EI in 20g

[Philosophos]

Hey everyone,

I'm just starting off with taking better care of plants than, "here's some nice substrate and some fish food, now go away." I've spent probably 2-3 weeks reading up on EI and trying to crunch numbers.

The tank is running CO2 with drop checker, diffusor and 4kh solution, 65w 6700k/1000k CF with a 8000k 15w fluoro that'll go up front if the ground cover starts to grown upwards too fast. Filtration is an xp1. Stock is 8 young amano shrimp, and 3 adult otos. Water is 100% RO because the quality here is nasty, and the KH needs to stay low for future appistos. Substrate is eco-complete that's probably starting to fade.

Anyhow, the main issue is that I need some one to double check my dosing number.

I'm pre-weighing all my ferts out dry, then dumping them in to multiple 1L bottles of DI water. The break down looks like this:

Bottle 1 (majority of macros):
60g KNO3
10g KH2PO4
10.7g K2SO4
10.7g CaSO4

Bottle 2 (because i'm not sure if bottle 1 can handle 4g more of MgO4):
4g MgO4

Bottle 3:
5g 10% iron chelate

All that, and some flourish trace since I've got it around, and it doesn't have the macros of regular flourish. I'll probably switch to CSM+B on bigger tanks.

Dosing schedule will look like:

S: 50% water change, 9ml macro, 4ml MgSO4 in to changed water,
M: 10ml Flourish Trace and 5ml Fe in to column
T: 5ml macro, 2ml MgSO4 solution in to column
W: 10ml Flourish Trace and 5ml Fe in to column
T: 5ml macro, 2ml MgSO4 solution in to substrate
F: 10ml Flourish Trace and 5ml Fe in to column
S: 5ml Fe in to substrate

The result should be weekly dosing:

Macro: 19ml of standard solution, minus MgO4.
CO2: 15-45ppm (less if I keep a close eye on it, I hope)
NO3: ~10ppm
K+: ~11ppm
PO4: ~1.5ppm

MgO4 Solution: 8ml
Mg: ~6.4ppm

Micro :
Fe: ~.15ppm
30ml Flourish trace

I figured I'd start low until the new plants are settled, then double up everything save micro and co2 once the phosphates and nitrates start droping off faster. Or maybe when ever I start to see algae and/or deficiencies. Which ever comes first.

Does everything look ok? Am I too long winded? Any help would be nice

-Philosophos

[barmby]

Hmm... let me align myself
1. Macro: 19ml of standard solution, minus MgO4. , it means it gives you 10ppm of NO3, 11 ppm of K and 1ppm of PO4 , correct ??

2. Also what is CSM + B ?

3. How deep is your tank? Tank dimension ?

4. Lighting - How many watt per gallon ? Cos I got lost

5. What plants ?

[Philosophos]

1. Yes, that's what it works out to, aside from the PO4, at least by my calculations.

PO4 is ~95/186 g/mol of KH2PO4:

10g of KH2PO4 is being used:

10g/186*95= ~5.1075g

so ~5.1075g/L = ~5.1075mg/ml

dose is 19ml making ~5.1075g/L*19 = ~97.0425mg PO4

and from there the aquarium holds about 65L after displacing the water:

~97.0425mg PO4/65 = ~1.4929mg/L

At least that's how I'd worked it out.

2) CSM +B is a micro fert, it's used in hydroponics. It comes in powder form, and it's very cheap. It's hard to get the analysis for it, I thought I had it bookmarked but I can't find it googling. I'm not using it right now, though.

3) The aquarium is 75L for volume, 65L of that is water. The dimensions are the same as most 20 gal. high sold in the US: 24 x 13 x 17 (inches)

4) 3wpg of compact fluorescant in the back, will use 4 with an extra light up front if it's not enough to keep the HC growing low.

5)
Newly planted: HC, glosso, Hemianthes micranthemoides, Pogosteman Stellata, a little Anubias Bartiri nana petite.

Established growth: Rotala rotundifolia, Ludwigia repens, 2 Crypts- wendti and a larger kind that I can't remmember the name of right now.

My fiance posted a picture of the aquarium on another thread here:
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=53498

Thank you for the reply, it's been a lot of work trying to figure out fertilizers. You're the first on two different forums to offer help.

- Philosophos

[barmby]

1) My knowledge for manual calculation is poor. For this reason, I cannot help much. But I do use calculator posted by friends in AQ.
2) Micro should be addressed after Macro is corrected. Most importantly, Iron, and Calcium. As mentioned - plant must access to macro only then they can use micro.

Based on point 3 and 4, the light vs tank size should suffice. Because I am looking at the height. It is not tall. I notice Amano tank is very short and his crypt is always short, compact and crawling.

Point 5 - I have no experience on these plants. But be mindful. these are difficult plants (relative to light)- HC, Glosso and HM. Even Rotala is tough if the light intensity is not there.

You really need to monitor and adjust - the lighting period, plant pruning and fertilization. Sometime "trim and fit" may just work. As can be seen - there is no silver bullet for your tank Hope this help. Guys, correct me if I am wrong.

[Philosophos]

I agree with what you're saying on micro issues. We still add it though, because 100% reverse osmosis water needs a bit of conditioning. The flourish trace is pretty lean stuff for minerals, so we're doubling it up. It's not even 50% strength of tropica's micro fertilizer. Is this still too much too early? I'm a bit worried about its high zinc concentration.

So far, the glosso and HM have been pearling every day, they're looking very nice. They've grown even since the last picture on the other thread. The rotala, we've had for a while; it grows like a weed and turns bright red. The moving and cutting it back is leaving it looking kind of ugly right now.

I definitely agree with modifying as things go. We've already got plans to experiment with a 2 hour lights off period, and the co2 needs a new timer to start kicking on before the lights. EI is a starting point for now; it seems easier to get results than PMDD with a tank of so little volume. Once the 475L aquarium is running, I won't be able to afford to throw away all the water and ferts that EI demands.

Thank you again for the help.

-Philosophos