Wet's EI modeling dosing calculator

Tom Barr

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Wet;76917 said:
Hi Tom. Yes, it's a hard problem. It's very interesting to read and see examples of how it is at least a 15 year old problem. But I think we can resolve it with a little more elbow grease/programming. For example, let me show you the first full day of the new calculator:

yanc_v2_day1.png


What's interesting here is the relatively low bounce rate (a "bounce" is a visitor who does not click on anything -- so per these GOOG Analytics we have 75-80% of folks digging deeper and ALL folks spending an average of >10 minutes figuring out what THEY want) -- the very high average time on the calculators, and the distribution of folks all over EU.

I really do think we're close to something here with a little more adjustment. And I think that adjustment is low hanging fruit we can bang out this weekend. What do you think of the 10-1.5-8-0.2 N-P-K-Fe/traces ballpark for most tanks? Let's solve tis problem!

you will note some missing spots and low Asian usage. Mexico is also low.
South Africa, China, Japan, Singapore, which uses English.........Turkey........and very noted, Russia.

The good part is the folks digging and staying on the program, this adds value, but adding something liek a small ad, unless it's a link to a non profit, club, etc........would not be ethical I would suggest.

As far as a ratio.......that will work, but my own thoughts are more:

15:2.5:15:1 NPKFE

This is more in line with dry weight plant ratios for aquatics with a leaner range for N than the others.
So dosing this would limit N more than the others.

This is about what I do and feed fish very well.
 

Wet

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you will note some missing spots and low Asian usage. Mexico is also low.
South Africa, China, Japan, Singapore, which uses English.........Turkey........and very noted, Russia.

Yes definitely. It's getting better though. Here's the first ~3 weeks of usage (I don't know what happened the to guy in the middle of Russia, but getting some traffic from West Ru and Asia):
yanc_v2_week3.png


I think we just need more folks linking it and adding translations. If traffic starts to get really good, I'll bring up servers in Europe and maybe Asia so it's even faster for those folks.

adding something liek a small ad, unless it's a link to a non profit, club, etc........would not be ethical I would suggest.

Don't worry -- my calculators will always be free, open source, and gardeners will never have to pay money for them. If server costs get too high I might ask for ads, but right now all the petalphile.com servers are about $30-50 a month, and I am happy to give this back to the community so no one has to see ads when using these tools. And when a tank gets going, plant sales to fellow hobbyists cover this cost anyway.

Sometimes I do get my own ads for hobby projects though. (I get free promotions sometimes for a few bucks in free credit, and figure I may as well use them. I have never spent any real money on this.)

The real cost is of course development time, but I simply have no desire to monetize my hobby, man. But I do love building tools for plant nerds. And these are all my first apps to play with particular things before building the stuff I get paid for, so I get something out of it too :)

As far as a ratio.......that will work, but my own thoughts are more:

15:2.5:15:1 NPKFE

This is more in line with dry weight plant ratios for aquatics with a leaner range for N than the others.
So dosing this would limit N more than the others.

This is about what I do and feed fish very well.

Done! Now the new EI recommendation from the calculator -- I'm actually scaling back to 1.0 Fe (so the above ratios are also the ppm recommendations) based on one of your other posts where you mentioned you are dosing 1.0ppm Fe. Please correct me if necessary, of course!
 
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Tom Barr

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I dose about 0.3-0.5 ppm as proxy for Fe per dose actually, this might be 2-3x a week, maybe 4-5x, depending.

Higher light= more dosing, less light= less etc.

If there is no $ to be gained, then promoting local clubs and various other resources might be useful.
Also, a simple offer:

"For the cost of this calculator and my time(which I offer for free), it would be EXTREMELY helpful to many other hobbyists like yourself if you could help offer a little bit of time to help translate the calculator into another language"

Simply ask other folks who speak Russian, or Traditional Chinese or Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese etc............
Most will help, all you need is one and one of them to post the link to their prospective regional forums.
 

Wet

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Nice -- I'll adjust the EI recommendations by this time tomorrow.

But I'd turn your suggestion around: I've promoted this calculator on many international sites, and with the help of our awesome community (mostly from The Barr Report!) we've already added 2 of the languages you've suggested. And I am certain that if we want to get more folks using these calculators, I need YOUR -- not just you, Tom, but the community here's -- help.

A link from Tom Barr is worth a lot of clicks. I know you brush this off sometimes, but your recommendation means a lot to this hobby. And the links you've already thrown around drive traffic to these tools. You are THE authority on this hobby.

Likewise, the folks who read The Barr Report are a very specialized, and ultimately authoritative, group of gardeners. You folks are experts in the field of aquatic plants.

If these tools are valuable, I ask for links and your help. There are templates to contribute your translations, instructions, and folks like Florin and dutchy and DanielSev who've contributed and can provide examples of how you can help.

Anyway, to rephrase Tom's request another way:

For the cost of these calculators, it would be extremely helpful to many other hobbyists like yourself if you could help. You can help in any number of ways: link the calculators. Give bug reports and make feature requests ( http://git.io/WguLCg ). Contribute translations ( http://calc.petalphile.com/contribute_translation ). Ask manufacturers to share their PPM. Contribute code ( http://github.com/flores ). Let's make this awesome. All of us.
 
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rafael.compassi

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Hi, Wet!

The calculator is getting better and better!

Could you add this micro mix found in Brazil?

Its simply called Micromix, and the composition is as follow:

B 0,7%, Cu 0,3%, Fe 7,5%, Mn 3,4%, Mo 0,1% e Zn 0,6%

Do you ned any additional data?

(like the weight of one teaspoon of it?)

Oh, and the Portuguese translation is very good!

Tank you very much!

Cheers

Rafael
 

Wet

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Thanks Rafael! You're right: I do need the weight/mass of one leveled teaspoon, and then it's easy to add Micromix.

Plantbrain,

This is of course easy math but here's scaling around your suggested ratios in table form, in case anyone wants it:

Code:
                        N       P       K       Fe (as a proxy for traces)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plantbrain's            15      2.5     15      1.0
 ballpark ratio

Plantbrain's            4.5     0.8     4.5     0.3
 current dosing ppm (low)

Plantbrain's            7.5     1.3    7.5     0.5
 current dosing ppm (high)

I'm going to pick the high end (scaled to 0.5ppm Fe) because the low N is what confused folks before.

I'm also assuming by N:p:K:Fe we're really talking about NO3:pO4:K:Fe, of course. (These numbers climb otherwise.) Please correct me!
 
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Wet

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hbosman and barbarossa,

I think the Internet Explorer bug is squashed on both the EI and YANC calcs. But the graphs on the one page interface for YANC gets squished instead of extending across the screen, at least on my testing virtual machine. That one might linger for a while... :)
 

Florin Ilia

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Wet;77506 said:
Code:
                        N       P       K       Fe (as a proxy for traces)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plantbrain's            15      2.5     15      1.0
 ballpark ratio

Plantbrain's            4.5     0.8     4.5     0.3
 current dosing ppm (low)

Plantbrain's            7.5     1.3    7.5     0.5
 current dosing ppm (high)
This question could be dumb, but what is a target range? (the one you've been asking about, Wet, and that Tom ballparked at 15:2.5:15:1.0). Is it
1. the concentration of stuff that will be reached at the end of one week of dosing?
1.1. starting from zero ppm?
1.2. in the absence of plant uptake? or accounting for which uptake?
2. the concentration of stuff that we should maintain "on average", in the presence of the specific uptake of our specific tank?
3. the concentration of stuff that should be in the tank at the beginning of the week, i.e. after the water change?
4. something else altogether?

Depending on which definition is used, the dosing to reach that target changes.

If I am simply missing something obvious and/or repeated 1000 times already, I apologize in advance :)

Florin
 

Wet

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Hi Florin.

Never a dumb question!

I am using these targets as simply the amount per dose for The Estimative Index baseline recommendations. As you know, we can adjust the frequency of dosing per our plant uptake/lighting/goals -- this is what Plantbrain was alluding to when he stated he might dose his Fe target twice a week or five times a week.

However, these may be false assumptions and, if so, I am sure Tom will correct me.

Your list and train of thought is interesting to me though. You may find it interesting that I am of the opinion that we should pack our tanks with plants and then assume the waste from animals is completely taken up by the plants. I think we should do larger water changes -- say 50% a couple of times a week or 75-80% once a week -- with young (low plant density, non-established plants, and therefore less plant uptake) tanks and then taper down to not-as-large water changes as the tank matures. The result of this method will be a tank where the assumption of ~0 levels is a pretty safe one. I've also found this method results in successful tanks.
 

Eudmin

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Wet,

I was using your calculator for figuring out how much of the Green Thumb Good S. Macro and Micro to add to my 20 gallon tank and how often to add it. In the thread introducing the product he says what it contains and I think that's when you added it to your calculator:

http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/9547-RAOK-Good-S-Micro-and-Macro-ferts

He gives dosing instructions for a high-light CO2 tank, for instance, that should correspond with EI that calls for less Micro than Macro per week, but your calculator has me adding more Micro than Macro. Twice as much micro than macro, actually.

Do you know if the numbers are right in the calc or why his dosing instructions on that thread would be pretty off from your calculator results?

Thanks.
 

ShadowMac

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Hi Wet, thanks for the great calculator and the work you have put into it!

Is there a feature where we can add more than one item to a solution? For example, if I want to increase my K dosing by adding K2SO4 to a solution that would already have KNO3 in it. Is the recommended addition of KNO3 based solely on Nitrate levels? or does it account for Potassium as well? And if it accounts for K, how would I calculate a good amount of K2SO4 to add to the solution, since as I see it now I would not be considering the K added by any other compounds when doing the calculation. Would this be an area where I should mention a ppm range and add the K2SO4 to hit the range if the added KNO3 doesn't hit it.

Any chance there could be a feature where you can add multiple things to a solution, say a "macro mix" calcultor or a "micro mix calculator". the micro mix calculator could have options for heavy iron dosing, excel dosing included, and any other tweeks people may want to throw in there.
 

Wet

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I apologize for my lameness in not keeping up with the thread.

Hi Eudmin,

Well, keep in mind that historically gardeners have been lazy. Almost no one actually measures the levels of most trace nutrients; instead, folks use comprehensive mixes -- say, Plantex or Miller's or Rexolin -- and assume those manufacturers have picked a pretty good ratio of the bagillion trace elements, then gardeners use Fe (normally the highest concetration of any element in any trace mix) as a barometer for *all* the traces. we know this is a safe assumption because folks have been dosing such comprehensive mixes since, like, forever.

Some other gardeners take the extra step of diversifying Fe sources using various chelators and sugars. The logic here is that Fe (and any heavy metal that is also a micro nutrient, such as Mn or Cu) most remain available for plant uptake. While there's plus gardeners who do this everyday -- including Plantbrain, including me, and including many people in this thread -- there's still some magic here and folks shouldn't take such obsession with micronutrients so seriously. Most of us are bored and playing with Micros as a last thing to tweak thing.

That any manufacturer recommends half of what Tom doses in his tanks should not surprise you. The whole point of Tom's dosing is to not care about dosing and just meet all requirements. Manufacturers have to care about $/dose and other things. In other words, it does not matter that EI -- the calculator's results -- tells you to dose twice what the manufacturer does. This is your call: pick the calc or the manufacturer recommendations. Adjust if you want to, based on plant health or how much you want to spend on premixed fertilizers.

I hope this helps. Let me know if it doesn't and I'll try to explain in another way. :)


ShadowMac,

I'm just echoing the above. Patw's set this up and Florin has kindly hosted it from an Eu location. This is probably the next feature I'll get around to for Yet Another Nutrient Calculator, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it yet. Prioritized and thanks for the feature request, though. It's important to me :)
 

Wet

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Just a handful of info updates. Most of these have been live for a while.

New translations:

Italian from rickertikari
Lithuanian from Tautvilas
Polish (in progress) from Tomek

Traffic map for version 2:
We're at about 9 weeks and looking good. Google changed their demographics maps but hopefully this is still readable.

v2_20120220.png


For developers:

Here's some JSON objects of all the compounds, commercial products, and dosing methods for the nutrient calculator. You might need to refresh the tab if you click on the links below. (Rack's XSS protection)

DIY/dry compounds: http://calc.petalphile.com/api/compounds.json
Pre-mixed/commercial stuff: http://calc.petalphile.com/api/commercial_products.json
Dosing recommendations for EI, PPS-Pro, PMDD, etc: http://calc.petalphile.com/api/dosing_methods.json
These resources: http://calc.petalphile.com/api/resources.json

Known forks of this data:

patw has updated his Spreadsheet. This is the one that sums up all sorts of stuff for you and lets you make combination mixes: http://www.aquaticplantenthusiasts....tion-spreadsheet-stocksolpro-5.html#post32684
Florin Ilia kindly hosts it for our Eu (and all!) friends here: http://www.ilia.name/florin/StockSolPro.zip

mistergreen has released version 2 of his iPhone/iPad app. This works offline in case you need that: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mistergreens-aquarium-fertilizer/

Thanks!
 

Biollante

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Me Too

Florin Ilia;79651 said:
Hey Wet, really nice map!

Out of curiosity I clicked on the JSON links, all I get is "Forbidden".

Regards,

Florin

Hi Florin,

Self-explanatory!:glee: :cower:

Biollante
 

Wet

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Heh,

Florin, try copy pasting the links or refreshing the tabs and you should see the JSON objects. I'm playing with software in the backend to avoid cross-site scripting stuffs, and the referral from TBR does not include a cross-origin request. On your own app, you should be able to have it curl or get these resources without issue. I'll wire the stuff correctly for cross-origin stuff or folks developing browser-side apps if there's interest!