Trying to understand the light/co2/ferts balance. Liebig's law of the minimum etc.

Tom's gonna probably correct me on this but...

Law of the minimum is basically saying plants will not grow at their fullest potential if limited by a given resource. So for instance if you have a crap load of everything but nitrate is lower than the optimal growth threshold, then you won't have optimal growth since you are limiting a vital nutrient the plant needs to grow. But if you have above optimal of everything, but less nitrate than everything else, your plants will grow at max since you have no "limiting" factor.

GSA is usually signs of low PO4.

Light drives Co2 uptake which then in turn drives nutrient uptake. Essentially, light drives the rate of growth. Also understand that just b/c you have a little algae doesn't mean your doing something wrong. I think most of us have algae in our tanks, but just we don't get these huge outbreaks unless something goes wrong (like me, stirring up substrate and causing diatoms AGAIN ). If you dose EI, you got ferts covered. IF you have say medium lighting, you should be injecting CO2. CO2 is that hardest to maintain and measure. How are you measuring the CO2 concentration?

 

You would have to dose a great deal more than EI before you see negative results. By that time, your fish will probably be dead as well id imagine. Yes you are wrong to believe that excess nutrients cause algae. Nutrient deficiency can be a culprit. CO2 is 99% of the time the problem.

Theres a reason Tom tells us to focus on growing plants. If plants are thriving, algae will not be. and for plants to thrive, they need no limiting nutrient. Hence, dosing excess nutrients covers these limits and allows plants to do well.