Re: Blackout for algae treatment
jimjim said:
START OF RANT:You know I think if everyone would really follow Tom's advise, they'd quit worrying about the parameters of their water. I've been keeping fish for over 40 years and have not owned a test kit for about 30 of them. My plants grew nicely, My fish bred so much the LFS owed me money. What I used was similar to the Barr method. By listening to Tom, I found out why what I did worked(more than I wanted sometimes) but I wonder why people spend so much money on test kits, high dollar substrates, various other paraphanailia(paid $.50 for that word) when they're just not needed in normal day to day plant and fish keeping. My alge worries have been gone for years, and I'm once again way ahead of the fish store only because I don't need anything they have. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. END OF RANT:...Jim
Jim, I have about 2000$ in high quality testing equipment.
Yep, I hate testing(I just want the data, not the work testing), but of I do test, I want it to be easy, extremely accurate and precise and cover all my bases.
I test far more than most anyone in the hobby, that much is clear, the things you uncover and can definitely state show that.
Now........... while I have all these goodies....I alos know what EI does, and Non CO2 and the accuracy PPS and PMDD casn hope to acheive.
EI and PPS are not that far off.
If you did test and measure things and dose and change youer routine using PPS, you could provide slightly more stability, but so could doing 2x water changes a week and dosing EI afterward also.
PPS ias only as good as it's user and the frequency the user is willing to put in for a slightly more stable nutrient level.
But..................PPS does not focus nearly enough on CO2. I think Edward will figure this out in due time. Most of the unknown issues are not the nutrients, it's the poor CO2 levels.
But a user cannot maintain using a test kit 15-20ppm NO3 anymore than guessing, test kits and the frequency folks are willing to test oftwer over long peroids of time are simply impractical.
EI hits the target very close.
Put another way: is there any significant difference in growth of plants with a range of 10-20ppm vs 15-20ppm?
The accuracy you gain is very small.
If it does not grow plants better and it takes more effort, time, complexity, cost, I think it's a tough sell.
Taking down data is fine if the data is good.
Mine is very good.
Regards,
Tom Barr
. I dosed the NO3 and PO4 yesterday; I'll do a 50% WC today, since I am "bringing back the sun" for my fish and plants today; I'll bring the freshwater parameters up to 10 ppm NO3 and 1.0-1.5 ppm PO4, as well as remove the PO4 remover; and I will continue to dose the NO3 and PO4 every other day, except day seven of the WC cycle. We'll see what happens.