PlantBrain,
Thanks for advice. Using ADA amazonia soil more for it looks and 1 pack fill up my tank. If i got a big tank i won't go for it (will make me broke)
I don't use ADA line of fert too (obviously too exp).
My plants seem to do much better now after doing more. Especially with dosing of more micro nutrient. Brown algae are still growing on the tank glass but at least BBA or hair algae seem to stop.
Assuming i have 2.7-3wpg with excess nutrients and CO2 to go around. Will excess nutrients (especially NO3) + high lighting encourage the growth of algae ?
Since i don't have stem plants i doubt HC , hairgrass and downoi take up much nutrients especially NO3.
My lighting is on for 8 hours per day. Moderate pearling is always seen after the 6th hour.
Remove the algae yourself...don't expect the critters to do it for you! (Its faster anyway and far more effective.)
Excess inorganic nutrient dosing does not encourage algae.
Add a bit more CO2 and watch the fish for the entire day especially the later part of the day. Make sure you have some moderate surface motion and back off if the fish start to gasp.
Regards
Peter Gwee
Yup already constantly removing the algae here and there everyday.
Mine is a IOS filter system with under + overflow so there is some slight water movement at the surface already.
Thanks for your advice
Try more lighting, 10 hours.Originally Posted by spinex
PlantBrain,
Thanks for advice. Using ADA amazonia soil more for it looks and 1 pack fill up my tank. If i got a big tank i won't go for it (will make me broke
I don't use ADA line of fert too (obviously too exp).
My plants seem to do much better now after doing more. Especially with dosing of more micro nutrient. Brown algae are still growing on the tank glass but at least BBA or hair algae seem to stop.
Assuming i have 2.7-3wpg with excess nutrients and CO2 to go around. Will excess nutrients (especially NO3) + high lighting encourage the growth of algae ?
Since i don't have stem plants i doubt HC , hairgrass and downoi take up much nutrients especially NO3.
My lighting is on for 8 hours per day. Moderate pearling is always seen after the 6th hour.
The brown algae will go away shortly once the plants fill in, clean t off as much as you can, add otto cats etc.
I use ADA soil + EI with excellent results.
I compare the growth with a LFS that has several ADA full set ups and ferts.
I have one full ADA fert tank, I add more than their suggestions, not an issue.
We know there is no algae blooms from excess NO3/PO4/Traces based on other tanks folks have done and kept for well over a deacde withotu any algae issues.
I think hard pearling should be seen at 1/2 way through the day or you likely do not have enough CO2.
I use the CO2 mist blasted into the plant beds.
I get pearling in 1 hour or so.
Some people have started to complain, their plants pearl too much
Don't laugh, I'm serious.
EI rules out nutrients limitation/toxicity, all that is left is routine mainteance, pruning/gardening, and CO2.
Pretty simple and I like, ADA soils a lot.
Aesthetics/colors
Does not scratch glass
No rinsing needed
Cost about the same as Flourite
Grows some plants better than Flourite, other plants as good.
But when I suggest no powersand, Brighty series(KNO3, traces KH2PO4+ water), Penac(Don't get me started), toumaline (gee crystal powers?), bacter(what is mulm?) suddenly I'm a bad guy to some vendors and folks who have not tried nor tested some of the other products alone.
Folks pulled the same crap when Dupla hit the market also, but we know what little use the 400-600$ heating cables do.
I'm still mad at them about that.
Both Duopla and ADA have said that excess nutrients cause algae, well, at 30ppm NO3, 3ppm PO4, having dosed 100mls in a 20 gal tank of Seachem flourish, high/low GH's, I should have lots of algae according to them and EI should only produce algae, but..........yeras later and 1000's of tanks later.......no algae.
So clearly something is amiss, but it's not me.
Funny how that works?
Several newer books also state this and they had access to the information but chose to go with the old myths of the past. That's inexcusible.
BTW ADA does their own version of EI, but uses the brighty series in a lean manner rather than richer levels like I suggest. ADA suggest weekly large water changes, just like I always have for the last 30 years. A very good habit.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Hi Tom,
Thanks a lot for the long and informative reply. This is useful information for newbie like me.
Anyway i tried to pump up the CO2 yesterday and seem like in the last 2 hours many fishes stay at the surface gluping for air. I quickly turn it off and after 1 hour the fish are back to normal.
Even i tune up the CO2 the plants are not pearling as much (but maybe earlier). Maybe i should use your suggestion to position the rainbar to blast the CO2 mist into the gravel bed. But then the water current from my rainbar is strong (1200l/hr) hence even the rainbar is situated at the top (slightly below water surface) i can see the plants wavering below due to the strong current.
Now that the CO2 is assumed to be enough time to bump up the nutrients
I do have one requirement for helping you though, you must help at leats one new person yourself.
Peter is doing this quite well I might add after I helped him.
We all learn more and better ways to do things as time passes, so shall you and be able to help new folks out.
CO2: you added a tad too much, you can increase the surface flow some, this will help, you can always add more CO2, , so if some is lost to that, not a big issue.
Better to have more O2 in there.
High CO2+ low O2 is a bad combo, most fish do okay with just low O2 alone within reason.
You need some surface movement!!!!!
A slight rippling is good. If you placed a ping pong ball, fish food flake etc would it move around fairly rapidly?
It should.
You will see pearling even if the plants are being blasted with the spray bar, mine pearl well being right in the direct path of the CO2 mist and the spray bar.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Regards,
Tom Barr
Your request is reasonable and i accept that
I have already added more movement to the surface flow to increase the CO2 after the incident which i mentioned. Anyway due to the fact that my filtering system is overflow, there's always slight movement on the surface for sure.
One thing i have found out is that after i have changed my lighting to be a 2 x 24w T5HO lightset, the plants started pearling at the 2nd hour with no change at CO2 input ! Previously i was using 55w and 24w PL light but plant usually started pearling at the 6th hour.
As this tank of mine is mostly a shrimp tank i'm slowing trying to dose according to EI (on the lower end) because they are more sensitve to nitrate and change in water parameters. I measured my nitrate to be like 60-80ppm after i find my shrimp are not very active ! Doing some water changes every 2-3 days to bring down nitrate slowly.
Have temporarily stopped dosing KNO3 for the moment. Need to dose KSO4 (for K) and the routine of KH2PO4 and Flourish shall remain.
Once again thanks for your advice. Much appreciated.
The shrimps lack of activity is from the CO2 overdose and not from the KNO3. Don't trust those NO3 test kits that you use unless its a quality kit example from LaMotte or Hach. (You would also need to compare them to standard solutions to make sure they are still good over time.). Stopping the NO3 dosage will slow down the entire plant uptake if it is low rather than high.
How much pearling has much to do with the intensity of the lightings. The PL might have loss quite abit of its intensity over a period of use which is the reason why when you switch to those new T5 lightings, they pearl better.
The gasping behaviour is the end point for the CO2 level in which you should back off to the last safe level. Do not push beyond that just to get pearling.
Regards
Peter Gwee
Thanks for the tips on the CO2 and NO3. Both my PL are quite new. Less than 3 months and they provide 79W in total. Maybe cos their penetration is not good because my new T5HO set come with a much better reflector.
Maybe i should test my NO3 kit on our tap water and see what's the result to determine it's accuracy.
Pearling is strongly correlated to good CO2, I can get decent growth with little pearling, but I get much better growth, algae control and over tank success with high pearling.
So the 2nd hour when you see pearling is a good thing.
The light alone likely helped in your case given the pearling time frames and they correlate very well with the fast times you got after the light change.
If you see pearling 1-2 hours in, you are the max CO2 level for the plants in general.
Make sure you remember this point, while there are many paths to the top of a mountain, there is only one view.
Now keep this up.
If you use EI, do weekly 50% water changes, the EI suggest about 20-30ppm of NO3 per week, there is no way you can have more than 40-60ppm of NO3 in the tank and this level does not influence shrimp till you get up to 100ppm +, a long way off.
This assumes that there is zero uptake from the plants, if they are pearling 2 hours in, they are using a lot of the NO3, at least 10-15ppm a week, so now the max build up is ~ 30-40ppm.
If you do large than 50% water changes, well then the build up will be less than 30-40ppm.
You can also add a little less, but be careful, not to run too low, plants will stunt, get holes, BGA appears etc.
Regards,
Tom Barr
www.BarrReport.com
Seem like more work to be done. Especially in fighting algae.
NO3 seem to be lower down a bit after testing from my AP NO3 test kit. I know that test kit are not very accurate in general but it does give me a rough guide (i take it with a pinch of salt). But generally i have tested with my tap water and it's more or less accurate (5ppm for tap water). On my tank water it was registered as 30-40ppm currently.
Currently i have stopped dosing KNO3 for time being. Switch to 1ppm of P (using KH2PO4) and 2.5ppm of K (using K2SO4) on a daily basis via a auto doser. I also manually dose some micro/marco liquid based fertiliser everyday in order to keep up with EI excess nutrients approach.
I'm trying to bring the NO3 down without too much water change. This is because the tap water at my side is not of very good quality because after every big WC 1 or 2 of my CRS shrimp will die even i did use anti cholrine or cholramine solution. My fish are fine though.
One question i have in mind is how does lighting (intensity and lighting hours) affect the growth of algae in EI environment ? Or it doesnt matter much at all ?
Last edited by spinex; 15th Feb 2006 at 14:27.
The EI was done with very high light, 5.5 w /gal in a shallow tank.
It's unlikely you will have a higher rate of uptake than this.
With lower light, say 2 w/gal, you can dose 2x a week and little less nutrients and do quite well.
This can reduce the water changes.
The shrimp loss and other issues are likely not due to tap water.
SG water is pretty good.
Regards,
Tom Barr
hi, i know this is a newbie question and sorry for barging in but how do you seperate the K+ from KNO3/KH2PO4? Would you have overdose on the NO3 or PO4 elements before you got the 20ppm for K+, esp when the ratio of these two elements are almost double that of K in a typical composition?
There will be no more deaths after the holocaust. Of course, having 3 fishes in my 400L tank helps.
Yippie!! Reptiles and Fishies!
no you dont.. it works out fine.. do a calculation..there is no overdosing involved.. everything is estimated...HENCE estimative index..E.I.
The potassium provided by KNO3 and KH2PO4 is enough for most cases... I add Seachem Equilibrium weekly just in case to make up for potassium deficiencies. Our tap water has potassium too if I'm not wrong.
Main purpose...to cover for the possible low Ca/Mg in our taps. K is more than enough if most of your NO3 comes from KNO3.
Regards
Peter Gwee
when you take tabkle salt, NaCL and add it to water, it'll disassociate into Na+ and Cl- ions.
Same thing here, the salts will disassociate into K+ and NO3-.
Salts of NO3, Cl's are the easiest to dissolve(Say KNO3 and KCL).
Regards,
Tom Barr
Beside dosing KNO3 , K2PO4 , I am also dosing a lot of K2SO4 . So far no much of problem for past 5-6 months.
tank 6x2x2 ~ 140gallon
lighting period 10 hours : 1st 4 hours :2x 150w MH + 110w PL , next 6 hours : 2x150w MH
weekly WC 50%
CO2 misting method with powerhead and rainbar
few coral chip inside carnister filter
EI dosage :
Freq amount NO3 K PO4
KNO3 Sat/Mon/Wed 0.8 tblspoon 15.5ppm 9.8 ppm
K2PO4 Sat/Mon/Wed 0.8 teaspoon 5ppm
K2SO4 Sat/Mon/Wed 2 tblspoon 30 ppm
-----------------------------------
15.5ppm 40 ppm 5ppm
Micro Sun/Tues/Thurs 120ml Profito easylife
Seachem Equilibrium after WC 2.5 tblspoon
Tom, is the tank overdose ?
Yippie!! Reptiles and Fishies!
I'm not Tom but.. what do you mean by overdosing?? as in having toxicity issues?? if so you're still a long way off...so no worries there.
E.I. technically is "overdosing" in a sense... you're technically presenting your plants with a buffet so they grow at maximal rates.
Someone was suggesting from the K is enough from the KNO3 and K2PO4 , if EI method is used ?
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