fablau;127985 said:
Tom, I was asking that question right because I know that Co2 may be related to dosing in the way that when dosing is unlimited, co2 may be limiting, and vice versa. Christophe said that lowering Co2 helped in his situation, So I was curious to know if he also reduced ferts proportionally.
But the issue is not about ferts, he adjusted CO2(Excel based, which is slowign growth rates down likely 60-80
%), not the ferts. They are just a secondary post factor.
When you add 2 dependencies, you end up with say 9 different outcomes if you just have 3 levels for each of the 2 variables.
This quickly becomes much harder to get any information out that you might think.
It does work if you have controls and have mastery of the issues to start with.
Troels and Ole did this for 1 plant, in isolated no sediment sealed tanks using Riccia and light and CO2. Ferts where non limiting to make them independent.
You can see 9 different rates of growth, covering about 20X differences in rates of growth, which is huge...........
So seeing improvements in a practical tank might not be so easy. But the article and test was well founded and applies well to most cases in planted tanks.
Doing this with all the different ferts?
Different KH's and different plant species?
Impossible.
You can isolate one or two variables at a time, you can use Liebig's law to predict, but that's about all.
Over time, you can build and understand after doing a number of test.
It's not some silver bullet thing, never was.
It's basic stuff and basic horticulture.
Tropica says what I've said for many years.
http://tropica.com/en/guide/make-your-aquarium-a-success/
Interesting tid bit in lumen's per watt:
http://tropica.com/en/guide/make-your-aquarium-a-success/light/
Ole, Karen Randall, Troels, myself, we do not disagree, that's the hobbyists that do all that.
We go "yes, hobbyists love myths and such, and that's the real problem." The Science and how to is pretty well understood and basic.
This is one reason I suggest non CO2 methods, so that other folks can see the slower more patient methods also work and work very well for little labor input.
Many that try too hard often have algae issues, they end up chasing one myth to the next, and never really focus well on CO2.
Now this might be due to the nature of their system, maybe their fish are more touchy than other species, and O2 are low.
That has nothing to do directly with CO2 or ferts, but is a key in helping you add more CO2 with less/little stress to fish.
Same with good surface movement.
I've not seen any evidence myself personally that adding too much CO2 causes algae or detriment other than to the fish/livestock.
Some have claimed they have.............but I've got some pretty high CO2 levels and a lot of fish and no such issues.
There's no need to lard on CO2 however either.
If you trim off something, then the CO2 if you are over doing it would be the best choice to trim back. Ferts would be the last.
BBA is almost always a CO2 issue one way or another, some suggested Organic matter build up, I'll leave that one out there as an unknown yet.
The non CO2 tanks have little water changes so the Organic matter build up is quite high.
I've dosed plenty of plant cuttings AND 1/2 dead plants, obviously stressed, never got any BBA or HAIR ALGAE.
Not to a non CO2 tank anyway.
CO2 enriched tanks?
Yep.
There's a lot of trade off between the two main types of planted tanks to be certain, but you can isolate and make some assumptions on single variables.
For BBA, you need to have some CO2 enrichment (More Variable CO2).
Same for hair algae(LESS variable CO2).
There's some delay on BBA appearance, less so on Hair algae.
Plant growth is almost always much better if you get Hair algae vs BBA.
Still, adding Excel, moderate light, well, not many would predict that BBa would survive anyway. Ferts? Well if growth is 60-80% of what it was, then you can assume 60-80% of the ferts needs can be cut also.
Note, that is very different than what I observed,
I use No excel at all, just plain old tanks without water changes(well,once every 1-3 months or so), shrimps(RCS culls), sponge filter driven by aeration, 2 shop lights.
BBA died off, we already know that BBA will die with Excel applications.
If you stop the gas, then add excel, then things slow way down.
But if you add neither, the algae still goes away and things slow down even farther.
Note, I do not add ferts to the non CO2 tanks except maybe once every 1-2 weeks and then only a tiny amount.
Maybe 5% EI.
Decent feeding of livestock can off set that some also. Excel dosing means you can still do water changes, perhaps once every few weeks instead of weekly, but you can still 1-2 a week
I wrote a discussion about EI and Excel dosing modification a few years back. I did not discuss algae so much, but more a hybrid method.
http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/4266-Hybrid-methods-fusing-dry-start-excel-with-non-CO2