Iron question

[jbrazio]

Hello,

On a 83L tank I've got the following flora:
- Eleocharis parvula
- Cryptocoryne undulata
- Hemianthus micranthemoides
- Cabomba caroliniana
- Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig'
- Hygrophila corymbosa
- Alternanthera reineckii var. lilacina

Everyday I inject to the tank 10ml of Flourish Iron after the light cycle, after 24h right after the lights go out I test the water for FE.. I don't get any readings.

This means that the FE is all consumed, or is it precipitating ?

Thanks.

 

[jazzlvr123]

chances are there Isn't much Iron in the water after a photo-period plants consume Iron very quickly. you usually cannot even detect it an hour after adding it to the tank (even if the lights are off). Test kits are not reliable at testing Iron, I think a conductivity meter would give you a better idea than those Iron test kits sachem makes could. I usually dose CSM+B in addition to flourish Iron just to make sure levels are adequate in the tank (however i never test for Iron). Excess Iron will do far less damage to a tank than lack thereof, especially if everything else is at good levels, Co2, nitrates, phosphates, Magnesium, Calcium, Gh etc... Basically if your plants are showing signs of Iron deficiency just up your routine dosage amount, I wouldn't trust an Iron test kit.

 

[jbrazio]

Hello,

But does that mean that the iron was consumed in one hour ?..

 

[Tom Barr]

Hello,

But does that mean that the iron was consumed in one hour ?..

No, if you labled Fe59 radioisoltopes and then measured the % dosed vs the % in the dry plant tissue, then you could say a % of Fe that was used, my guess it's maybe 5% or less.

So most is precipitation.
Gluconate is not that strong of chelating agent.
Particularly with harder KH ppm's.
DTPA Fe will last longer in the water column, it is a stronger bond.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jbrazio]

So should I assume that precipitation can also be used by plant roots.. or I'm just wasting money with Flourish Iron and should look for something else ?

I assume everyone asks the next one: If FE tests are not reliable, how can I tell, without using fancy equipment, the consumption of the plants.. i.e. how much is enough ? 1ppm/day, 2ppm/day xxppm/day ?

I must say that I'm too lazy to follow the EI method and 50% WC/week.. :-/

 

[Dave Spencer]

My guess would be that most people are dosing a decent micro fert. I have never worried about iron levels or its rate of consumption, simply because I have never needed to.

I work in a power station where we measure iron levels in lab conditions, yet we still get some obviously incorrect readings. Iron is very difficult to measure at hobby level, so all you need to do is make sure you dose the recommended levels of micros.

I`m not sure why people would want to dose iron in isolation if they are using CSM+B or TPN etc.

Dave.

 

[VaughnH]

.....

I must say that I'm too lazy to follow the EI method and 50% WC/week.. :-/

EI is the lazy man's fertilizing method Even if you don't want to do weekly water changes, which would be a good idea even if you don't use EI, you can just reduce the EI dosages a bit and change water every 2 weeks. Being double lazy I dose my fertilizers daily, and keep change water dripping into the tank 24 hours a day, with the excess going out an overflow to be collected to water my patio plantings. Then I rarely do big water changes at all. But, this hasn't proven to be a good method, at least in part because, as I said, big water changes are very good for the plants and fish.

 

[jbrazio]

I'll now tell the story of my life.. jk ;-)

I've been messing with aquariums since the begining of this year, so yes I'm much of a rokie.

Before I dosed micros using 2ml Flourish about three times a week for a 80L (the recommended dosage is about 2ml for each 200L) tank.. my plants were crappy and a bit yellowish.. I assumed they're missing iron so I bought a Sera test kit and found that FE was not showing.

The next step was to buy Flourish Iron and started dosing it a 0.1ppm FE each day, after one hour of the injection of FE, I checked with the test kit the value and it reported the 0.1ppm.

After 24h, I tested again and the FE was gone.
So I started increasing the FE dosage per day. The yellowish gone away and FE daily testing showed and average of 0.5ppm FE, I estimated that the plants were taking out of the water column 0.3ppm FE/light-cycle.

Last week the FE analysis started reporting 0ppm.. I increased the dosage again, injecting everyday 1ppm (10ml) Flourish Iron.. strangely I never saw again the test kit reporting FE.

I really don't know if it makes sense to increase the dosage or should I daily inject 1ml of Flourish and only inject Flourish Iron if my plants turn yellow.

 

[Tom Barr]

So should I assume that precipitation can also be used by plant roots.. or I'm just wasting money with Flourish Iron and should look for something else ?

I assume everyone asks the next one: If FE tests are not reliable, how can I tell, without using fancy equipment, the consumption of the plants.. i.e. how much is enough ? 1ppm/day, 2ppm/day xxppm/day ?

I must say that I'm too lazy to follow the EI method and 50% WC/week.. :-/

Well, I'm not sure it's a waste, we could say that most of the traces added are wasted in terms of % used, vs added.

Does not mean it's really waste per se.............we still get benefits from adding it and adding more etc. But only up to aq point and it's a point based more on our eyes and volume of fertilizer added per volume of aquarium, than any ppm's in the water.

CO2 is the same way, we waste and have most of the CO2 gas added degas and is lost to the air above, but we still get good benefits. At least it's a bit easier to measure for the most part to get correlation of growth vs a ppm.

Fe is more tricky than that.

You will not find any correlation to speak of with Fe test kits.
This is not an EI or not issue, this is for all test kits using Fe in aquariums.
Even the 90-100$ range Fe test kits have many issues.

When you test is extremely important, the type of chelator and the KH etc.
Perhaps some of the FE ends up in the sediment and gets used by plant roots, hard to say.

Do not believe aquarist that claim they KNOW, because unless they plan on doing radio labeling(which means they, or the research they reference needs a license to use radio active isotopes), know the KH relationships, time scales, chelator types..........they cannot follow the Fe through the water column.

I do not think anyone has done it.

I'd suggest you use your eyes and dose progressively more and more until you no longer have any increase in health, and growth, assuming that the other parameters are also non limiting. This volume came to about 5-10 mls of Tropica per 80 liters 3x a week under high light for many aquariums. I suspect Flourish is close even though it's richer, but has a weaker chelator.

The trade off is less bond energy, easier uptake vs say DTPA, but then it decomposes much faster in solution. So you are trying to measure a moving target.

I'm too pressed for other issues than to test any number of possible ppm's for a 1/2 dozen water parameters. So I am lazy in that regard. I hate water changes as much as anyone that's done them for 30+ years, so I make them very easy or automated them. I cannot automate the test kits in any practical way.

I hang a siphon hook on the tank, drain.
Clean, trim etc.
Turn the valve, I fill the tank with the same hose.

I can change a 200 liter aquarium, prune, clean filters in about 30 min. Never touch a bucket or lift any water. If I monitored NO3, K, PO4, Fe and GH weekly?
Takes me about 20 minutes if I do them all at once and am quick about it.

And I have not done anything as far cleaning the tank
This hobby really is gardening, not chemistry.
You can still make it chem as well, but only to avoid a water change is noit much of a trade off, if you are too lazy to do the WC's, then testing will be spotty at best, and rarely done later.

For all the banter on test kits and the NEED to do it on forums, I've yet to meet folks who after 10 years in the hobby test consistently still. They tell folks to do it,, often "to learn", then do not do it themselves, or only AFTER there is a problem.

However, many are good at eyeballing the plant health, algae, ad fish without test kits, the plants, fish etc are the test kits.

I'd suggest this for Fe particularly for your habits and for Fe for most all routines.
Trade offs there also, good dosing habits, good observations, patience and skill/experience in observing. You also need to know that the other parameters are independent of the results you see. That latter part is tough to be sure of.
EI helps there since it makes nutrients non limiting and easy to manage.

Macro nutrient rich sediments also help, particularly if you do not do water changes or monitor, forget to dose etc, but try.......

So there's a few options for you (easier/better water changes that require less input/motivation(the big one for me), sediments, observation skills etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jbrazio]

I must say that you've got a point, testing takes me half an hour and I do not do nothing more in the meanwhile.

I'm rather curious and coming from an IT background.. I assume that everything can be explained by logic/numbers.. but it seems that sometimes you only need intuition.

Today I bought a 40L jerrycan, but now I'm concern with waste.. I mean, I live in a flat and the plants my wife have for sure don't use 40L a week of water..

Is there another way to reuse the water ? For instance, with a RO system, will it make the water suitable again for aquarium use ?

 

[Tom Barr]

I must say that you've got a point, testing takes me half an hour and I do not do nothing more in the meanwhile.

I'm rather curious and coming from an IT background.. I assume that everything can be explained by logic/numbers.. but it seems that sometimes you only need intuition.

Today I bought a 40L jerrycan, but now I'm concern with waste.. I mean, I live in a flat and the plants my wife have for sure don't use 40L a week of water..

Is there another way to reuse the water ? For instance, with a RO system, will it make the water suitable again for aquarium use ?

I do not think it's intuitive really.
It is once you think about it, see about what it is might be occurring, ask a focused specific question, then try and answer what you can........often common sense is a good solution.

I do not think that is far removed from IT work either
There is still the human factor and what the goal is, trade offs etc.

RO is a porocess that's based on pressure and waste water rejection brine.
Typically about 90% is rejection brine, so for every 10 Gal of water used, you waste 90 Gallons.

So if you used pure RO water for your aquarium(say 50 Gal), then you'd used some 450 Gallons of tap to get that 50 Gallons.

Based on 50% weekly WC with plain tap water.........you could do 18 weeks, or 4.5 month's worth of water changes for the same amount.

So unless you plan on not doing water changes for 2-5 month's at a time, do not mind testing, and dosing accordingly to ppm's for several parameters, it does not pay to use RO. Even if you blend it say 50% RO/Tap, you still have 2-3 months worth of waste tap water using RO.

Few bother to save the rejection brine with RO, funny how waste water becomes such an issue with say EI methods yet when it comes to RO, suddenly the brain fall out the window.

Still, you can use EI, modify the light and use less, this drives things slower, thus the dosing is reduced and the error cushion is increased, so you can get away with water changes once every 2-3 weeks easily. EI is not strict about weekly water changes, that's just something that works as a general rule, 50% weekly is easy on the math. Since it is a non limiting upper bound, you are able to start there and slowly reduce the dosing and if you want to improve WC % efficiency, run less electric, slow plant growth rates etc, then start with lower lighting.

This makes most all other downstream management much simpler and easier.

Also, water is not wasted once it goes down the drain, it is recycled typically.
Goes to the waste water plant(hopefully), they treat it and it goes to some other downstream use. A good low flow toilet will save you 10X more water, low flow shower head: 8X more water etc.

These are simple water saving devices that do not cost much, do not provide any inconvenience for us etc.

Same with eyeballing plant demands with dosing.
We start at a higher non limiting level and slowly reduce down, making sure the CO2 is good, light is low/moderate etc. Once we find the average REDUCED level of dosing that still provides good growth, we then start reducing % water changes, or...........the frequency of the water changes, or.....a little of both.

This all can be done without a test kit since we start at a higher level, do more water changes at the start and reduce them down later after the "plant test" is done.

The plants are the test kit here.
We know how much and what frequency we add the ppm's of fertilizers right?
So we have control of the rate of dosing and can modify that without ever using a test kit, which may or many not tell us what we need to know.

We just want nice plants, not some "ppm" really.
That is not immediately obvious to some folks.
The plants define this, not nutrients.

How do you handle testing sediments where there can be many nutrients?
Hobbyist really cannot do that easily in any standard way/method.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jbrazio]

By no means I want to do WC with RO only.
With 1:4 ratio of RO from the 40L you'll end up with 8L of RO water.. taking into account the cost of the system plus the energy to run it.. I don't see were you can get a ROI there..
Let's face it, RO is expensive to buy, expensive to run and only needed if the tap water really sucks.. and if that's the case, maybe it will be cheaper to buy bottled water.

Nevertheless, the question was if it was possible to use RO to treat the weekly WC waste and if the outcome of the RO was just good as tap water for the EI method.
You're doing a WC to control nutrient levels, then you pass that water trough a RO system, the nutrient level after the RO system will suit the EI propose for WC ?
Simple, good old curiosity.

I never criticized EI !
FYI, I was dosing things individually:
- Four DIY solutions for N P K Mg
- Flourish
- Flourish Iron
- Flourish trace

Got really tired of it and about three weeks ago I looked into EI vs PPS-PRO..
Like I said, I'm lazy with WC and PPS-PRO claimed that no WC were needed.. well, I gave it a try.

One of the recommendations was to lower the CO2 from 30ppm (the value I was running at) to 15ppm.. I also did that.

After three weeks, I must say that the results from PPS-PRO were:
- Plants are not pearling anymore
- GSA is everywhere
- Some plants are getting their edges kinda twisted
- Some plants are showing holes
- Some plants are turning yellow despite the fact I inject 1ppm iron everyday.. I'm way over the recommended PPS-PRO dosage for iron..
- Algae is everywhere

I really need to get a grip on the tank again and this time I'll try with EI.

 

[Tom Barr]

Nevertheless, the question was if it was possible to use RO to treat the weekly WC waste and if the outcome of the RO was just good as tap water for the EI method.

Yes, the rejection of the waste water should be fairly low, say 5:1 or thereabouts.
So say you had 40 L or wastewater from the water change.
8 liters of yield that could be reused.
32 liters of waste, sure.

But seems like a lot of hassle to save a mere 8 liters of water to me.
Also, what type of method will you use to pressurize the wastewater?
Tap water RO uses the tap water pressure, there's no pressure(unless you put the wastewater up really high) or used a pressure booster pump.

I'd rather just carry the water outside and dump the bucket on a tree than deal with that.

You're doing a WC to control nutrient levels, then you pass that water trough a RO system, the nutrient level after the RO system will suit the EI propose for WC ?
Simple, good old curiosity.

While we are doing a WC to mange nutrients, recycling is a good idea, but the cost for us to do it, and effort is much less than the cost of the tap water.
More labor and cost, which is what we are trying to avoid in the first place.

Adding waste water to the landscape is easy, however, living in a very urban location, or apartment etc, we may not have such options/luxuries.

I like the idea in theory, do not get me wrong.
I just wonder if the cost/energy required to do it is worthwhile.
It has to be practical, relative easy effort wise for us to do and cost effective.

Otherwise, you would simply go back to the old way, which was testing and calibrations, then dose according to what was removed by plants/fish.
That would be easier to manage in most respects vs repurifying the wastewater and starting again.

Got really tired of it and about three weeks ago I looked into EI vs PPS-PRO..
Like I said, I'm lazy with WC and PPS-PRO claimed that no WC were needed.. well, I gave it a try.

I can claim all sorts of things.
Does not mean I'm right.
This idea of adding what is removed or not doing WC's is old as the hills and was around long before PPS or PPS pro came around, a number of folks did this.
We all tested prior to EI for the most part.

If avoiding water changes due to laziness is the key, then make the water change easier, automate the water change or hard plumb it into the home.
I hang a hook on the tank, drains in a few minutes, change the outlet, the water refills the tanks in the few minutes.
I eat dinner, prune, wash dishes, any no# of different things while the aquariums drains, fills.

It's not hard.
Hard plumbed tanks are very easy, turn a valve to drain, turn another to fill.
Takes virtually no motivation to do it.

Testing water is the issue with PPS.

One of the recommendations was to lower the CO2 from 30ppm (the value I was running at) to 15ppm.. I also did that.

Light drives CO2 uptake, you cannot suggest lower CO2 and then suggest it works equally at all light intensities. That is BASIC plant carbon nutrition and light.
See a basic Bio 101 text book from high school.

After three weeks, I must say that the results from PPS-PRO were:
- Plants are not pearling anymore
- GSA is everywhere
- Some plants are getting their edges kinda twisted
- Some plants are showing holes
- Some plants are turning yellow despite the fact I inject 1ppm iron everyday.. I'm way over the recommended PPS-PRO dosage for iron..
- Algae is everywhere

I really need to get a grip on the tank again and this time I'll try with EI.

I've never stated that PPS classic with monitoring the ppms does NOT work, it does and I've helped many that have many issues to correct issues.
PPS Pro is a poor attempt to simply it.

It is no different than PMDD and adds a little bit of PO4 is all.
Take a look for yourself:

Control of Algae in Planted Aquaria

They add nutrients to a slight excess(same general idea as EI).
The CO2 is 10-15ppm.
If you see how much ppm's per day are added from the solution suggested back in 1995-1996, it's virtually identical to PMDD except for PO4.

We know today because of myself and Steve Dixon that PO4 limitation was wrong for algae control. PPS renamed this and called it something they came up with, which is plagerism/thievery as far as I am concerned.
They did not cite those folks or achknowledge the similarities.

EI came from PMDD.
Here's the rational I used:
I used more ppm's for the dosing because I scaled up the light from 2 W/gal of T12 low efficiency lighting that both Paul and Kevin used in PMDD.
I had 3.75W/gal of MH lighting, very very high light for the time.
So I doubled and later tripled the dosing.

To avoid balance issues, I also increased CO2 to 2X, to 30ppm. many Germans folks had also been doing 30-40ppm without any adverse effects on fish, despite all the myths to the contrary.

Later, more folks accepted higher CO2 than they did nutrients being scaled up.
I'm not sure why, CO2 is far more problematic and lethal to livestock than any nutrient other than NH4, which is typically never added. So most today suggest 30ppm or so of CO2, studies by Haller, Van and Bowes also suggested the max rate is about 30ppm for CO2.

PMDD has been used by many people for decades.
It works and there's no reason why PPS would be any different, it adds a bit of PO4, but plants can handle limiting PO4 ppm's pretty well.

If the plant is limited by low light and by low PO4, then the CO2 demand goes down, so 15ppm is enough if the tank is limited by PO4 strongly.

the graph below explains it well:

If you get in the A range, the rates of growth(and CO2 demand go way way down. PMDD wanted to target the B range pretty much, same for PPS.

EI targets the 90% and above range, C and D.
You can start in the D range, and then eyeball it slowly down to C.
But this means good CO2 always, good stable light, and slowly adjusting the nutrients in balance.

Light => drives CO2=> drives nutrient uptake.
This is the inherent balance so many speak of but often have little clue about what is really is.

These are not new concepts.
Farmers, plant scientist etc have long known these relationships going back to Liebig's law of the minimum in the 1800's.

EI uses Liebig's law, so does Hoagland's modified solutions in research etc.
We provide a non limiting reference and then do our treatments by reducing them down slowly from there and watching plant growth. I hold no personal issue with tap water vs test kits, or a mix of the two to manage nutrients.
Both work and both have their prospective trade offs.
Some can be worked around(eg making the water change easier/easy as possible/automated even, cannot do this for NO3, PO4 testing etc)
Then there's the human factors.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Tom Barr]

I'm sort of giving you a little bit of history and the reasons why "things are where the way they are today".

I think the notion of recycling the water for reuse is interesting.
Practical? I cannot think of any good way to do it given the alternative trade offs.

Still, do not look down on PPS/PMDD, rather, look what it offered.
Then up the ppm's and adjust the dosing to suit.

I did this, you might find this method more suitable as it is just that:

http://www.barrreport.com/estimativ...accuracy-want-daily-pmdd-style-ei-dosing.html

I'm lazy and leave for a few days here and there, so I often cannot dose daily.
I could get automated dosing pumps also, but I've never really liked them, and I have to feed the fish some too.
So I feed them whenI gte back and take care on the neglected tank.

I use a PVC hook U shaped with strains to keep fish from being sucked in etc attached to a garden hose and drain/fill with that from the bathroom.
If I had 1-2 nice built in tanks and owned the home, I'd hard plumb them like I have for my clients.

This way the water change is very easy.
Add a solenoid, float valve and drain/water source tap+ carbon filter and you can do this automated and do daily water changes etc, whatever you desire.

You simply cannot do that with a NO3/PO4 test kit.

Still, you do not HAVE to do 50% weekly water changes, I go 2weeks on 2 of my tanks that grow slower. I do 60% every 2 weeks, they have low light(1.8 W/gal at 30 cm above the tank) and are slower growing plants, with high fish loads(source of nutrients).

So dosing is rather easy and I do not add as EI ppm's to them.

The other solution to dosing, which given the whining PPS crowd has done for years, yet ironically does not suggest it, is using nutrient rich sediments.

Mineralized soil(MS), Worm castings methods, ADA aqua soil amazonia all work excellent and are long term source of nutrients.

These can act as the primary source (or the back up for the water column ppm's) for nutrients and no dosing is done. I think the results show that dosing both locations gets the most out both methods.

Plants can and all take up nutrients from both locations, so the sediment last longer by adding nutrients to the water column, while the sediment provides a back up to the water should you forget to dose, or leave for a week etc, or perhaps you want to dose less and keep a lower range and avoid water changes to manage ppm''s build up in the tank.

You still need to initially do water changes until the sediment settles, but after, you can get away with lots more neglect. ADA does this, however, they also still claim that excess nutrients = algae and problems, and they also are very unclear on light and CO2, suggesting you must use their "system".

The ADA also limits PO4 in the water, but there's lots in the ADA aqua soil.
The light is also very low compared to what you might predict with watt/gal rules.

I do EI and modify it with ADA AS, but my ADA As is now 2+ years old, so I go full EI and even higher on PO4.

Initially, you can easily do say 50% EI with ADA AS.
After a few months, you can raise it

This is still 10-20X richer than ADA's recommendations.

My point is that you do not need to have a really low residual.
It adds a back up, more wiggle room for non limiting ppm's, not an algae bloom.
Fear mongering will suggest algae.

However, testing and results show otherwise.

Still, for your set of goals, I think lower lighting is good, followed with good high CO2, high water current(O2 is factor in how much CO2 can be added due to fish respiration, they need O2 and to expel CO2), and sediment based ferts, and light EI dosing with a good sized water change maybe once every 2 weeks once things settle down and get back on track.

That way you can not do much except 2x a month.
Some good plant selection, scape designs will also help reduce the work load.

If something goes wrong, increase the water changes, keep up on things a bit till things right themselves. Catch this before things get really bad, and it should be fairly robust.

I think you'll find you can go a long time without much effort using this approach that considers several things, not just the nutrients alone. You could do say 20-25% water change weekly, or every 2 weeks etc if things are doing well.

Etc.

If that is still too much work, then you can slow thigns way down and do non cO2 methods, so there's yet another option, or a hybrid there, using Excel or Easy carbo and monthly water changes, about 1/5 EI etc.

There is no one size fits all method, and not everyone has the same goals or habits. That';s why I do and suggest several


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jbrazio]

Adding waste water to the landscape is easy, however, living in a very urban location, or apartment etc, we may not have such options/luxuries.
(...)
Hard plumbed tanks are very easy, turn a valve to drain, turn another to fill.
Takes virtually no motivation to do it.

Putting the RO aside, how about DI it ?
All you need is a heat source and something to cool down afterward.. but does the DI water fits the propose of WC ?

Doing a hard pluming is out of question, but two jerrycans can serve for the same propose.. I think you can still use them with a solenoid and a return pump for automation.

Do you add the water from the tap directly into the tank, What's the standard treatment ? Only carbon filtering and some anti-Cl ?

It is no different than PMDD and adds a little bit of PO4 is all.
Take a look for yourself:

Control of Algae in Planted Aquaria

I already did know the PMDD article you referenced, I think PPS-PRO reassembles the same principle but not PPS.
Even before knowing about PPS, I already did the set of solutions. PPS is nothing more than "common knowledge", they only created a name for it.

I believe I did a mistake going into PPS-PRO, asked some questions on the forum and them seem death.. after googling around for the reason why they used so little nutrients I found more and more comments about people switching from PPS-PRO to EI due to problems.

Light drives CO2 uptake, you cannot suggest lower CO2 and then suggest it works equally at all light intensities. That is BASIC plant carbon nutrition and light.
See a basic Bio 101 text book from high school.

I read some articles were you explain that the concentration of CO2 is not equally spread across the tank, the delta can high and related with the flow inside the tank.

Whats the best way to measure CO2 on the water column without using any fancy equipment ? I saw some stuff were a 4dKH solution is used on the drop checker and as far as I understood, if it sticks on the green side then you've got 30ppm.. I can't understand the principle why this works.

A lot of folks are discussing about light spectrum, temperature and so on.. but it seems to me that those aspects are not as important to you as CO2 for instance.. at least you don't discuss them as much.

But if light is the base of the pyramid, and it makes sense.. in the end is all about photosynthesis, how can the light recommendations resume to a w/gal ratio ?

I'm sort of giving you a little bit of history and the reasons why "things are where the way they are today".

I'm cool with that, History is what defines us but some folks maybe don't care about it.

BTW, I will indeed give the "EI-ml-dosing" a try, I'm proud to say that today I throw the laziness away and changed 50% of the water.
I found strange that:
- My gH was 21dGH before WC and after it only went down to 19dGH
- My kH was 8dKH and after the WC it stayed at 8..

Is this normal ?! I really need to lower the KH.

The tap water values are 4dKH and 10dGH.
Is there any algorithm to calculate how much water is needed to change to lower the KH/GH value, based on the current tank values and tap values ?

Best regads,
João Brázio.

 

[Tom Barr]

Putting the RO aside, how about DI it ?
All you need is a heat source and something to cool down afterward.. but does the DI water fits the propose of WC ?

Sure resins can remove most of it, takes time, is slow.
Cost effective?
No, not even close.
Tap water is dirt cheap.
Takes less labor and initial start up cost.
The trade offs do not add up.

Do you add the water from the tap directly into the tank, What's the standard treatment ? Only carbon filtering and some anti-Cl ?

I add tap direct, add some Seachem Prime or Dechlor etc.........., some folks do carbon prefiltering, eg some clients I have. But not worth it for most hobbyists, just add prime and be done with it.

Never done anything different, breed discus and dozens of others, have kept Altums, you name the rare fish/shrimp, I've pretty much kept it.

I already did know the PMDD article you referenced, I think PPS-PRO reassembles the same principle but not PPS.

Resembles? The ppm's and targets, advice etc, is virtually identical.
Even the CO2......most get things out of whack and end up having to do a water change anyway.

Even before knowing about PPS, I already did the set of solutions. PPS is nothing more than "common knowledge", they only created a name for it.

Likewise the same is true of EI, I just extended the rational with math for not using test kits, and using teaspoons vs solutions. But folks have long been doing large water changes to reset and then dosing thereafter.

Hardly "new". I do not make such claims, or that it's "advanced", none of it is.
The main issue I try to show folks is that algae are NOT nutrient limited.
The other biggie: non limiting nutrients are effective at ruling out the nutrients as a dependent factor/cause. This latter idea is not new in anyway, been used for 100's of years in horticulture.

Old myths die hard.

I believe I did a mistake going into PPS-PRO, asked some questions on the forum and them seem death.. after googling around for the reason why they used so little nutrients I found more and more comments about people switching from PPS-PRO to EI due to problems.

I do not think it is due to the nutrients so much, rather, the low CO2 suggestions.
If the PO4 is limited but not too limited, say in that B range in the graph above, then you will limit CO2 demand and be okay, problem is, many do not keep close tabs on the PO4.

Less ppm's/narrower ranges makes it harder to management, that is common knowledge as well.

It can be done well and it can be modified. It's not much different than PMDD, which many have done for a very long time. I modified PMDD by using only dry ferts, but still used liquid traces, and adding PO4.

I also scaled the CO2 up because Steve and I found that BBA was a CO2 issue.
Many claimed this ppm of CO2 was bad for fish. Well, after breeding discus and Angels etc............

I read some articles were you explain that the concentration of CO2 is not equally spread across the tank, the delta can high and related with the flow inside the tank.

Yes. That's what a CO2 meter revealed.

Whats the best way to measure CO2 on the water column without using any fancy equipment ? I saw some stuff were a 4dKH solution is used on the drop checker and as far as I understood, if it sticks on the green side then you've got 30ppm.. I can't understand the principle why this works.

Eyeballs work best, Riccia rock and if it pearls well.........say 50% of the ligth period or more, you have enough CO2.
General experience and observation of the plants, and algae too, they all are "test kits", and much much much.........more precise than any test kit or ppm......

Also, lack of algae is also an excellent bioindicator, test kit.
If someone claims that NO3 at 30ppm causes algae, we simply add it and see.
If not.........and several others do the same and have similar results, we must reject that hypothesis and move on.

Drop checkers have a trade off, so does the 3000$ CO2 meter obviously.........
DC's are slow in their respond times, maybe 2-3 hours.
The color accuracy is tough to discern. 0.2 units off of pH is lot of CO2.

They, like most test kits, are generally used to get close, then eyes are used to tweak from there. Most that are good at this hobby do this.

A lot of folks are discussing about light spectrum, temperature and so on.. but it seems to me that those aspects are not as important to you as CO2 for instance.. at least you don't discuss them as much.

I do, but in terms of duration and PAR/intensity.
And generally using less, not more, I'd rather limit light intensity to control algae, growth, CO2 demand and nutrients.

That is where growth starts, not with NO3 or PO4.

But if light is the base of the pyramid, and it makes sense.. in the end is all about photosynthesis, how can the light recommendations resume to a w/gal ratio ?

Well, experience with a specific light brand, type etc, can make up for all of that. A PAR meter to test the light intensity is also a useful tool.

There is a lot of irony in that for all the banter over the need to test from the PPS crowd, they never bothered to test light it self
I did. They might being changing, but only well after the fact and the basics of how plants grow.

BTW, I will indeed give the "EI-ml-dosing" a try, I'm proud to say that today I throw the laziness away and changed 50% of the water.
I found strange that:
- My gH was 21dGH before WC and after it only went down to 19dGH
- My kH was 8dKH and after the WC it stayed at 8..

Is this normal ?! I really need to lower the KH.

The tap water values are 4dKH and 10dGH.
Is there any algorithm to calculate how much water is needed to change to lower the KH/GH value, based on the current tank values and tap values ?

Best regads,
João Brázio.

Lazy is good, it makes us come up with better ways to do things.
The trade off for the WC is really not using test kits or fiddling with micromanagement. Easy, quick and simple.

Any aquarist coming into the plant hobby knows how to do a WC.
Most know how to add 1/4 teaspoon etc.

That is very simple.

Then they can focus more on CO2/light etc.
Those are larger factors, nutrients, honestly.....are pretty easy.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jbrazio]

I did some comparison based on a 500ml solution and a target tank of 80L.
I hope I didn't messed the calculations..

PMDD - Poor's Man Dupla Drops (The lack of P shows the old theory of P = algae)
BPMDD - Brazio's PMDD, I updated PMDD based on nPk ratio of 5:1:20 that I believe I read on some of your articles.
PPS-PRO - You know what this is.
EI-ml - EI formula but without tablespoons

• The same amount of EI will give less nutrients that PPS-PRO, but I'm dosing 6x the recommended dosage of PPS-PRO.
• EI seems to dose K at 38% vs 52% of N, what happen to the 5:1:20 ratio ?

If I do not want to add discus buffer but rather dose it daily, adding 25g of MgSO4 to the EI solution will dose daily 0,72ppm/12ml of Mg.
After 7 days Mg concentration will be 5.04ppm, is this OK ?

What if I would like to change 25% of the water weekly, what should be adjusted on the EI dosing ?

Best regards,
JB.

 

[Tom Barr]

I did some comparison based on a 500ml solution and a target tank of 80L.
I hope I didn't messed the calculations..

PMDD - Poor's Man Dupla Drops (The lack of P shows the old theory of P = algae)
BPMDD - Brazio's PMDD, I updated PMDD based on nPk ratio of 5:1:20 that I believe I read on some of your articles.
PPS-PRO - You know what this is.
EI-ml - EI formula but without tablespoons

• The same amount of EI will give less nutrients that PPS-PRO, but I'm dosing 6x the recommended dosage of PPS-PRO.
• EI seems to dose K at 38% vs 52% of N, what happen to the 5:1:20 ratio ?

If I do not want to add discus buffer but rather dose it daily, adding 25g of MgSO4 to the EI solution will dose daily 0,72ppm/12ml of Mg.
After 7 days Mg concentration will be 5.04ppm, is this OK ?

What if I would like to change 25% of the water weekly, what should be adjusted on the EI dosing ?

Best regards,
JB.

1.
You are missing some important parts of PMDD, Paul NEVER once stated that PO4 should ever be zero. Ever.

He suggested it be kept around 0.2ppm or so, but NEVER absent.
This is huge point and many assumed less PO4 is better which is wrong/incorrect.

PO4 typically came from fish loads or Tap in my case back in the mid 1990's(which is why I grew plants so well compared to most of the other folks, "magic" they said at the time)

2. Discus buffer?
You are adding discus buffer?
There's most of the issue if you are..................
Stop adding that, it's causing most of the issues.

Use RO water if you want softer water, it's not a pH issue, it's a KH issue.
You need to make sure you understand that clearly and why.
It wreaks havoc on CO2 estimations, hence the CO2 problem to begin with.

3.
Liquid PMDD+PO4 should give you about 2.5X more than PPS...........and a different ratio, but somewhat close to that general range.

4. 3-5ppm of Mg per week is fine. My old tap had 52ppm of Mg.
Nasty stuff.

5. Let me know again, the light intensity, plant types, fish load, a pic of the tank etc. This will give me a better idea.

25% vs 50% water change is not any more work, you still hook the hoses up, still need to drag them out of the closet etc, still have to wait for them to drain/refill.

But if that 25% is what you are going to to do, simply chose one parameter, say NO3, test a few times to see where it goes after each month and adjust. You will need to calibrate the test kit, I'd get a Lamotte NO3 kit for that. Shoot for an average of 15-25ppm of NO3.

How you dose everything is still extremely dependent on the CO2.
This is why there are many examples of both failure and success for EVERY method. I'd rather have you keep up on good water changes and watch CO2 and eyeball things there instead of testing and doing less water changes.

Folks do better using their eyes and keeping up on good water quality.
It's more broad based that mere nutrient management.

CO2/light are more important to balancing things than nutrients, which are rather easy.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[jbrazio]

Well I made some confusion.. were I wrote "Discus buffer" it should have been read "GH booster".

I know that they do not recommended 0ppm PO, but the tables I've uploaded are the ratios for the solutions, in PMDD they do not add any KH2PO4 nor other chemical containing PO4.

How can it give you 2.5x more ? I must have done something wrong, should I attach the spreadsheet ?

My question about Mg comes because the base solution for EI-ml does not have any on it, instead you recommend to dose "GH booster" that I assume has some Mg on it. I was thinking about mixing Mg with the standard EI solution, that's why my question about the levels.

Right now I'm doing a mid-stage for WC with a 20L jerrycan until I'll do some kinda hose to drain. That brings me another question, filling I believe you use the pressure from the tap, but to drain you've got to use some kinda pump.. right ?

Size:
- Panoramic design
- 71.5x30x46.5 cm, 83L net

Light (1.2w/L):
- T5 - 2x24W 10.000k
- 2x24W Aqualine Plant Grow

Flora:
- Eleocharis parvula
- Cryptocoryne undulata
- Hemianthus micranthemoides
- Cabomba caroliniana
- Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig'
- Hygrophila corymbosa
- Alternanthera reineckii var. lilacina

My plants are getting holes on them and twisted edges, which I assume to be lack of Carbon.

This weekend I changed the external CO2 reactor dual venturi design by Tom Barr to a chinese pollen diffuser (I believe you call this "discs"). I also changed the spray bar from the canister filter to a vertical position pointing to the diffuser.

I also added a powerhead to create more flow, now I can see the mist everywhere.. I don't mind with that, I kinda like it.. but what I don't like is the plants being bent by the flow of the powerhead.. is there a way to handle this ?


Best regards,
JB.

 

[Tom Barr]

Well I made some confusion.. were I wrote "Discus buffer" it should have been read "GH booster".

I know that they do not recommended 0ppm PO, but the tables I've uploaded are the ratios for the solutions, in PMDD they do not add any KH2PO4 nor other chemical containing PO4.

That makes more sense

While it's not included in the base formula, Paul suggested adding it if it got too low. If you have high NO3 in the tap water with EI, you'd delete KNO3 and switch to K2SO4 etc. Point is, the methods , all of them, should not be applied rigidly and absolute.

You still need to account for some PO4 dosing in the PMDD dosing if the PO4 is less than say 0.1ppm and keep it at 0.2pppm ideally.
This comes directly from Kevin and Paul whom I know.

My question about Mg comes because the base solution for EI-ml does not have any on it, instead you recommend to dose "GH booster" that I assume has some Mg on it. I was thinking about mixing Mg with the standard EI solution, that's why my question about the levels.

GH booster is 2:1:1
K2SO4: CaSO4: MgSO4
Do not forget the H2O for hydrated salts.
So there's ample Mg, if you wanted to add another 1/4 teaspoon per 80 liters after a water change on top of that, no issue.

Right now I'm doing a mid-stage for WC with a 20L jerrycan until I'll do some kinda hose to drain. That brings me another question, filling I believe you use the pressure from the tap, but to drain you've got to use some kinda pump.. right ?

No, gravity works pretty well with a siphon.

My plants are getting holes on them and twisted edges, which I assume to be lack of Carbon.

Good assumption.
Plants will cannibalize themselves and stunt and reduce tip growth if the CO2 status changes.

40-45-% is C from CO2 of what you see of plants, only 2-3% are the other nutrients(H, O makes up the remainder).

I also added a powerhead to create more flow, now I can see the mist everywhere.. I don't mind with that, I kinda like it.. but what I don't like is the plants being bent by the flow of the powerhead.. is there a way to handle this ?


Best regards,
JB.

Sure, change the flow patterns, have the flow split or have it hit a piece of wood, rock, side of the tank etc. For a tank this size, you do not need that much flow, more for aquariums 2-4x this size.

A small 100-200lph pump should do fine.
Or have the canister filter blow the mist around.

The **internal** DIY reactor is likely more suited to this tank size than an external. Might give that a try also, always gave me more consistent results for CO2 than the disc have.

Regards,
Tom Barr