You might try 25% Wc weekly and reduced dosing, with good feeding(daily dosing basically for nutrients).
Watch and observe closely.
I stay ahead of the game and do large water changes, some focus more on cutting it closer and doing less.
This is a trade off really.
I need to look less and just not fret over it.
I still need to do them and watch CO2, but that's the case for the reduced WC's.
If you use less light, you can likely reduce the EI to 1/4 dosing with a good fish load.
Less light = less growth = less CO2 and nutrient demand.
I've yet to have met a single person that's killed their fish using EI or over dosing KNO3.
Not one person to date, that's over a decade.
CO2?
Lots of folks have gassed and killed their fish, where's the worry and outrage with using CO2?
I just do not get it.
Fear mongering over NO3, but CO2? So blase'
But statistics do not lie, more death has coccured using CO2 than any other additive.
Wind bag Know Nothings harass folks on line over this issue all the time, but you do not see any discussion about CO2 being a cause for poor fish health.
CO2, reduced light, then the nutrients...........nutrients themselves are over rated, and over hyped.
They are only one cog in the wheel.
That's why there are examples of failures in every method(and using just this part, other claim this as evidence of a bad method, it's not the method, they all work, it's the person using it- it's not the cars that run people and kill them, it's the drivers- same thing here).
All method shave good examples of nice tanks without much issue. So you could say they all work well with some trade offs.
So what other than nutrients is there to plant growth? where does plant growth actually start?
Light and CO2.
So focus there.
EI just rules out nutrients as a possible limitation for growth for plants.
CO2 might be another issue and often is, accounting for about 95% of algae related issues and growth problems.
That's pretty telling, but given poor measurements, rapid changes in concentration, and that it is 40-50% of the plant biomass total(Carbon), and that fact that poor CO2 hurts plants, but has no effect really on algae(they are never CO2 limited), this hurts plants the most.
Regards,
Tom Barr