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EI All-In-One Solution Calculator

YzemaN

YzemaN

Member
Joined
6 Nov 2007
Messages
183
Location
Copenhagen
It's taken me a couple of months to take the plunge into EI, but inspired by Ceg's constant suggestion to up the dosage of everything and the cost of TPN+ I decided there was no time like the present. But being lazy I wanted an All-In-One solution a la TPN+ and after reading James article on http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/allinone.htm I started to put the numbers in a Excel sheet to help with the calculations. After a bit of tinkering I came up with this Excel sheet:
Dosing.xls
Please have a look and let me know if you spot any errors. I'm aware that not everybody has access to Excel but since I don't have any programming tools at present and my programming skills are a bit rusty this is the best I can do.
And if you know of a better file hosting site please share the info

ukaps BABY
😀
 
YzemaN said:
... inspired by Ceg's constant suggestion to up the dosage of everything...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I know mate. I should change my moniker to "ceg_sound_like_a_broken_record" :lol:

The spreadsheet looks OK to me. I didn't do any extensive software verification, I just plugged in my tank size to see if the numbers looked reasonable. Of course EI uses a little bit more NO3 and WAY more PO4 than PMDD does so these numbers wouldn't work for me but the computations themselves seem reasonable.

I would probably delete the two cells "ml/10 liter" and "ml/5 USG" since they are non standard and require further computation. If the person knows his/her tank size then the ml/dose tells them all they need to know. No need to further normalize the value. That just causes more confusion. It might be more useful to have cells that tell you how many ppm of each nutrient are in each dose based on the tank size.

Cheers,
 
that looks like a good sheet, certainly easy to use. how long will a mix that last however?
are there any benefits/disadvantages over an all-in-one mix like this opposed to individual dosings as per regular EI? sorry to hijack thread
JC 😀
 
Hi Joe,
There are no physiological or biochemical advantages of an all in one mix. The differences have all to do with perceived dosing convenience.

Cheers,
 
Just thought I'd add my 2p.

I agree with Clive that there's no point having the "ml/10 liter" and "ml/5 USG" cells, they're just confusing.

The Ascorbic acid and pot Sorbate figures should be linked to the traces value as well as the amount of water... I think the easiest way to do this would be to have a look up and if the traces are too high for the standard calc then a warning should appear in the cell next door suggesting they increase the dosing.

Also it would be nice to be able to specify how many doses per week you'd like to do. I dose daily (so I don't have to think what day of the week it is) and I think a lot of people are put off EI by the slightly more complex dosing scheme.

Anyway, as I say, just my 2p, good sheet all round 🙂
 
Note, I think that most dosing is more social science than plant science. Whatever it takes to get you to dose the right amount for growth rate(slow med, fast etc) Some folks skirt this issue and suggest you must do it their way as it's "better", leave the human factor out of all this.

All horticulture and aesthetic pruning is a social science to some degree.
Calculator's are good for some, others will never use them.

EI is not an attempt at an agenda, promote what I say, the general concept is not even my own, rather a response to the aquarist's human side. We do not like to test as much as many like to say they do. Many issues with the test methods, no calibrations etc. We can do simple one step things like dose, water changes etc. Even these can be automated or made far easier. These are social human issues, not plant science.

Some really enjoy mixing social and plant science up. Be careful and nail them when they try to use hot air instead of critical thinking.

Then alot of the different methods really start to seem very similar, the rates are reduced for reduced light/non CO2 etc, but so is plant growth, as the rates of mplant growth are increased by more luight, then more CO2, and now more nutrients, it's fairly apparent what is going on.

There are a number of methods to help folks dose routinely, daily, liquids, dry powders, calculators..........2x a week etc, or not at all, say non CO2 methods, or sediment dose vs water column or both together...........

Now no one method is going to meet all these goals, it is naive to assume so, but we get folks that often do and suppoort only one method.........perhaps that is all they know and they stick with it.
However, that does not imply that is the method that will be best for your goal.

Again, it gets back to humans and social science.
This is where most of the disagreement is, not the plants.







Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Hi Tom, good to have your input on this.

I think the idea of a dosing calculator is just to give people a starting point. I don't intend to tell anyone that they should do it the same way I do but when you're starting out it can be a little daunting. If you can use something like this to at least give you a rough idea of what you should be starting with then you can tailor it to your needs when you understand it better.

I'm a PhD student and I do a lot of work showing people (mainly high school students and their parents) how science can be fun and doesn't need to be difficult or hard. So many people will look at chemical names and quantities, assume it is science, is therefore difficult and avoid it. This is a generic problem across the UK and not just something that happens with people looking at EI! Using something like the dosage calculator allows people to get easy and good results right away which then encourages them to look at the underlying principles and adapt it to their own specific needs.

Sometimes you just need that springboard to make the jump seem shorter first time around.
 
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