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Lean dosing pros and cons

Hi all,
Happi said:
But didn't you say none of the TIC is CO2 in pH8 ?
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I did, but if you had enough CO2 to asphyxiate your fish the pH wouldn't be pH8, it would be much lower, because of the 0.15% that goes into solution as H2CO3. It is back to how the drop checker works.

CO2 is very soluble as a gas, much, much more soluble than oxygen, but oxygen is 21% of the atmosphere and CO2 only 400 ppm.

You can dissolve an <"absolutely vast amount of CO2"> in water under pressure.

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
I did, but if you had enough CO2 to asphyxiate your fish the pH wouldn't be pH8, it would be much lower, because of the 0.15% that goes into solution as H2CO3.
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Well, I am confused. What if I was adding more bicarbonate to keep the pH8 while injecting more CO2. Would there still be no CO2 ?
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,


I'm guessing that if you try and dry dose very small amounts of CSM+B you aren't likely to get all of the micronutrients, because of the granular nature of the product. Think of it like you have a bag of M & Ms , if you take a handful chances are you will have all the colours, but as that handful gets smaller colours will go missing until your smallest selection is just one colour.

If you make up a stock solution, and then serially dilute it, you don't have this problem. Personally I'm not a fan of trying to <"weigh small weights"> so I would always use serial dilution. If you want to <"look like pro"> have a look at @X3NiTH's offering.

cheers Darrel
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been using serial dilution for quite some time now, but I think people still attempt to add 0.01 gram of Mo, Cu etc. on their gram scale and this is the most inaccurate thing to do.
 
John q said:
I so know that sentence is taken from the heart, how far did you go down it, and did you find Alice?? 😁
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LOL I've taken a pretty deep dive. Still searching for Alice!

Here's the thing. Like many things in life, it seems complicated until you apply yourself a bit. Then suddenly things click and it makes perfect sense. Years ago created I post where I showed step by step how to make custom micros. Once you see it done it's really not so mysterious. After that there were dozens of people I know rolling their own too. Now years later it's pretty common practice.
 
MichaelJ said:
That said, I somewhat have a hard time thinking it really matters much if dose 0.08 ppm/wk of Boron for a couple of months and then 0.12 ppm/wk for another couple of months instead of the ideal 0.1 ppm/wk consistently... Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it would be a disservice to the concept if we make this more academical than it needs to be.

Cheers,
Michael
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Well you picked a good one to make an example of. A few years back I spent some time testing upper and lower limits of various micros. Like you suggest, most work well within a range.

But there are limits. When I was testing the upper limits of Boron I mixed a batch with quite a bit more than usual. Within a few hours my Macranda Variegated lost all of it's color. I mean it went completely pale. And many other plants also stunted and rebelled.

And therein is the issue that can come up with CSM-B. If your scoop has something that is way out of whack, there can be pretty immediate reactions. So best practice is to make a solution to mitigate the risk. And dose sparingly. Most tanks need a LOT less micros than is suggested by the websites that sell them.
 
Hanuman said:
Curious why you are adding Calcium Chloride as a trace and not as a remin.
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LOL you have a good eye.

You may know of my friend Chris Hendy. He is a lot like me in that we like to try things and take the everything but the kitchen table approach. He noted that many commercial fertilizers include some Chloride. He started adding a small amount and he recruited me to do the same.

Honestly I don't know if it makes any difference at all. Once I run out not sure I will add it again. Of course things are going pretty darn well, so who knows might just decide to keep in in the mix. So I can't really say if I recommend or not.
 
Hanuman said:
@GreggZ There was a movie done on the subject I beleive. Most sponsors are Chinese, not sure what that means...😂
View attachment 184389
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I have to check with Tom to see why he put 2018 on this. The peak of the microtox wars were in late 2015 early 2016. It was a brutal battle, and many are still scarred. You had to be there to understand how out of it control it became.

The thing was there some merit to the idea. But it had the wrong messengers. They insisted that every single problem in every single tank was the result of microtox. It wasn't. Half the people they suggested it to weren't even dosing micros.

But if you recall at one time EI recommended 5 ppm Fe by proxy weekly. Folks using CSM+B and dosing those levels could easily hit a toxic level if some micro got out of whack. Some time back a few years ago a bunch of us had that lowered to 2 ppm weekly. But even that is way more than most tanks need.

For several years I have been at about 0.40. And I know some who have great tanks who dose even less......and some more closer to 1.0 ppm weekly.
 
Happi said:
but I think people still attempt to add 0.01 gram of Mo, Cu etc. on their gram scale and this is the most inaccurate thing to do.
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Indeed. I have a high precision scale with a readability of 0.001g (1mg). Even then I wouldn't use it to weight those amounts because repeatability error of that scale is ±0.005 g and the non-linear error is ±0.005 g so basically a potential to go over or under board x5.

High precision analytical scales with extreme precision and reliability cost an arm and two legs and I am pretty sure no one has that other than professional lab people.
 
KirstyF said:
Fabulous tune…..and boy are we showing our age here, even admitting we’ve heard of Jefferson Airplane! 😂

Though I do think this was released before I was born!! Classic! 👍
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Right on @KirstyF Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson was released the year I was born. 1967…. I grew up with so much great music in a very "liberal" environment - as it is called these days. I’m very grateful for the different perspectives and the abundance of silly nonsense I was exposed to when growing up.... most of it stuck... don't take things too seriously :)

Cheers
Michael
 
Hi all,
Happi said:
Well, I am confused. What if I was adding more bicarbonate to keep the pH8 while injecting more CO2. Would there still be no CO2 ?
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You are into the area of solubility and carbonates, so I'm going to say that the simple answer if that the pH would keep falling. I think this is still the drop checker situation, where the colour of the bromothymol blue pH indicator changes due to its state of protonation. When people get to a yellow drop checker, as well as dead fish, it just means that the <"bromothymol blue is fully protonated">.

If you didn't have any calcium (Ca++) or magnesium (Mg++) ions (or any other cations of higher valency) and added a soluble carbonate (Na2CO3 or K2CO3) you might be able to match the rate of CO2 addition to the addition of carbonates.

cheers Darrel
 
KirstyF said:
Whilst the serial dilution might seem a bit faffy at the outset, the joy of it is that once you’ve done them, they last a looooong time.

For example, this little bottle has been going for 14wks already so I reckon I’ll get close to a year out of it and making up the micro from the dilutions is easy peasy. I’ve diluted everything except FE just for convenience.

View attachment 184342
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Do these need to be kept in the fridge to keep for that long?
 
JacksonL said:
Do these need to be kept in the fridge to keep for that long?
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I understand that it needs to be kept at cooler temps and away from light to prevent degradation of the solutions, so I think the short answer is yes. Mine is in the fridge, but these are only 100ml bottles so they don’t take up much space.

I couldn’t advise on degradation rates if not kept in those conditions, but one of our ferts experts might chip in.
 
JacksonL said:
Do these need to be kept in the fridge to keep for that long?
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You could although not sure it would serve much of a purpose. If you used pure H2O and have a properly sealed container, that solution should remain stable and no water should evaporate. Plus these are single compound dilution. So no real interaction happening I think. Keeping it away from light is perhaps a good idea. Mine are in a box, in the storage room.
 
Hanuman said:
You could although not sure it would serve much of a purpose. If you used pure H2O and have a properly sealed container, that solution should remain stable and no water should evaporate. Plus these are single compound dilution. So no real interaction happening I think. Keeping it away from light is perhaps a good idea. Mine are in a box, in the storage room.
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@JacksonL This is likely good advice. How to keep micro’s was advice received on one of my very early queries on the forum and I think I hijacked someone else’s thread at the time, so can’t find it. It may well be that ‘best kept in the dark’ was the more critical factor!
 
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