Erio and tonia EI dosing minus K2SO4?

[Dr.Tran]

Hi I have been wanting a tonina and erio sp. tank for a while now. I have some now and I am trying to grow them out before I move them onto my show tank.

I have had a few fert routines from the advice of others until finally coming down to going complete EI. After buying fertizers a few times, I am now at dosing phospate, iron, nirate, and CSM+B according to the EI dosing routine posted on aquaticplantcentral.net
But I don't dose any K2SO4 since it said its unnessary.

Lately I was told that I do need it to grow toninas and eriocaulans. Is that true?

Also I have very soft acidic water too around 2 KH. So far my tonina belem is having a hard time until I started adding nitrate and I'm hoping it will come around. My tonina fluviatilis is doing good even when I was just dosing iron and phosphate.

So now that I am dosing EI, for a eriocaulan and tonina tank, should I dose K2SO4?

 

[Tom Barr]

Well, here's the proof that claim is bull:

You might consider adding some Gh booster instead.
There's plenty of K.
Soft water has low SO4, low Ca and often low Mg.

GH booster adds K2SO4, Ca, Mg and SO4 obviously.
So that would target everything.

Note: adding K2SO4 will not hurt. I use to add lots, at about 20ppm per week extra. But stopped when I noticed it did not matter either way.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Dr.Tran]

I am most evny of ur tank. Thats kinda the look I was going for plus some eriocaulan mato grasso if I can ever find one. *sigh*

Well I was told by a very good plant grower but this is evidence that is hard to throw out. hahaha

Also I have 130w over a 29 gal tank. Would the extra light also mean I should dose K in this case?

For Ca, Mg and SO4 I thought that was in the CSM+B. Was is in the CSM+B?

 

[Tom Barr]

I use ADA AS + EI.

EI does suggest some topping off of GH.
But, the tap water in the above tank has 12 pp m of Mg, 30ppm of Ca.
So none is added.

Just because you seem to have to do something for a plant, or a species, does not mean your conclusion is true.

Correlation does not = cause.
Maybe they over looked something else.

While proving cause is a harder thing to show, falsifying a hypothesis like "you must add extra K to grow X plant using EI" is something I can test and show beyond any reasonable doubt that they hypothesis is false.

There's a huge difference in what I'm testing there.
I only need to falsify the hypothesis. As we falsify and rule things slowly but surly over time, we get closer and closer to what and why the plants grow well.

So such information allows us to not waste our time fiddling with K, and likely focus more on good nutrients/CO2 etc. I get a lot done in this hobby because I know where not to waste my time measuring and testing.

Paul Sears claimed low PO4, I falsified that hypothesis easily.
Other hypothesis where put forth. I use the same simple method to test and see.
After running 3-6 replications of the test without the results that the hypothesis claimed, I felt I could easily argue that they where not true.

But you have to be able to control things well enough to begin with to isolate and test such hypothesis. That and some common sense, not to be so damn certain that you are right, check things and think about where you may have gone wrong.

I'm good at knowing when and what excellent plant growth looks like.
When that occurs, that's when you test things like K+, PO4, Fe, light, CO2 etc, one at a time.

If you still have good growth after a 3-6 weeks, then you can reasonably say, it's not added K+.

So basically you need a control reference tank to test the hypohtesis against, if you cannot ever produce that, or have troubles growing this or that plant, then you cannot test anything, you have experimental error and confounding factors.

You cannot isolate the system to test for K+.

So you cannot say much.

But that does not stop many folks and they love to try and argue such illogical conclusions with me about it.

They all lose that one.
But egos are flared and many wanna "get me" later.
It's not about the ego, it's about setting up a good test to see about the plants, not about whose right or wrong.

I explain all this for many reasons, mostly so that others do not fall for the same bad logic and myth making and can rise above that. It's not personal however.

Then they can argue and know what to look for and how to repeat an/the experiment. This will help the hobby even if one person picks up where I left off.

Regards,
Tom Barr




But............

 

[Dr.Tran]

Thank you Tom. I'll try that but in the mean time I really have to go without the GH booster in the mean time. I'm over my budget and any more I would need another job. lol

I keep looking at that pic, amazing, I am definally going to go for a look like that.

 

[mlfishman]

wow

What kind of light is over that tank? Is the red plant L. panatal?

 

[Tom Barr]

Compact FL's, and yes.
I think they are 8000K and a 5000K mix.

Regards,
Tom Barr