Sam's 4ft nightmare, I mean journal

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

Interesting idea. Perhaps like humans though they are able to control what they take in? You could surround a person in carrots but they wouldn't have to eat them.

Sam

 

[JamesC]

Re: Completely stumped

With terrestial plants there are definetely problems with overdosing, but with aquatic plants things are a lot more difficult to determin. Estimative Index followers will go blue in the face defending the idea that high nutrient levels don't cause a problem, but there are plenty of examples to show that in fact there are problems with high levels of nutrients, especially with soft water.

Stick with normal EI dosing and you should be fine for nearly every every type of tank. Only with excessively high light and high plant mass tanks you might need to dose more. Dosing 2x or 4x EI is crazy unless you do 80% water changes twice a week.

Just my thoughts
James

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

Thanks for the input James happy to hear everyone's thoughts, esp if it helps sort out this tank!!!

Sam

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

So I really only need to be dosing 5ppm NO3 and 1ppm PO4 three times a week?

Sam

 

[JamesC]

Re: Completely stumped

Yes, I'd think that should be fine for your tank. That equates to 15ppm NO3 and 3ppm PO4 weekly.

James

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

Right, nice one. Thanks James. I'll give that a go. Perhaps a 50% WC this eve to get the levels down a bit as well, they could be through the roof by the sounds of things!

Sam

 

[GreenNeedle]

Re: Completely stumped

EI is based on more than just "Unlimited nutrient availability ".

Noone ever said it was. EI is based on excess supply not unlimited supply. We don't suggest dumping a huge amount in and then not worrying about algae. We suggest adding an excess so that nothing ever runs defficient!!!

 

[GreenNeedle]

Re: Completely stumped

This touches on something I've been thinking about recently regarding nutrient "poisoning". I'm not talking about fish, but in the same way humans might get Vitamin A poisoning if they eat 50 carrots a day, 365 days a year, do plants suffer if the nutrients are too high? If the plant has a lower concentration of nutrients than the surrounding water, would they OD?

I think you'll more likely find that the theory you use of over eating of one thing each day is one which humans and indeed animals are capable of. I would say a plant is unable to choose which nutrient it feeds more on. If they are all supplied in adequate proportion then it will take the relevant amount of each. If 1 nutrient is overdosed and others underdosed then it will stop utilising the overdosed nutrient when it runs out of the underdosed!!!

More like a human having a balanced spread of food but then eating far too much of it. Still eating a balanced diet but they will get obese. A plant is not caged like a human is in a skeleton. We grow to a certain height and then stop at which point if our intake exceeds our usage we grow outward.

A plant is not limited by height or width so if the light and all nutrients (including C) are available they can keep on 'eating' and just get taller and wider. They will however not keep going all day. There is a point where they have had enough for the day and stop.

The problem due to them stopping when they have had enough is that if we have been adding huge amounts more than they need for their day (EI is excess but not huge and then is reset weekly) then over time there will be huge amounts left in the water which can then cause problems to fish etc.

Using the standard EI parameters should as James says with virtually all tanks cause no problems.

There will however always be rare exceptions to the rule.

I personally lean dose daily under low light for no other reason than it works well for me at approx 2ppm NO3, 0.2ppm PO4, 0.2ppm K and 0.3ppm Mg plus trace of course.

AC

 

[ceg4048]

Re: Completely stumped

Hey James, I guess I'm a crazy blue faced guy because I just don't see the problems. :? In fact I'm not quite sure which problems actually occur. My most recent tank gets 2X-3X EI dosing and the only problems I got are overgrowth. This tank has hard water though and yes, it's a huge biomass and I do a large water change (70%) once a week. I have done 3X EI in this tank before on a previous setup using pure RO and I didn't have any problems other than the normal issues of stupidity such as running out of CO2 and not noticing, or forgetting to turn the lights off.

Again, when one drives a tank to extreme growth rates, then water changes - and therefore cleanliness are a top priority. If one allows the tank to accumulate organic waste then yes there will be problems- but that's an issue in every tank, not just heavily dosed tanks. Other than that though I have never seen issues of nutrient toxicity.

Cheers,

 

[scottturnbull]

Re: Completely stumped

If everything but the fern is affected, maybe it's a substrate issue. Plant some fast growers, half in the substrate, the other half in rockwool in net pots. If the ones in the substrate show the same signs, and the potted ones don't, you have an indication. On the other hand, if the potted plant does the same as the others, you can rule out substrate. At least you'll have eliminated something.

 

[Garuf]

Re: Completely stumped

You know what I think you could be onto something there! I remember Dan's tank with akadama the plants did much the same thing, blacked out on the stems and algaefied.

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

Ive got akadama in my nano and I cant stop the HC growing!

I guess all this just goes to show that there is no silver bullet, its about try and see.

Thanks for all the advice, I'll see what I can do. Im sure I'll get there in the end. After all it only took two years for me to work out my nano!

Sam

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

For those of you that followed this thread, I though I would update you on the current state of play.

Following the advice, I did a few things. Reduced dosing to 5ppm NO3 & 1ppm PO4 3x a week. I also did several large water changes to get the background levels down to sensible levels.

I also set the eheim 3000+ pump to run 24/7, previously it was running from 15mins before lights on, to 15mins after lights out.

I also dosed excel on and off but not consistently enough to have any lasting benefit I don't think. I did discover that overdosing the excel killed my silver tip tetras rather than the CO2 gassing them, Ive lots 36 in total and one cherry shrimp. I think my mistake was to calculate it on the basis of volume of water using the tank dimensions, which gives circa 250lt, when in fact the water volume is actually more like 200lt due to the substate.

Anyway, hope this is of some use to people

As you can see the HC is loving it! Growing like mad now, probably a bit too fast! No brown stems at all on any of the plants

Sam

 

[JamesC]

Re: Completely stumped

Nice one Sam. Glad you got it sorted.

James

 

[Garuf]

Re: Completely stumped

Full tank shot!
I'm sure it's better than you were making out!

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

Im sure its not! I'll see what I can sort this evening

Once the HC has properly grown in, I'll rip it all apart (as you do) and redo the rock work, which is shocking at the moment.

Sam

 

[Garuf]

Re: Completely stumped

Did you steal Jimmy's door stop then?

 

[GreenNeedle]

Re: Completely stumped

Glad you got it sorted. Goes to show how dangerous overdosing Excel/Easycarbo can be to livestock!!!

Maybe we should stick to TBs suggestion of patience and dosing the recommended for a longer period.

AC

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Completely stumped

Did you steal Jimmy's door stop then?

No I didnt in the end, too heavy. But I did take a fair few of the rocks from the crate.

Glad you got it sorted. Goes to show how dangerous overdosing Excel/Easycarbo can be to livestock!!!
Maybe we should stick to TBs suggestion of patience and dosing the recommended for a longer period.

Yeh. Strange thing is I've overdose all my other tanks, without any issues. I guess the substrate displacement has more of an effect in this tank due to the slope, it much be 4-5" deep at the back.

Sam

 

[beeky]

Re: Completely stumped

I think you'll more likely find that the theory you use of over eating of one thing each day is one which humans and indeed animals are capable of. I would say a plant is unable to choose which nutrient it feeds more on. If they are all supplied in adequate proportion then it will take the relevant amount of each. If 1 nutrient is overdosed and others underdosed then it will stop utilising the overdosed nutrient when it runs out of the underdosed!!!

More like a human having a balanced spread of food but then eating far too much of it. Still eating a balanced diet but they will get obese. A plant is not caged like a human is in a skeleton. We grow to a certain height and then stop at which point if our intake exceeds our usage we grow outward.

A plant is not limited by height or width so if the light and all nutrients (including C) are available they can keep on 'eating' and just get taller and wider. They will however not keep going all day. There is a point where they have had enough for the day and stop.

The problem due to them stopping when they have had enough is that if we have been adding huge amounts more than they need for their day (EI is excess but not huge and then is reset weekly) then over time there will be huge amounts left in the water which can then cause problems to fish etc.

Apologies for being a bit slow in catching up with this.

My analogy earlier was assuming that the plant couldn't help but ingest the nutrients, i.e. they didn't have a choice of whether to use them or not, osmosis meant that the higher concentration of nutrients in the water caused those nutrients to flow into the plant. I don't know if this is possible, just summising.