EI Dosing with ADA AS Amazonia

TW3

Junior Poster
Sep 13, 2007
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Sydney, Australia
Hi everyone

I have been using the EI fert method for around 18 months in my non ADA AS tank. I have just set up a new 74G tank (1 week ago) with ADA AS Amazonia & wonder if I need to alter the amounts of ferts I add?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

Tom Barr

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Works(EI) well, you can lean things up or leave it alone a buit more, less critical to dose consistently since you have a source of macro nutrients in the sediment as well.

But doing so to the water column places less demand and uptake from the ADA AS........so you get more out each method.

so they work well together and with our sometimes bad habits......

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

TW3

Junior Poster
Sep 13, 2007
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Sydney, Australia
Hi & thanks for reply. My tank is 74G. So the EI dosages I would usually go with for this tank are:-

3/4 tsp KNO3 3x a week
3/16 tsp KH2PO4 3x a week
11ml solution or 1/4 tsp K2SO4 3x a week
15ml traces 3x a week

So it's ok to keep dosing at these levels in the ADA tank? Some people had told me I'd need to alter the schedule with an ADA tank, so I wasn't sure???
 

Tom Barr

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People tell you all sorts of mishmash anyway:)
Ignorance about a product line really brings it out:rolleyes:
I ask them a simple question: have you actually tried it and had success?
If not, why not?

I never get a full honest answer.............curiously........
I do get answers like "Well, I do not care about any of that, all I know is that it works for me and ADA's results are good........."

That does not answer the question and suggest you must buy and purchase and accept all that ADA tells you, there's no learning there, there's no understanding as to why or is it really bad, or is it better?
They really do not know yet suggest fear as a reason rather than testing to see if the speculation is correct or not.

It's a Male bovine manure excuse.
Really, it is.

You can likely dose less, or none at all after some time to the water column, however, doing so does no harm which is the claim from the ADA side.

Plants can get all of their nutrients from the water column or the sediment..........
but a better idea is have them in both location, you get more out each location this way and if you mess up dosing the water column, at least you have a back up.
ADA adds traces and K+ etc to the water column, why are these so different vs N and P?

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Tom Barr

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BTW,
I am doing a full analysis for the ADA green brighty series of l;iquid fertilizers, once again testing rather than merely BSing folks, so they can DIY with common cheap and available ferts.

It'll be done for this month's BarrReport newsletter.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

TW3

Junior Poster
Sep 13, 2007
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Sydney, Australia
Ok, thanks. I'll keep an eye out for that - although I am already not using the ADA ferts & using my usual powders. BTW, in my new ADA tank I'm having trouble with a brown fluffy thread like algae.
 

Tom Barr

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Water changes 2-3x a week 50-70% for the first 1-2 months at least, standard procedure from ADA.

Otherwise things can go bad.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

FacePlanted

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Jul 9, 2007
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I agree. I had this exact same brownish fluffy stuff with my new aquasoil tank. I had to siphon it off my HC and I did 50% waterchanges almost every day for a week, then every other day for the next 4 weeks. After that, I am still doing a 50% water change every few days. (3-4) The fluffy stuff stopped coming back after a few weeks. I believe the high levels of organics in the water caused most of my problems in the very beginning. It really seemed that this "fluffy stuff" was made out of decomposing leaves and other scummy and gunky snot-like things sticking together in the flow of the water and forming waving strings that clumped together.

BTW I dosed EI from the very start...especially traces, P, and K because the AS was causing a lot of ammonia and nitrates (source of N), so there was less need to dose that. I know none of my algae problems were because of EI, but rather because of ammonia, organics, and CO2 not dialed in & stable. (Maybe too much light for such a new & unstable system) But many waterchanges helped me through this tricky period.

Good luck with the tank.

-Mike B-
 

TW3

Junior Poster
Sep 13, 2007
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Sydney, Australia
Thanks, the water changes are helping. I also have reduced my lighting, as someone else told me a new tank should start off with only around 6.5hrs for the 1st few weeks, then slowly increase the lighting period.

Anyway, it is helping.

Thanks to all for advice :)
 

Homer_Simpson

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Oct 11, 2007
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FWIW, although to early to draw definite conclusions. I set up a 15 gallon high experimental Aquasoil II tank up and dosed EI full throttle light off the bat. I used Seachem Purigen in the filter to absorb excess organics. I did only daily 50% water changes for the first week on than 2x/weekly the second week, then 1x/week thereafter. Lighting is 2 40 watt corallife colarmax with the standard canopy sloppily padded with mylar sheeting. Photo-period is split: 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., off from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. and on from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. for a total of 8.5 hours. c02 is on the excessive side at 40 ppm consistent as measured via drop checker using 3 DIY c02 bottles. The tank has only been up since December 26 2007. So far(knock on wood), not a single strand of algae, no brown stuff(diatoms) and plant growth has pretty much tripled in about a month. Still too early to say though.
 

Tom Barr

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Add some Amano shrimps now.
Maybe some Otto's etc.

You keep it up, and things should progress.
FYI, you do not need full EI with those lights though.
You could do 1/2 EI and be okay.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Homer_Simpson

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Oct 11, 2007
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Tom Barr;22757 said:
Add some Amano shrimps now.
Maybe some Otto's etc.

You keep it up, and things should progress.
FYI, you do not need full EI with those lights though.
You could do 1/2 EI and be okay.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Thanks Tom. I will cut back EI to 1/2. As far as ottos and Amano Shrimp, I was really worried about adding those given the 40+ ppm c02. I figured they may croak until/unless I throttle back the c02, but I am afraid to do this for fear of getting a major algae bloom.

You would think that nothing should survive that level of c02 but the snails in the tank seem to be doing fine and I thought I saw a tiny planaria for the last few days going back and forth on the glass. Go figure.

I was thinking of adding cheap feeder ghost shrimp to the tank instead of Amano Shrimp. Whether true or not but I read that when Amano Shrimp were first discovered as algae eaters, many folks in the US who did not have access to Amano shrimp or could not afford them at the time began adding ghost shrimp to their planted tanks in the hopes that ghost shrimp would consume algae like the Amano shrimp. Some claimed that the ghsost shrimp did eat algae. Don't know if that is true as I always pictured ghost shrimp as carnivores(I heard stories of the ghost shrimp like jackals baiting and ganging up on otos and eating them and even eating baby snails) and scavengers who primarily ate left over food on the bottom of the tank and not algae.
 

gabai

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Jan 25, 2008
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Tom Barr;19334 said:
Water changes 2-3x a week 50-70% for the first 1-2 months at least, standard procedure from ADA.

Otherwise things can go bad.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I am trying my hands growing Hairgrass using the dry method (wetting the ADA Aquasoil). It's now about 4 weeks and I can see that they are beginning to grow. I aim to flood the tank after 8 weeks (approx 2 months).

Tom, when I have flood the tank, should I also do a 50% WC changes 2-3x a week for the first 1-2 months ?

Many thanks.
 

Tom Barr

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You cannot over do water changes.
They are always beneficial at least in every case I've seen if you use CO2.

You can do them daily, and add ferts back each day if you wish.
This is a simply method to provide precise non limiting ratios, ppms of nutrients, the trade off is large daily water changes, but for a week, two weeks, three weeks etc to rectify an issue or to clean algae up, to whip a tank back into shape, or to test a nutrient parameter without test kits, this is a simple easy to do method if you set up the water change to be easy.

Small test tanks also work easily and can be placed near where it's easy to change water etc.

Some folks do this frequent water changes with chemical filtration: zeolite+ Carbon+ purigen.


Those are the best 3 things for a planted tanks for chemical treatments.


Regards,
Tom Barr
 

shane

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Nov 29, 2006
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Does brand new aqusaoil release ammonia? I thought Power Sand realeased ammonia.

I just did a re-scape of my 60 gallon with all the fish in the tank. I basically sucked some old aqusoil out of the tank where I no longer wanted aquasoil but some sand.

Now I want to add some new aquasoil to the used aqusoil to some areas in the tank.

Is there any problem doing this? IE: ammonia spikes, etc. with the fish in the tank?

Fish in the tank are discus, tetras, cory's, etc.

I would think this should not be a problem byt wanted to check before I kill any fish.
 

Tom Barr

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They(PS and AS) both release about the same amounts per unit volume of NH4.
Since your tank has a well established, the bacteria should be able to handle a fair amount.

I'd suggest adding some Zeolite and doing 2-3x a week water changes for the next 2 weeks or so.

But yes, I have done this without issue.

Regards,
Tom Barr