Lean dosing pros and cons

[plantnoobdude]

Seeing a real life magnesium deficiency and then reverting it is a sight to behold. Lol.

definitely, same goes for any deficiency, seeing a deficiency pop up, and resolving it with different dosing is very nice, and makes me feel like i've accomplished something

So despite my last two attempts failing I'm going to continue in this vain, continue tweaking the recipe and see what else can be learnt.

I and many others appreciate this

I was rather sceptical about lean dosing at the beginning of this thread but thought - "Don't criticise it if you haven't tried it." With that in mind I've tried to alter my dosing regime on two occasions recently, the last attempt was a fairly radical change working off one of Happi's recipes, on both occasions I pulled the plug after two weeks ~ they didn't work.

nice to see people keep an open mind.

during the first two attempts, were you using tap water?
what numbers were you using? how much water change per week? and was substrate inert or not. sorry for all the questions, cheers!

 

[Happi]

@John q

am curious to know which recipe did you try? also did you use the exact same chemicals? especially Micro/Fe, did you make it with the listed chemicals or did you use premixed csm+b or TNC? far as I remember you were still using one of these.

 

[jaypeecee]

All I’m saying is K is very important. And unlike N and P, you can’t get it from the system.

Hi @JoshP12

Apologies for not having read the whole thread - so, I'm asking my question based purely on the above snippet. In this context, what is meant by "the system"?

I just checked Diana Walstad's Table V-1* 'My Plant's Elemental Requirements' and K is in number 3 position. C is number 1 and N is number 2. There are 13 elements in total in this list.

* Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, Third Edition

JPC

 

[Happi]

@jaypeecee

K is usually what is deficient far as a Macro goes, while N and P is naturally occurring process in our aquarium, which come from food, waste etc. K is extremely important, there is no doubt about that, but it doesn't need to be 30, 40 or 50 ppm, if you have 5-10 ppm in the water, this is already in the upper range or you can say sufficient enough even under heavily planted, high tech aquarium.

no matter how we want to spin this around, you will always find that plant use more N than K and this can be confirmed with lab analysis. for example:

lets say you add 30 ppm NO3 and 30 ppm K, this ends up being 6.78 ppm N and 30 ppm K. if plant used all of that 6.78 ppm N, then it mean plant are using less than 6.78 ppm K with certainty because K is always found to be less than N in the plants. your water still have remaining 23.22 ppm K just floating around waiting to be used by plants and soaked by substrate.

 

[John q]

during the first two attempts, were you using tap water?
what numbers were you using? how much water change per week? and was substrate inert or not. sorry for all the questions, cheers!

No worries mate, I'm using soft tap water, inert substrate. Water parameters below.

Average water report amounts:

Calcium 6.61 mg/l
Magnesium 1.18 mg/l
Alkalinity 13.8 mg/l
Hardness Clarke 1.47

First attempt I reduced to 37.5% ei, but with 2ppm po4. Resulted in Gsa. Second attempt recipe below.

am curious to know which recipe did you try? also did you use the exact same chemicals? especially Micro/Fe, did you make it with the listed chemicals or did you use premixed csm+b or TNC? far as I remember you were still using one of these.

240 liter aquarium

Water parameter, keep this the same and no need to add more Ca or Mg
Ca 6.6 ppm
Mg 1.18 ppm

500 ml, 20 ml per 240 L

Stock Solution #1 (maintain 0.1-0.2 Fe total weekly)

24.33 grams MgSO4.7H2O
Mg 0.400000
S 0.527710

7.143 grams TNC Trace Elements
Fe 0.1
B 0.0125
Mn 0.0216 (try to raise this to 0.07 or so)
Mo 0.0017 (try to raise this to 0.004 or so)
Zn 0.0138
Cu 0.0027 (try to raise this to 0.006 or so)

3.75 grams DTPA Fe 8%
Fe 0.05


Stock Solution #2 (dose 2-3X week to maintain 2-3 ppm N)

21.62 grams KNO3
NO3 2.21
N 0.5
K 1.4

6.43 grams Urea CO(NH2)2
N 0.5

3.525 grams KH2PO4
PO4 0.41
P 0.133
K 0.168

No I didn't quite stick to recipe Happi. I reduced urea amount to 2.5g and used 31g of kn03. I used csm+b for the trace mix. Dosed 8ml macro daily and 3ml micro daily.

Issues: growth on hygrophila polysperma and difformis virtually stopped, small amount of new growth that was present on the difformis seemed a magnet for the fish to eat. This stuff usually grows like a weed and needs cutting every couple of weeks. These plants were cut just over two weeks ago, the day before new dosing started.

There's about 3 inches of growth on this, mostly in the last 3 days.

Hygrophila difformis near substrate, maybe 2 inches of growth.

Strange eaten growth near surface and close up out of tank.

Could well be the fish suddenly decided to eat these leaves?

Microsorum tips yellowing almost white at the tips, goes about 50mm down the leaf.

Hydrocotyle.

And the canary in the coal mine.

Picture of same canary after 3/4 days of 50% ei and extra 1ppm of magnesium.

Sorry for the big picture dump. This issue is across two tanks both have similar issues.

 

[JoshP12]

Hi @JoshP12

Apologies for not having read the whole thread - so, I'm asking my question based purely on the above snippet. In this context, what is meant by "the system"?

I just checked Diana Walstad's Table V-1* 'My Plant's Elemental Requirements' and K is in number 3 position. C is number 1 and N is number 2. There are 13 elements in total in this list.

* Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, Third Edition

JPC

Hi John!

Love that book. It was the first I bought and I read it - pre kids - sitting beside my 5 gallon fish tank at the time.

We don’t run our water back through rocks - so any K has to be put in by us from the onset. It’s not coming from the plastic, the glass, the silicon - the soil has a limited reserve. So if you use a tank without water changes for example, you can’t get more K than what you started with. And that goes for all positive stuff unless you top up with remineralized water (often K is very low if not 0 In taps).

There is an assumption that you feed fish and have them. Fish will make N and P in far greater quantities than the minuscule K you may get from fish food.

Arguably all nutrients aren’t added by the system if you don’t have any input (I.e. fish food).

Good thing to clarify.

 

[jaypeecee]

Hi @JoshP12

Many thanks for your reply, my friend.

I aim to maintain K around the 15 ppm mark. How does that sound to you? I keep a watch on K using the JBL K Test Kit, which is a turbidity test. How about you?

JPC

 

[Happi]

@John q

thanks for sharing. from what am seeing, it appear as Micro/Fe deficiency in some of those plants. am curious to see what would happen if you were to increase the dose of csm+b to something like 0.4-0.5 ppm Fe weekly, the dose might be needed to make up for some of the elements that are low in other areas.

keep the Macro dose Stock Solution #2 and everything else the same, only increasing the csm+b dose and report back. give that one a few weeks and report back. at this point I am quite sure your dose of csm+b is not allowing the full potential. once you complete this trial, I am also looking forward to see the next trial which where we will increase the PO4 just a little to meet 5:1 N: P ratio

and stop eating those plants, not all aquatic plant are edible

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Sorry for the big picture dump

The Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) photos are really useful. Unhealthy (top two) to healthy (bottom three).

, it appear as Micro/Fe deficiency in some of those plants.

The small, <"pale new leaves"> on the Frogbit are oftena good indication of <"iron (Fe) deficiency">.

cheers Darrel

 

[Happi]

Hi all,

The Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) photos are really useful. Unhealthy (top two) to healthy (bottom three).

The small, <"pale new leaves"> on the Frogbit are oftena good indication of <"iron (Fe) deficiency">.

cheers Darrel

if John was really adding the Fe at recommended levels, am leaning more toward Mn and Mg

 

[John q]

keep the Macro dose Stock Solution #2 and everything else the same, only increasing the csm+b dose and report back. give that one a few weeks and report back. at this point I am quite sure your dose of csm+b is not allowing the full potential. once you complete this trial, I am also looking forward to see the next trial which where we will increase the PO4 just a little to meet 5:1 N: P ratio

I'll give it a go Happi, a lot of the other plants seem ok at the minute other than minimal growth so quite happy to proceed with the recommendations for now.

and stop eating those plants, not all aquatic plant are edible

I don't think the angels got that memo, lol.

The small, <"pale new leaves"> on the Frogbit are oftena good indication of <"iron (Fe) deficiency">

Thanks Darrel, I assumed in was magnesium and iron but quite happy to take iron as the culprit.
Like I said above if nothing else I'm learning on this journey.

 

[Happi]

@John q​

when you said 50% EI with 1 ppm Mg, can you please provide more details? did you change the Micro or Macro to 50% or both?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I assumed in was magnesium and iron but quite happy to take iron as the culprit.

am leaning more toward Mn and Mg

Could be iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg) or manganese (Mn), they are the three options that <"Chempak Sequestered Iron"> provide and that is because deficiencies of all <"cause leaf chlorosis">.

The main difference is that magnesium is mobile within the plant, so deficiencies show in older leaves first, and iron and manganese aren't mobile and deficiencies show in new leaves first.

This also effects what happens when they stop being deficient. With magnesium you get a <"fairly instant greening response">, because the plant can export it to deficient tissues, with iron and manganese you don't, because <"the plant needs to grow new leaves">, that aren't deficient, because <"it can't repair older leaves">.

cheers Darrel

 

[John q]

@Happi in the last 4 days I've added 75mls of my old macro mixes and 65mls of old micro mix, also added 2g of mgso4 direct to the tank on Thursday.

Total added since Thursday morning.
9ppm no3
1.89ppm mg + 0.82ppm dry dosing.
3.66ppm po4
7.2ppm k

Fe from csm+b 0.267ppm
Fe from dtpa 8% 0.08ppm

Feast or famine for these guys at the minute.

I've maintenance to do in the morning on both tanks followed by a 50% water change so should go in some way towards resetting the water parameters before starting new regime.

So following your original recipe all I need to do is add an extra 21g csm+b trace mix to the micro mix, at 21mls a week that will give me an extra 0.3ppm fe.

 

[JoshP12]

Hi @JoshP12

Many thanks for your reply, my friend.

I aim to maintain K around the 15 ppm mark. How does that sound to you? I keep a watch on K using the JBL K Test Kit, which is a turbidity test. How about you?

JPC

Personally, I keep K at golden ratio Ca (1.6 ish) and Mg (.6 ish) via Ca:K and Mg:K. But I mean it’s rather silly and nerdy haha. But you will notice 28/17/10 Ca/K/Mg follows it pretty closely and is “magical” according to some. This is if remineralizing and I care

My current water is 9.4 Ca and 4Mg so K could be 5.2ish but it really is unnecessary to go that precise. I ran it at 9.4/16/4 and it worked fine too. Top up 10% daily of total potassium (minimum ish id say - use tds as barometer).

When running a tank, I want 2 things driving growth: Potassium and CO2. Ca and Mg help stabilize it - if K is way way out of whack (high) and Ca and Mg are also low low and real Ill proportioned - issues. But the good rich substrate will fix those but with a time clock.

16 K is good id say for most water and substrate.

I mean ADA, EI, and APT all run K around 20 minimum … we are playing with need vs acquisition. If there is 20 in there but relative to all the other stuff the plant can only get maximum 5, then that’s fine.

 

[jaypeecee]

Hi @JoshP12

In one of my tanks with only inert substrate and a large Java Fern, my most recent figures for Ca:K:Mg were 32:15:8. Not by design, I have to say. Most other nutrients dosed in liquid form apart from what's in the RO remineralizer (Tropic Marin Re-Mineral Tropic). Plus, around 10 ppm CO2 injection.

JPC

 

[Happi]

@Happi in the last 4 days I've added 75mls of my old macro mixes and 65mls of old micro mix, also added 2g of mgso4 direct to the tank on Thursday.

Total added since Thursday morning.
9ppm no3
1.89ppm mg + 0.82ppm dry dosing.
3.66ppm po4
7.2ppm k

Fe from csm+b 0.267ppm
Fe from dtpa 8% 0.08ppm

Feast or famine for these guys at the minute.

I've maintenance to do in the morning on both tanks followed by a 50% water change so should go in some way towards resetting the water parameters before starting new regime.

So following your original recipe all I need to do is add an extra 21g csm+b trace mix to the micro mix, at 21mls a week that will give me an extra 0.3ppm fe.

you were doing much better here with the weekly dose:

Fe	0.26700
Mn	0.07646
Cu	0.00368
Mg	0.05724
Zn	0.01513
Mo	0.00204
B	0.03271
dGH	0.01311

as you can see as you increase the dose for csm+b, the Mn almost meets the need for weekly dose that I recommended, we could still improve the Cu and Mo but at this point using the csm+b at higher doses is your only option. far as using the N, I still suggest using half N from Urea and half from NO3. you might not need to add the additional Fe DTPA at this point.

I would expect the plant to grow much quicker in your next trial after increasing the Micro because higher N from Urea and higher PO4 will require more Micro nutrients to be quickly uptaken. I always observed extremely fast growth on several plant species under such scenario.

 

[JoshP12]

Hi @JoshP12

In one of my tanks with only inert substrate and a large Java Fern, my most recent figures for Ca:K:Mg were 32:15:8. Not by design, I have to say. Most other nutrients dosed in liquid form apart from what's in the RO remineralizer (Tropic Marin Re-Mineral Tropic). Plus, around 10 ppm CO2 injection.

JPC

John,

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s working. What liquid fert you use?

Josh

 

[John q]

OK, just to re cap for my own sanity and get these numbers down in text.

This will be the new weekly dosing.

N03 8.87ppm from KNO3
N 0.65ppm from urea
P04 0.41ppm
K 6.06ppm
Mg 0.4ppm
Fe 0.4ppm from csm+b trace
Fe 0.05ppm from Fe dtpa 8%

@Happi I've increased the urea in the mix to 3g. Even though I'm dosing daily I still feel a bit twitchy towards the livestock so don't want to increase it any more.

I'll give the above a bash, hopefully the frogbit will approve 😄

 

[jaypeecee]

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s working. What liquid fert you use?

Hi @JoshP12

I use Flourish P, Flourish Fe and Flourish Trace. But, that's only because I'm trying to use them up! Details of the Nitrogen source to follow at a later date. What I'm doing is akin to The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour but they're not coming to take me away - just yet!

JPC