Please check my E.I. dosage

[magnosis]

I've finally made the switch to dry ferts, and re-read a bunch of articles on Estimated Index dosage to make sure I get the quantities right.

So far I'm making good sense of it all, except for the PO4 dosage.

For instance, taking the 40-60G dosage from Tom Barr, and putting the numbers in APC's Fertilator (or Chuck Gadd's calculator, same results), I get these numbers:

1/2 tsp KNO3 => 8.43 ppm NO3 + 5.31 K
1/8 tsp KH2PO4 => 2.58 ppm PO4 + 1.06 K
1/8 tsp K2SO4 => 1.90 ppm K

This is fed 3x a week for high-to-medium light tanks of 40-60G (more info here and here )

Thus, the weekly total for 3 doses/week = 25.58ppm NO3 + 7.74ppm PO4 + 24.81ppm K

This is where I get confused.  PO4 seems way out of range  .

Tom's recommended concentrations are :
NO3: 5-30 ppm (good)
PO4: 1-2 ppm (bad ? the above is more than 3x beyond this range)
K+: 10-30 ppm (good)

So, is dosing 7.74 ppm of PO4 / week a good thing ?  Or should I aim for 1-2 ppm ?

[fischkopp]

Please add info for: tank size, lights, CO2, traces.

What plants do you keep?

From what I see so far, 1/8 phosphate seems a little high. I dose 1/32 every day/other day. 

[magnosis]

oh yes, of course 

Lights: 2 x 54W T5HO, 9 hours/day
CO2: pressurized, injected via reactor, 10 hours/day, comes up 1h prior lights (~25ppm)
Plants: a bunch. don't have all the names, I'll post a pic tonight it will be simpler

So I know this E.I. dosage is a baseline and requires adjustment for my own tank, but I was more or less asking about the baseline itself, checking why the suggested dosage doesn't match the desired ranges ONLY for PO4...

[magnosis]

This is my 10g tank -- 30W T5 Colormax+6700K, no CO2, no ferts, 4 small black mollies + 3 SAE, tons of tiny pond snails



Plants :
Cryptocoryne Parva -- almost no growth whatsoever
Sagittaria Subulata -- yellow-ish leaves, tips dying off
Anubias Barteri var. 'Petite' -- good
Hemianthus Micranthemoides -- good
Microsorum Pteropus (Java Fern) -- good
Blyxa japonica -- yellow-ish leaves, tips dying off



This is my 59g -- 110W T5HO 10000K+6700K, CO2, minor fertilization 1-2x/week, 6 otos, 6 nerite + a few dozen pond snails:



Plants:
I let algae grow on the back panel, helps keeping it from growing elsewhere
Bacopa Monnieri -- good
Cryptocoryne Undulata -- more and more brown, not good
Hemianthus Micranthemoides -- good
Hygrophilla Polysperma -- good
Hygrophilia Polysperma var. 'Sunset' -- near death, melting
Marsilea spp. -- some good, some melting, slow growth
Microsorum Pteropus (Java Fern) good
Microsorum Pteropus "narrow" -- some tips becoming translucents ?
Rotala macrandra 'Green Narrow Leaf' -- near death, melting
Taxiphyllum barbieri (Java Moss) -- good

[Toss]

Hello,
My gut feeling tell me that you might not have enough plants in the tank for baseline dosing. Too much nutrients in tank = algae bloom.

[magnosis]

Hello,
My gut feeling tell me that you might not have enough plants in the tank for baseline dosing. Too much nutrients in tank = algae bloom.

Right, this isn't heavily planted, but some plants are showing signs of some sort of deficiency, I need to figure what's missing (pretty sure it's not CO2, maybe lights ?)

[fischkopp]

Nice tanks!

I agree with Toss, based on your current lighting and the plant selection (for the 59gal), full EI dosing would be too much. The majority of plant mass is made up by slow growing fern, moss and anubias, as well as root feeding crypts. EI dosing is intended for tanks with a majority of medium to fast growing (stem) plants that extract most of their nutrients from the water column. So you need to cut back, maybe to a 1/8 to 1/4 of the recommended dosing.

I see you are using a drop checker for CO2. Good. Try to increase the CO2 until you see a yellowish green, I would guess it's around 1-5 bubbles per second for a tank that size.

Lights, I used to have it at 10 hours and even longer, but in the last couple of months it's limited to 8 hours on my planted tank. I do find that it causes subjectively less algae problems and keeps the growth rate in check as well.

Keep an eye on the temperature as well; the optimum for most plants seems to be around 25deg celsius.

Crypt turning brown - could it be diatoms? Not sure I see any in your picture.
Hygrophilia Polysperma var. 'Sunset' - place it on a bright spot. If you didn't get it long ago, it might be going through an adjustment phase.
Marsilea spp. - don't worry, once its established (and that might take a few weeks occasionally) it will grow in any condition.
Microsorum Pteropus "narrow" - I have seen this before, not sure about the reason.
Rotala macrandra 'Green Narrow Leaf'  - same as Hygro.

Judging from the pic, the growth looks good, so don't increase dosing by too much. Increase CO2, add fast grower, add light, and you will be in need of more fertilization.

Good luck!

[magnosis]

Thank you guys, that was very helpful !

Note that my well water is basically liquid rock. The PH out of the tap is 8.0, and by dropping it to 7.0 (-ish)  I think that's about 25-30 ppm, right ?  I could never get the drop checker to go yellow-green, however.  Currently the CO2 runs about 3-4 bubbles per second.  The thing too, I think because the KH is about 18d, the PH doesn't "buffer" really well, meaning it goes back up to 8.0 pretty quick after the CO2 is turned off, maybe within 3-4 hours.  When I wake up in the morning the drop checker is dark blue, and goes to green by the end of the day.

Maybe I should try starting CO2 injection earlier before the lights comes up, and try to maintain a PH of 7 throughout the day vs. reaching it by end of the day.

Another thing that baffles me a little bit, I had a ton of other (forgot the names) very easy-to-care, fast growing stem plants, but they all melted, whereas my Hemantius and Hygro are doing very well.  If anything, I would have expected it to be the other way around.

Other thoughts:
Crypt turning brown - it's not diatoms, it's just decoloration (then again, some online pics show this plant with a reddish tint, so maybe that's normal)
Hygro 'Sunset' - when I got those from BA, they were fairly big and red, and the salesperson told me I needed a lot of light for anything that's red. I don't have a "lot" of lights, and the plants almost died save for little buds I've managed to save and try to restart.


I will try to get closeup shots of the plants that aren't in good shape tonight, maybe that will provide more insight on the deficiencies.

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback !!

[fischkopp]

I keep forgetting that not everyone has soft Ottawa tap water. Yes, 18 is very high and not really optimal for plants. I don't have too much experience with water that hard, but I can imagine that it has an impact on how well some plants grow. Some plants do require soft water, or specific calcium - magnesium ratios to do well or even grow at all.

Some crypts can turn brownish under high light, just like others get a orange/red coloration.

I have seen melting, as of breaking completely down within 1-2 days, due to Excel, extreme water condition changes (crypts), forgotten de-chlorinator, and very rarely even spontaneously (especially with Pogostemon helferi).

[magnosis]

Yah maybe I should get something to lower the KH a bit when I do my water changes, I remember the LFS selling some product for that.  Do you know if lowering hardness with such products is permanent, or is something I need to keep dosing on regular basis (i.e. in-between water changes) ?

[fischkopp]

I am not aware of this product, but not too much in favor for powders that alter the water chemistry. Ultimately, you would need a RO unit to get the water softer, which seems overkill. An easier way is to adapt what plants you are keeping to the water you have available. Most commonly available plants are hardy, only some in general more difficult plants will be hard to grow.

[magnosis]

Ultimately, you would need a RO unit to get the water softer, which seems overkill.

Actually, maybe not.

Our water runs through a Kenmore water softener at the moment, but that only removes calcium, lime and a tiny bit of Iron.  The GH is heavily reduced but the KH doesn't change.  Does that make sense ? 

I really wonder if that unit does what it's supposed to. I was just recently discussing with my fiancee on the possibility of installing a decent RO unit right out of the softener. We're not too keen on spending extra $ but between a RO unit and a replacement resin-based softener, I really don't know...

[magnosis]

Some closeup (and bad quality ) shots of current plant deficiencies.
Algae is causing some damage, but there's more to it than algae.

  java fern                                                                Cryptocoryne Parva

  what is this ?                               what is this ?                                      Hygrophila polysperma 'Sunset'


The crypto parva doubled in size, forked into 3 more plantlets, then started to stop growing and turned yellow to transparent.
It's also melting.  Much of it due to algae blocking photosynthesis, yet even the new plantlets turned yellow within days, before algae got onto them.

The two bottom-left pictures are stem plants (I don't know the names) that used to be very nice too, twice as high and quite dense.
They lost most of their leaves, and some stems become weak so the plant grows in all kinds of bended shapes.

The Hygro is not very convincing on this picture, but it used to be 10" tall, much like this picture but 5x more dense.
The bottom leaves started to melt one after the other, and only the very top of the plant remains.