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Thread: Does EI work for a small but highly lit tank?

  1. #1
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    Does EI work for a small but highly lit tank?

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    Hi,

    my tank specs are as follows

    Tank 450x 270x260 mm
    Lapis sand with JBJ base fert
    Eden 304 filter
    Co2 injected through ceramic diffusor (3-4bps)
    fertilisation: 1/4 tsp KNO3 rice grain PO4 5ml Lushgro micros
    Lighting: 72 watts mounted on stand, about 8 cm away from water
    water change weekly 30-40 %

    Okay folks,

    i was guilty of being an instant gratifier so i bought the normal 2ft 2x36watt light set for my tank for my stemmed plants and more importantly, when i was using 2x15wattsFL previously, the light couldn't reach the glosso to the front and they grew light bean sprouts.

    now that i have more than doubled the lighting intensity, the glosso is growing as expected-to the ground. However, there is spot algae and more digustingly, hair/fuzz algae on my hair grass and the dying parts of my rotalas.

    My question is, how do i dose according? My tank has a small water volume but it is highly lit so i still dose fertilisers according to a 2ft tank set up based on the belief that since there is more lights, there is also a need for more nutrients.

    farthermore, it being a small 1.5ft tank, i can't break the fertilisation dosage into any small parts as 1/4 and rice grain are just about the convenient denominators.

    alternative, can it be true that my Co2 levels are bad thats why the EI has failed?

    regards

    jiesheng

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    Please pardon my ignorance... what is EI?

    BC

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    Estimative Index...

    Regards
    Peter Gwee

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    Jiesheng, the issue has more than to do with prunning and CO2 rather than light intensity. Adding more light doesn't help things as you can see and place more stress on nutrient and CO2 (you are lacking). Note that if you use CO2, make sure it is good or else the nutrients count for nothing as the plants are not going to assimilate much. Target 30ppm throughout the photoperiod. For the nutrients, you can make stock solutions for it which will be easier for small tanks.

    Regards
    Peter Gwee

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    More light is not better.
    I use less light than many, ADA does also, makes life easier.

    Growth rates are slower.

    What you can do for coveinence is dilute the KNO3 etc into a liquid. then dose the appropriate mls to hit the target range you want, say each dose 3x a week adds 8ppm NO3 etc.

    Check out a dosing calculator to add the right amount of KNO3 to a certain mls of water to get the right solution.

    I do large changes on small tanks because it's easier, so I still estimate close enough what the dry ferts will be. So 80% weekly changes are easy.

    Add shrimps, keep CO2 up.


    Regards,
    Tom Barr

    New revised EI:
    www.BarrReport.com

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    Thanks Peter and Tom for the replies.

    On the last note, if i were to mix the stock solutions, suppose the target for PO4 is 1ppm, is that the amount i should dose for the week? or is it a daily target?

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    Depends on your tank volume.

    You need to know how big the tank is to dose a 1ml solution that will raise the tank's level 1ppm for example.

    If the tank is 100 gal it may only be 0.25ppm of PO4 per ml. A 25 gallon tank would get 1ppm from the same dosing though.

    See Chuck Gadd's dosing calculator

    Regards,
    Tom Barr

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