means it's more or less a 15G. I don't like the number 15 so I'll round up and assume it's a 20G. I could just as easily round down and pretend it's a 10G, but if I round up I can just use the standard 20G dosages listed in the tutorial. Instant simplicity.
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Chemical Formula Legend
KNO3 = Potassium Nitrate
KH2PO4 = Potassium Phosphate
MgSO4 = Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salts)
K2SO4 = Potassium Sulphate
NPK = Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium mix
CSM+B = Trace mix
I'll pull the basic numbers directly from the tutorial:
1 month = 4 Weeks
3 doses of NPK per week
Therefore there are 12 doses of NPK per month.
Multiply a single dose teaspoon value by 12 => [3/16 tsp KNO3]*12 =
2 ¼ tsp KNO3 (In you case you can easily round down to 2 tsp.)
[1/16 tsp KH2PO4]*12 =
¾ tsp KH2PO4 (In your case round up to 1 tsp)
[1/2 tsp MgSO4]*12 =
6 tsp MgSO4
Add these to 600ml of tap or distilled water
CSM+B as a powder or if it more convenient add 8 * 1/16 tsp => ½ teaspoon to 200 ml of water and dose 25 ml two times per week.
Now this mixture must serve 12 doses so each dose is 600ml/12 = 50ml
This makes life easier because you need only dose 50ml of this NPK solution 3 times per week.
Now, this scheme is based on dosing NPK only 3 times per week and Trace mix only twice per week but I guess many people freak out - mumbling things about how they can't remember which day to dose what, so the daily dosing routine came about, again, which mimics the commercial bottle's dosing scheme. Don't be confused. It's all the same - 3 larger NPK doses per week is the same as 7 smaller doses per week. Also, can you see how flexible it is? Who wants to measure out 2.25 teaspoons of KNO3? Just make it 2 and call it good. The same with KH2PO4. 3/4 tsp is a drag - just make it 1 tsp and "Bob's your uncle". The people who lay out these other recipes never explain this so beginners think they have to be locked into a specific formula. EI was never meant to be a shackle. Adjust as you go. In fact, you are doing EI right now with your Profito liquids. Didn't you simply adjust the dosages to fill the plants bellies? As a result it contributed to your algae clearing up a bit right? There is no difference in comparison to the dry powders other than the fact that the liquids are costing you 100X more than necessary. EI is interactive. It's a "World View" and is not married to any product or any recipe. The only difference is that I choose to pay the Tesco price instead of the Harrod's price. This is SPECIFICALLY why the tutorial is entitled EI Dosing
Using Dry Powders.
If you want daily dosing then instead of dividing the 600ml NPK mixture by 12 doses per month, simply divide it by 30 doses per month. So it would be 600ml/30days = 20ml per day. I mean, one need not be Albert Einstein to figure that one out.
🙄 Don't like the fact that it calls for 600ml total volume? Do you like 500ml instead? Fine, add the same amount of powders to 500ml/30 days = 16.67ml per day. I don't like this weird dosage number (that's why I picked 600ml) so call it 15ml per day and get on with it.
So to summarize, this is your basic NPK numbers=> 2 tsp Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) + 1 tsp Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4) + 6 tsp Magnesium Sulphate (MgSO4) added to your water volume of choice. Whatever water volume you choose, divide it by 30 to get a daily dosage and round up or down for convenience.
The trace mix is done the same way. 1/2 teaspoon of trace mix to 200ml/30 yields 6.67 ml per day. Again this is too weird so how about adding that powder amount to 300ml and dosing...wait for it...10ml per day. How mentally taxing was that?
Now just compare how much 2 teaspoons of KNO3 cost versus the amount of Profito Nitroglycerine or whatever you're using. 2 teaspoons weighs about 12 grams according to JamesC's website, so a 250g bag of this stuff will last you almost 2 years. The price difference is astounding. Farmers buy this stuff by the truckload and you can find it in any good gardening center - just below the the shelf which holds the 50 kilo sacks of Cow manure. I mean, lets keep it real folks.
Cheers,
