Maxplantinstitute
Member
I have been trying E.I dosing my hightec tank for about 6 months, but the plants have not responded like I hoped. Something was still not right. And dosing more and more ferts did not solve my issues. I have probably over fertilized and despite sometimes doing more than one 50%wc a week I have seen rising TDS, stunted growth, unresolved plant issues (holes, melting and yellowing and gsa/gda). I could just not figure out what elements where responsible for witch issue. Particularly the possibility of trace/micro accumulation was a concern.
So I figured I needed a change of tactics and came up with a different approach to the fertz.
If I do bigger wc and do them more often I can spice up the new water to hold whatever fert levels I want and if i don’t add any more during the week I would have total control of water parameters without any accumulation. I did not want to add any more ferts during the week (except FE).
Since accumulated levels in E.I is roughly max twise the weekly addition, I figured I can aim for 2/3 of what that would bee and still have less ferts in the water than I would if I did E.I.
Tank size is about 160 liter.
3x39w ho t5, 8 hours (4hours 2x39w)
Pressurized co2, cerges reactor.
My tap water is really soft so I need to add some gh+ and kh+.
And the current recipe is as follows:
*100liter tap water =70% of tank watervolume
*Caco3 to get a total Gh6 and Kh2
*MgNo3 to get 36ppm No3 (7ppm Mg)
*Kh2Po4 0,3gr to get 2 ppm Po4
*Kso4 8gr to get 36ppm k
*Mgso4 to get 7ppm Mg+7ppm from MgNo3= 14ppm Mg
*csm+b to get 0,2ppm Fe
I did 3 of this big wc the first week to "reset" my tank water. Second week I did two, and the third week only one.
This way of dosing seems to work great for about 5 days before I need to add more ferts.
It looks like Fe and Mg are the things that need topping off after some days in order to last a full week, or I can do another 70%waterchange if I have the time.
Plant health and growth have improved, tds is lower in the tank, gsa and gda have declined a bit , but I have also reduced light intensity so that might also be a factor.
Bba is just about gone from the tank, but I feel this is more due to cleaning my filters more often.
Before I posted this I just checked my tank log and found out that it had been 10 days between the last two water changes. This seems a bit longs and things started to look a little bit off again.
Anyway, after about 4-5 weeks of preload dosing I see improvement in my tank. I feel I have a better grasp on what have been issues for this setup.
And now tweeking the last bit of ferts in order to get tings looking its best seems within reach.
Here is a pic of my hygrophila compact. I got it a few weeks before I started preload dosing. The oldest leafs show holes/spots and gsa. New leafs looking better.
So I figured I needed a change of tactics and came up with a different approach to the fertz.
If I do bigger wc and do them more often I can spice up the new water to hold whatever fert levels I want and if i don’t add any more during the week I would have total control of water parameters without any accumulation. I did not want to add any more ferts during the week (except FE).
Since accumulated levels in E.I is roughly max twise the weekly addition, I figured I can aim for 2/3 of what that would bee and still have less ferts in the water than I would if I did E.I.
Tank size is about 160 liter.
3x39w ho t5, 8 hours (4hours 2x39w)
Pressurized co2, cerges reactor.
My tap water is really soft so I need to add some gh+ and kh+.
And the current recipe is as follows:
*100liter tap water =70% of tank watervolume
*Caco3 to get a total Gh6 and Kh2
*MgNo3 to get 36ppm No3 (7ppm Mg)
*Kh2Po4 0,3gr to get 2 ppm Po4
*Kso4 8gr to get 36ppm k
*Mgso4 to get 7ppm Mg+7ppm from MgNo3= 14ppm Mg
*csm+b to get 0,2ppm Fe
I did 3 of this big wc the first week to "reset" my tank water. Second week I did two, and the third week only one.
This way of dosing seems to work great for about 5 days before I need to add more ferts.
It looks like Fe and Mg are the things that need topping off after some days in order to last a full week, or I can do another 70%waterchange if I have the time.
Plant health and growth have improved, tds is lower in the tank, gsa and gda have declined a bit , but I have also reduced light intensity so that might also be a factor.
Bba is just about gone from the tank, but I feel this is more due to cleaning my filters more often.
Before I posted this I just checked my tank log and found out that it had been 10 days between the last two water changes. This seems a bit longs and things started to look a little bit off again.
Anyway, after about 4-5 weeks of preload dosing I see improvement in my tank. I feel I have a better grasp on what have been issues for this setup.
And now tweeking the last bit of ferts in order to get tings looking its best seems within reach.
Here is a pic of my hygrophila compact. I got it a few weeks before I started preload dosing. The oldest leafs show holes/spots and gsa. New leafs looking better.
