swackett said:
Hi
Matt Holbrook-Bull wrote:
Personally I gave up using TPN+ as whenever I have I’ve had lots of algae issues..
Id much rather use dry salts to dose instead as I feel as I have much more control over things such as ferts in my tap water
I've just started out on the EI approach and having read various articles I'm slightly baffled by that comment. I thought as long as you put in a given amount of any type of fertiliser (dry or liquid) to ensure the plants do not starve then algae should not be issue as the plants will be healthy. According to Clive algae only really thrives when there is ammonia in the water from detritus/dying plants/fish waste, etc.
Thanks
Yes but when you dose with the dry ferts you add each nutrient separately and can therefore have more control to tailor the amounts to your tank/water parameters.
For instance, the people who've had really good results using TPN+ often live in areas where the water contains high phosphate levels. I don't, when I used TPN+ I had GSA which is often caused by low phosphates. I now mix my own equivalent of TPN+ but I use a higher rate of potassium phosphate, this has stopped the spread of GSA within a week and now I'm just waiting for my algae munchers to clean up what was there.
Of course my other option would be to dose higher levels of TPN+ but this is not only costly but also means I risk having too much of some nutrients which may not be beneficial to my pets (think copper and shrimps for example). While this is unlikely to happen unless I seriously overdose I can see why it makes sense to tailor your ferts to match what you need. Then you can give your plants an excess of all nutrients without having ridiculous quantities of some of them.
