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Amanos dosing regimen

plantbrain said:
That's 2x the light I use, I guess I know why I do not get any algae on my rocks or wood and you do:)
I do not use Glut either.........that alone can keep things clean, ADA does not use glut. This suggest that too much light and not enough CO2, rather than ferts was the issue.

You're right more light gets more algae. We still can keep the tank algae clean with many stuff including a tons of amano shrimps etc. So we're choosing this way sometimes to see some plant in much better shape. And we're succcessfull in that of course. ;)

But at some point i recognized that the same tank with same light, same filtration, same CO2 injection get's algae on the decor with EI. So i can fault the light because of that, of course still this light is very far from the ones you see in the nature. So the nutrients gets more than it's needed in my reading with this much of light. I have dosed ADA ferts (which we all know is weaker contain less stuff then our EI mixes), but i did not get algae on decor.

I know you say "do use less light", but that HC carpet will not be the same with low light for sure.
Stauro in your tank not require high light so you're right not using more there.

I am not saying EI is bad or cause algae. EI gives us very healthy plants of course (we're using that in many of our tanks). This works wonderful in many conditions. It is just an experiment that same system cause different things with more nutrients and probably less nutrient sucker plants. Luckily we're using different kinds so we can experiment this in person.

I have to add that we're using the full PS, Amazonia stuff for soil.

Before i got shot because of the ADA promo from the science guys ;) I have to add that it's not the brand, it is the experiment of the weaker fert vs the rich fert in the same system with a specific plant. Probably HC is not a nutrient sucker and that's all the explanation (need more CO2 than nutrients for this plant). But still an interesting stuff that you can see algae on rocks with one and no algae with the other.
 
cheers again Clive, it's worth having a look at the book if you haven't already got it.

OK, so in the case where the substrate was not Amazonia, is there any indication of what specifically the dosing program was? Do we actually have a factual account of whether the tank was, for example dosed with extra pumps of "Lights"? Do we know what the CO2 injection level was? How about the content of the water, was it tap or RO?

heres just an example (and theres many many throughout the book)

page 26
60 ltr
Lighting - 27w x 3 units, on for 12 hours
substrate - sea gravel and powersand
c02 - 1bps
ferts - brightly step 2
water change - a third a week
water quality - RO, Ph 6.8, TH 20mg/l
plants - riccia, mayaca fluviatilis, cambomba, microsorum, diplis dandra, Rotala macandra, rotala wallichii, limnophila aquatica

there are loads of scapes with just these additives, and i get what you are saying about marketing blurb and i know people get taken in by it...you only have to look at the marketing team Apple have, they rule! If it wasn't for them Apple would most certainly have gone under.

I was just always led to believe that if you dosed C02, to get the best out of you tank, the supply of N and P would have to be there. If you weren't so savvy, and just bought Amanos book, and did the things Amano did/does, you surely would end up with a disaster in a tank.

Ian
 
Is it worth considering that these compendiums of tanks are from before he knew any better or is this on modern tanks too, also remember amano's ocd maintainance team only carry out what he would do himself on a tank, I bet these early tanks had lower light than we'd imagine and any algae was ushered out the way prior to the final shots.
 
it is in the older tanks and the newer tanks. Still, they look brilliant looking tanks.
 
What's very interesting for me is how soft the water is. 20mg/l Total Hardness is incredibly soft.

Purely anecdotally I have experienced better plant growth since diluting my hard tap water with RO. Pearling is considerably higher and I'm dosing the same nutrients and CO2 as before. Of course, I have no proof and offer myself to be heckled to pieces by Clive and Tom... :D
 
I saw Mark last week and we got talking about RO water and how planted tanks tend to look better in RO, i have now actually started using RO, i started in the week, just changing 25% at a time, i hope to end up with it all RO. In Lincoln we have really hard water, it run direct off of Limestone, i expect yours will be hard as nails as well George. Obviously i'm yet to see a difference, but hope to do so. Although i am also noticing more pearling after 100ltr change. It did cloud when i first added it though!
 
George Farmer said:
What's very interesting for me is how soft the water is. 20mg/l Total Hardness is incredibly soft.

Purely anecdotally I have experienced better plant growth since diluting my hard tap water with RO. Pearling is considerably higher and I'm dosing the same nutrients and CO2 as before. Of course, I have no proof and offer myself to be heckled to pieces by Clive and Tom... :D

We do use pure RO on all of our display tank with great success. http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream
So even the softest water could work without any issue. No large pH swings with active soils and CO2 injection. Of course in some tanks the hardness goes up because of the decors (Seiryu etc), but we do not have problems on others too. We keep and breed CRS easily in these tanks and even apistos are breeding. So this should not be bad ;)
I had good success with hard water too, but there's a visible advantage of the soft water for sure.
 
George Farmer said:
What's very interesting for me is how soft the water is. 20mg/l Total Hardness is incredibly soft.

Purely anecdotally I have experienced better plant growth since diluting my hard tap water with RO. Pearling is considerably higher and I'm dosing the same nutrients and CO2 as before. Of course, I have no proof and offer myself to be heckled to pieces by Clive and Tom... :D

I know when I used 100% rainwater (funnily enough, for all successful tanks to date!!) I used a fraction of the CO2 I use in our tapwater. I couldn't go that low now. I was dosing very lean too (ADA with Malaya, not Amazonia), maybe the rainwater had lots of goodies in - I don't know.
 
it just doesn't have the crap our water companies put in our water. Again you here the old saying about doing water changes at the weekend because the water boards tend to flush the systems with all kinds of rubbish. I mean sometimes i can have bath and it smells like a swimming pool, it's that bad.
 
What is the ph of rain water? might consider using it in my crs nano im setting up. How do you collect it and stop parasites getting into it like you find in water butts.
 
during your water changes was it just rain water you used? and how did you stop larva from living in your water and other nasty's? Considering it, just want to make sure!
 
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