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Another EI question

Fisher2007

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19 Feb 2018
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Warrington
Apologies if this has been asked elsewhere. I've had a look and struggling to find the answer...

Basically my new tank is on order and I'm contemplating going the EI route with it but have never used this method before. I 'think' I understand the process but it's led to a couple of questions;

- If I dose for 6 days (and water change on the 7th) what happens if I can't do that water change? I'm just thinking there will be times where I'm too busy or maybe it falls on a weekend and I'm away. Can you roll the EI process for a couple of more days and just water change then instead?
- What do folks do when they do away? I'm reasonably confident I can get someone to dose daily (or as close to it as possible) BUT there's no one I know who would be willing to do a water change (and to be honest I wouldn't want them to if something went wrong)

Thanks
 
Can't you make the 7th day a monday or wednesday or any day you know you are home? Don't need to start with 6 full days on monday.
It won't hurt if you can't waterchange, just don't add extra ferts, but the more regular you can make your schedule the better for the plants i feel.
 
Usually if I leave my tank more than a week then I just stop dosing after the week. Maybe if I'm leaving it for two weeks I might dose half the amount in the second week. It's pretty flexible so just do the water change whenever you can.
 
Can't you make the 7th day a monday or wednesday or any day you know you are home? Don't need to start with 6 full days on monday.
It won't hurt if you can't waterchange, just don't add extra ferts, but the more regular you can make your schedule the better for the plants i feel.

It's not so much the 7 day cycle (Mon to Sun) that's the issue, just that I wouldn't always be at home on the 7th day whenever I started it. For one reason or another I'm quite often away with work, away socially, etc, and therefore need to factor in some flexibility
 
Usually if I leave my tank more than a week then I just stop dosing after the week. Maybe if I'm leaving it for two weeks I might dose half the amount in the second week. It's pretty flexible so just do the water change whenever you can.

That's kind of what I was hoping to hear. I appreciate consistency is ideal but the reality is that I just can't always be that consistent unfortunately. Most of the time (90% I'm hoping) I can though
 
The whole point in EI is to create an excess of ferts above the plants needs so this should give you a few days grace depending how heavily planted etc, if you notice any deficiences then dose more
 
My controller doses EI macro Mon, Wed and Sat and micro Sun, Tues and Thu, supposedly Friday being the rest day. Well water changes get done Sat or Sun and this week bank holiday Monday and plants don't really care. Dosing is at 3pm so hopefully well clear of water changes occurring in the morning.

Could modify my dosing regime around water changes, but in the end as long as you dose the required amounts weekly it just works.

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/how-to-use-a-plc-to-control-your-fish-tank.42993/
 
You mustn't dose micros and macros on same day as the iron chelate in micro reacts with potassium phosphate in the macro forming insoluble iron phosphate which is unavailable for plants to use.
 
Dosing macro and micro on same day is not recommended and WILL lead to (eventually) iron deficiency. Making your own dosing scheme that is not EI and will, as been seen many times here, lead to plant nutrient deficiency.

The alternate day dosing of EI is to prevent the micro iron chelate reacting with the macro phosphate and precipitating out as plant unavailable iron phosphate.
 
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