EI double ovredose

[master_suprime]

Hello guys!
I found on other forum one phrase of Tom Barr. Here is it: "In most of the higher light(2-2.5W/gal ranges) tanks, I dose 15ppm of NO3 and 5 ppm of Po4 every other day, or 3x a week or so. I use a different trace mix, but add about .5-.7ppm of Fe 3x a week." This is double dose of recomended. Can anyone explain this? Is this safe for fish and plants? What
conditions demands that amount?

 

[CeeJay]

Hi master_suprime

Can anyone explain this?

In a word No
But as you may have already worked out, Tom has carried out extensive and methodical testing of the whole EI regime and meticulously recorded his results, from which we all benefit.
One thing he has worked out is that even at double the recommended amount, these dry salts are not toxic to livestock.
You will also find some people on here dose double the amount as routine, with no ill effects.
The 'excess' will make levels rise above what is being dosed to a certain level and then it will level out if you do your 50% water changes every week.

Is this safe for fish and plants?

Yes
I have dosed to levels above the EI recommended levels for sustained periods and see no ill effects to plants or livestock (shrimp included). In fact the plants positively love it. No shortages .

What conditions demands that amount?

The only condition that 'demands' that amount of ferts, is the amount of light used. Light is the driving force behind everything else, although the original EI experiments were carried out using 5-6wpg and 12 hour lighting periods.
Increasing your light raises the plants demands so more CO2 is required, if more CO2 is used then more ferts are required. All I can assume he has done is given himself a big margin of error if he forgets to dose one day or goes away for a weekend there will be no shortages.
Control your lighting and you control everything else (algae included ).
So no need to worry about any of the above .
Tom (aka plantbrain), posts up on here now and again, so I'm sure he'll let you know if he sees this .

 

[Shadow]

Is this safe for fish and plants?

Just recently, I borrowed NO3 test kit from friend. To my surprise I had 80 ppm plus in one tank and 160 ppm in other tank. API test kit is only up to 160 ppm so not use if it is above 160 ppm. I test the test kit with know NO3 ppm and the test kit is correct. Anyway, with such high level, no problem to plants, fishes and cherry shrimps propagate like rabbit.

 

[plantbrain]

Is this safe for fish and plants?

Just recently, I borrowed NO3 test kit from friend. To my surprise I had 80 ppm plus in one tank and 160 ppm in other tank. API test kit is only up to 160 ppm so not use if it is above 160 ppm. I test the test kit with know NO3 ppm and the test kit is correct. Anyway, with such high level, no problem to plants, fishes and cherry shrimps propagate like rabbit.

While okay, no risk, there's also no need to have the NO3 this high either.

20-30ppm is a better target.

So while some will put fear as a reason, my view is more practical, why add 3x more than one might ever need?
Mistakes and other issues occur, but no need to do it once you see that the upper bound is really high and that there's no need for concern or risk even at 2X the typical dosing.

I use to do something called "mega dose" the day before a large water change, basically 2x the typical amount.
Then flush. This was to fatten up the plants and then bring the levels back down later after a day or less, the fear was algae at the time, but the longer we went, the less fear we had.

Then it became obvious that there was no issue with algae and ppm's.

Some other issue than nutrient limitation was occuring.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Shadow]

I was not purposely dose that hight, it is just happen to be since I never measure it before. But now that I know, I reduce my dossing.

 

[master_suprime]

Thanks Tom for responding! And all of you!

Now, I finished my 10 gallons tank, and decidet to use EI metod. Light is 5w/g for 8 hours, with CO2. Since I'm new in this i decidet to measure concentrations of nutriens in water by test kit. First week, uptake rate was unbelievable 10 ppm of NO3! After doing water change, this week uptake rate is about 3-5 ppm (I'm still calculating). Is this normal? I heared something about "strunge" ( sorry, I'm not sure if I wrote right ) uptake rate. Have you had similar experiences?

 

[LondonDragon]

Once I got my measuring so wrong that I was dosing 10X the recommended amount I had no problems with the tank, since I did a 70% water change every week.