I'm getting rather confused by fertilizer dosages. According to the estimative index, about 0.5ppm Fe and 10ppm NO3 is about ok.
In the excel file for Dr Mallick's, the "daily ppm" column refers to the concentration after a tank of pure H2O is dosed. Assuming the nutrient level always takes about one week to drop to zero, then for a typical 2ft tank, I would need to dose 30 drops of Micros and 22ml of Aqua every week to maintain the required nutrient levels?
I had previously assumed the "weekly ppm" column was the right column, but now I'm thoroughly confused. Surely the dosages cannot be so high? Last time I dosed 2x20ml LGA per week for a 300L heavily planted tank, I could already see my fish breathing heavily after every dosage, though my plants did quite well, but surely the EI has considered the presence of fish too?
Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale. In his ocean home will be. A giant in might, where might is right. And King of the boundless sea.
Resistance is futile, you will be administrated!
I'm not too sure what you're doing... I'm not familiar with Dr Mallick's regime, but...
Tom Barr's EI is one regime of dosing and Dr Mallick's is another regime. Stick to one or the other. Do not mix the two methods together.
If you understand how either methods work, then you can try to work out a compromise between the 2 that work for YOUR tank. But personally, I'll just stick to one or the other.
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Thanks for your reply! About Dr Mallick's regime, do you mean the 1-5ml Aqua per 100L and 1drop micros per 100L ?
Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale. In his ocean home will be. A giant in might, where might is right. And King of the boundless sea.
I think you are referring to this Excel sheet, right?
OK. Say you have a 60L tank.
When you intend to put in 30 drops of Micros once a week, then you look at the "weekly colum" for the ppm.
If you intend to put in 30 drops of Micros daily, then you see that the "daily column" showed 0.5ppm. And continuing that for a week will give you 3.7ppm Fe -- overdose?
If you intend to achieve 0.5ppm weekly. You can put in 30 drops Micros one shot or spread out to approx 4 drops daily.
Normally I do my dosing for traces daily. There are those who like it half-weekly.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
Resistance is futile, you will be administrated!
EI is a method or system of dosing a planted tank that addresses the needs of the plants (to grow well) without having to use test kits to determine nutrient levels.
I'm not sure if Dr Mallick has a method... he has dosing instructions on his bottles, but I don't know if he has a specific regime or method of dosing a tank to get optimum results.
You can use LGA as a fertiliser in the EI method... and use it according to EI dosing levels. But you have to take into account that LGA contains NO3.
The are a few main fert components or groups in EI which are dosed separately. Some of them are NO3, PO4 and traces. LGA basically will take care of NO3 and traces (and a few other minor macros) together. It is important that you dose LGA according to the amount of NO3 you require for your tank under the EI methodology. In other words, with LGA, you cannot separate NO3 from the traces, so you dose according to the more critical component which NO3.
I suggest that once you run out of LGA, switch to something else like Seachem Flourish, TMG, or Profito. Then get KNO3 to dose NO3 seperately... Unless LGA is working fantastic for your current tank using EI methodology.
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Hi, just to clarify. I have a 70 litre tank, if i dose 0.4ml of Micros weekly, does that mean im dosing only 0.12ppm of Iron every week? I was having the impression that i would be dosing 0.85ppm.Originally Posted by juggler
Your impression was not correct.Hi, just to clarify. I have a 70 litre tank, if i dose 0.4ml of Micros weekly, does that mean im dosing only 0.12ppm of Iron every week? I was having the impression that i would be dosing 0.85ppm.
0.4ml at one dosing, according tot he Excel, gives 0.12ppm Fe.
Doing it daily for a week gives 0.85ppm Fe (=0.12 x 7 days).
For myself, I dose daily to achieve about 0.3ppm Fe in total weekly. Different tanks behave differently. I remembered if I dose more, I get algae on the glass wall.
Hope this helps.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
Thanks for the clarification! I guess i can try upping my dosage a bit more and see if it generates any positive results.
Thanks!
O...o, now I know why my 2ft tank with more light and CO2 is getting algae whereas it didn't before when it had lower light and no CO2 dosing. Thanks for the confirmation.
BTW, I dun think your first sentence makes sense, since the weekly column multiplies the dosage of 30 drops by 7 even though its actually only 30 drops once per week.
But anyway, I'm assuming now that the recommended nutrient levels of EI refers to the optimum conc level in the water. So from a starting conc of 0.5ppm Fe, lets assume that the plants take 3 days to suck up 0.333ppm, leaving 0.167ppm in the water. I should then dose 20 drops to bump it up to 0.5ppm again, right?
.....Suddenly I can foresee myself buying a lot more Lushgrow products.......
Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale. In his ocean home will be. A giant in might, where might is right. And King of the boundless sea.
My understanding is this:O...o, now I know why my 2ft tank with more light and CO2 is getting algae whereas it didn't before when it had lower light and no CO2 dosing. Thanks for the confirmation.
BTW, I dun think your first sentence makes sense, since the weekly column multiplies the dosage of 30 drops by 7 even though its actually only 30 drops once per week.
But anyway, I'm assuming now that the recommended nutrient levels of EI refers to the optimum conc level in the water. So from a starting conc of 0.5ppm Fe, lets assume that the plants take 3 days to suck up 0.333ppm, leaving 0.167ppm in the water. I should then dose 20 drops to bump it up to 0.5ppm again, right?
.....Suddenly I can foresee myself buying a lot more Lushgrow products.......
Weekly column: The total ppm you get, if you dose the above amount daily, for a week.
Daily column: The ppm you get, everytime you dose the above amount.
Oh yes. You are right! Thanks for pointing out.
Let me rephrase:
OK. Say you have a 60L tank.
When you intend to put in 30 drops of Micros once a week, then you look at the "daily column" for the ppm since you are doing it only once.
If you intend to put in 30 drops of Micros daily for a week, you see that the "daily column" shows 0.53ppm. And continuing that for a week will give you 3.7ppm Fe (i.e.7 x 0.53) as shown in the "weekly column".
Give it some thought! Look at the formulas behind the Excel too.
BTW - since you like all this PMDD, you may like to check out one of the products in the Dr Mallick's catalog called Rexolin APN. It is similar in composition to Lushgro Micros [and a little cheaper]. I am using that currently in place of Lushgro Micros. So far, I don't see any inadequacies. Not sure if anyone else is using it. I know Geoffrey does.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
I do as well.. works well....
Cheerio,
Sleepy_lancs
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
An afternoon trimming my watery garden is better
then an afternoon with a therapist
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I dun like PMDD actually, just trying to solve a persistant problem. Anyway, I presume that you dose your micros and macros somewhat according to the Fe and NO3 levels recommended in the EI. Have you ever noticed your fish breathing very fast after dosing?
Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale. In his ocean home will be. A giant in might, where might is right. And King of the boundless sea.
Yes. I used the Estimative Index as well.
Nope - did not check to see any heavy breathing since all appeared well.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
Nope. I have no such problem as well and yes to EI part.
Cheerio,
Sleepy_lancs
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
An afternoon trimming my watery garden is better
then an afternoon with a therapist
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hmmmm, maybe its just my SAE? My previous SAE always acts like it's hyperventilating after I dose LGA (2x20ml/week to a heavily planted 280L tank), whereas the shrimp, mollies, cories, otos only breathed slightly faster. Its breathing rate only slowed after a water change. On the other hand, a very turbulent water topup couldn't fix its breathing problems. That's why I suspected its due to the LGA.
That SAE died some time back when I tried a full dose of PO4, dunno why exactly.
Now the new SAE I got also hyperventilates, very strange, I'm certain its not due to CO2 or O2 problems.
Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale. In his ocean home will be. A giant in might, where might is right. And King of the boundless sea.
Its either too much CO2 or lack of O2 ime. Consider getting some surface movement going to the tank. Yes, you are going to lose a bit of CO2 from that but that is going to help the critters if the O2 was to dip low for some reason or so.
Regards
Peter Gwee
Hi
Got a question on LGM dosage and ppm, as its relevant to this thread:
Assuming the Fe level is at an average 0.2ppm to begin with and then I do a 50% water change, as the tap water is with almost undetectable Fe level (confirmed with test kit),
the new water added will probably dillute the Fe level to 0.1ppm.
So how shall I dose the Fe ?
(1) Dose according to the replaced water volume (based on 50% tank volume) to 0.2ppm at once ?
(2) Do not dose all 0.2ppm at one go but break it into 7 days partial dosage to reach 0.2ppm (of the replaced water) in a week ?
(3) Dose per the repalced water with half the level (0.1ppm per the replaced water volume) and then partial dosage daily over the week for the rest of 0.1ppm.
Thanks a million,
DC
If you want to keep the Fe level around say 0.2ppm, then dose just enough to make the replaced water contain 0.2ppm Fe. After 1 day, the 0.2ppm may have dropped a little to 0.18, so you dose at least 0.02ppm at the end of day 1. Similarly for day 2, 3,....7, Then do a 50% water change repeat the whole procedure.
The idea is to fix a desired ppm when you do a water change, then make sure you replenish enough in between water changes. You do not have to worry so much on the actual level in the tank so long as your water changes % are big, often and preferably regular. If you're not convinced, write a small program to calculate how the ppm level drifts after several water changes, you'll find that it either approaches a constant max or a constant min depending on your replenishing dosage in between the water changes.
Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale. In his ocean home will be. A giant in might, where might is right. And King of the boundless sea.
One more question.
Juggler mentioned here that other than LGM there is the "Rexolin APN". Is Rexolin a powder form that can be mixed into solution as wish ?
My understanding was that LGM has a shelf life (as chelated solution will break down and form settlement after some time) so for Rexolin you can store the dry powder longer ?
Also is it true not to mix chelated Fe solution with KH2PO4 in dosage preparation as Fe-P can react and settled out of solution ?
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