EI dosing & the effects of "trickle waterchange" vs 50% weekly change

[JohnInFlorida]

I'm using EI dosing as described in the stickies above for both my 29 and my 55 gallon tanks. I'm in the process of setting up a 180 gallon acrylic tank, and plumbing it for constant waterchange at a rate of 100 gallons/week (i.e. 1 to 2 drops/second). Since in EI dosing the weekly waterchange is to clean out some of the residual ferts and reestablish a baseline, my question is in relation to the level of ferts when you don't have this "reset" but instead have a constant dribble of replacement water. Does the base level increase? decrease? stay the same? and as a result should there be a change in the dosing LEVEL? Thanks.

Keep Smilin'
John

 

[VaughnH]

I use this system with my 45 gallon tank, and it appears to work fine. My calculations showed that if I trickled in around 5 gallons a day I would not get too high on any fert, but I don't remember the exact numbers since that was over a year ago. I have found it to be very difficult to maintain a constant flow rate - in cold weather it goes up and in hot weather it goes down. But, I do keep the daily amount within about 4 to 6 gallons.

 

[Tom Barr]

A that rate, likely not much as Vaughn wisely put it.
It can withstand about 20-30% day.

Regards.,
Tom Barr