EI dosing , shrimp and a betta male

[Karen H]

Hi,
I have been think of starting to use EI dosing for the following tank and reasons but need some advice.

Substrate aqua grow nutra soil
64l tank
Fluval U2 filter
Led lighting
Plants
Water wisteria ,
Anubias,
Cabomba caoliniana,
Cryptocoryne wendtill green
Moss ball,
Taxiphyllum sp spiky
Stock
1 betta
15 neon tetras
1 otoclinclus
4 amano shrimp
Ph 7

I have been trying to follow the Dianne Walsted method for 5 months now with some success and some problems.
The levels in the tank have been fine. Not too many water changes, but a few plants not surviving like the valls.
A problem with green hair algae. The moss and moss ball always looking dirty.

Can I ei dose with the shrimp and betta?
How often should I do,water changes ?
I was looking at what recommend on the aquarium plant food site.
Any advice would be great.
I don't want to harm the fish or plants. I did start out with 6 otoclinclus and now only have 1 .

 

[three-fingers]

Keep meaning to reply to this thread then get distracted lol, sorry for the slow response .

I think your issues possibly stem from essentially mixing methods! If you were following the Walstad method, I would expect an actual soil substrate, TMC Nutrasoil is branded as soil, but its a clay-based complete substrate, rather than the garden/loamy types of soil recommended in the Walstad book. The TMC Nutrasoil just doesn't perform the same function, not starting in a new set-up anyway.

So IMO your best abandoning the Walstad tank experiment, and going with modern methods like EI as you were thinking .

You also mention LED lighting but no more details, theres a high likelihood you have either too intense lighting, or if they are cheap LEDs, possibly not enough light to grow all of your plant species. Could you supply more details on the lighting?

Can I ei dose with the shrimp and betta?
How often should I do,water changes ?

Yes and as often as convenient .

Once a week 50% is a good start, more water changes are just a good thing, so anytime you are sitting staring in to the tank and have a spare 10mins for a small water change, your plants would thank you if you did.

Otos can be very sensitive after import, sometimes due to starvation, and occasionally because of collection methods (I've read that they sometimes stun the fish with chemicals to catch them).

Personally I would only add them to a mature tank with lots of biofilm/algae for them to scavenge. Do you have any algae wafers to feed your remaining otto?

 

[Karen H]

Hi thanks for the reply. The led light came with the tank so don't know much about them. I should of asked and read more before I started. I won't of bought this set up from pets at home if I had. But stuck with it now . I have some frog bit which is growing like mad and starting to cover surface, this seems to be slowing some of the plant growth and hair algae still they but I think (hope) it is slowing down. Yeas I am changing to ei method.
I put algae flakes in but my large femal amano shrimps runs off with them and will defend it form everything else in tank.
Tank is now where near perfect, but no more fish loses since last oto coming up 3 months now . My betta is very timid so loving frogbit roots to hide in. And I now have at least 4 baby assassin snails.

If I could afford to I would start again .
Everyone else thinks the tank looks great but I can see the problems .

Again thank you
Karen

 

[three-fingers]

Sounds like you've got it all sorted, the frogbit should sort it out! Some of the plants below might not have enough light after the frogbit grows in (like the Cabomba and wisteria), but this shouldn't cause any problems if the frogbit is growing fast anyway .


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[Karen H]

Funny I have just removed the cabomba as it was fading. The frogbit is growing like mad. The betta and shrimp seem to love hanging around in the roots. But have had the least hair algae growth this week. I have started dosing ae well