Dosing Flourish Excel Along With Ei Dosing?

[Ian H]

Just wondering if this will cause any problems? I'm wanting to dose Flourish Excel to get rid off my bba for good, i now have a stable 30ppm of co2 via a fire extinguisher and i have started dosing via the EI method.

I plan on just doing normal to begin with then after a week maybe up it to twice the strength? Will this cause any problems? Are there any kinds of fish that are sensitive to it?

 

[aaronnorth]

it is ok, do it up to 3x overdose. Spot treating is better, get your daily dose in the lid, then get a pippette or a syringe and squirt that amount onto the infected leaves. Turn the filter off when doing this and leave off for a few minuts. Dont do it out of the water as it burns holes in the plant.

You have to watch the fishes reactions, what fish do you keep?

 

[waterdrop]

Ian and Aaron, hope you don't mind and I'm not trying to hijack or interrupt but its just that I'm thinking of doing Flourish Excel and EI also. My situation is quite different than Ian's though. It's a little 28g/106L with may 1.3w/g low light and I'm currently putting 1/2 capful of plain Flourish in per week, Flourite gravel being the only other plant-oriented thing I'm doing.
The excel would be my only carbon source.

In fact my thoughts of what to try next are this Excel (and I don't know if it should be in addition or instead of the regular excel) and to figure out what substances to buy to do EI and to get some kind of root ferts. All this to go along with my low lights and my 3 easy plants (java fern, a sword & I forget the other x-wendtii??).. I know I need many more plants.

Sorry, know I'm much more beginner than you guys, just couldn't resist because of the title. Any thoughts about what to use the Flourish Excel with would be great.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[aaronnorth]

for EI you need

KNO3
KH2PO4
trace

optional:

gh booster (gh less than 4degrees)
MgSO4
KH2SO4

take a look here as to how much you need to add. http/www.fishforums.net/content/Plants-a...-Index-Article/

Also with EI, you need 30ppm CO2 (pressurized) otherwise you cant do it. You can use flourish excel with anything, it is carbon, and that is all it is, nothing else so it wont do any harm. If you are thining about buying it, then go with easycarbo (smae but cheaper)

 

[Ian H]

my stocking is:

1 x Common plec
1 x BN plec
1 x L201
1 x L134
1 x L018
8 x Lamp eye killifish
8 x Black widow tetra
4 x Cherry shrimp
20 x Neon tetra
9 x Rummy nose tetra
4 x glowlight tetra
4 x black neon tetra
2 x Blue german ram (m and f)
2 x dwarf cockatoo cichlid (m and f)
3 x bronze cory
2 x jullii cory
4 x swordtales (2m and 2f)
12 x cardinal tetras
4 x pentazona barbs

(quite alot! but no problems) im a bit worried about the rams and rummy nose tetras?

Also will this easycarbo stuff kill off my bba? since i'm going to have to buy quite a bit of FE to triple dose my tank

One last thing, i've never understood why you need 30ppm of co2 for EI? im assuming its just because the nutrients will be wasted otherwise?

 

[waterdrop]

for EI you need

KNO3
KH2PO4
trace

optional:

gh booster (gh less than 4degrees)
MgSO4
KH2SO4

take a look here as to how much you need to add. [URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/Plants-a...-Index-Article/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/Plants-a...-Index-Article/[/URL]

Also with EI, you need 30ppm CO2 (pressurized) otherwise you cant do it. You can use flourish excel with anything, it is carbon, and that is all it is, nothing else so it wont do any harm. If you are thining about buying it, then go with easycarbo (smae but cheaper)

Thanks, so the FE (carbon) can not replace the pressurized, so I can't do EI with just FE, right? And the plain Flourish is just micronutrients, so I need to figure out how to just do some macronutrients in a non-EI way, is that it?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

WD I've had my best sucess with plants (excluding anything that Ian's tinkered with) using plain play sand, root ferts, flourish excel and normal flourish.

You might wanna try that for a little bit as a half way house to see if it helps with plant growth and algae but is a much less hassle route than EI.

Personally I like to think of EI as high risk investment, when it works the returns are excellent, if you miss a trick or it goes wrong you can loose the whole lot.

Low-tech like the set up described above is much lower risk, you won't see anything like the growth, btu there will still be some growth, if you miss a trick though very little will happen, it'll just tick over until your next dose most of the time.

thats about my sum total knowledge of planted tanks in a few sentences there!

 

[Dave Spencer]

Thanks, so the FE (carbon) can not replace the pressurized, so I can't do EI with just FE, right? And the plain Flourish is just micronutrients, so I need to figure out how to just do some macronutrients in a non-EI way, is that it?

The beauty of EI is its flexibility. When you read the stickies on various sites, the levels generally qouted are to cater for the highest growth situations, but the word estimative is used in the title (estimate what you need for your light levels). WD, if you are using lower light levels, then use less ferts. Less light means you are using a smaller engine and driving more slowly, therefore, you need less fuel (ferts).

I see no reason why you can`t dose reduced EI with Flourish Excel.

Personally, I believe the whole "heavy root feeder" line a bit mis-used. Crypts etc. can be grown in an inert substrate without root tabs, provided ferts are available in the water column.

EI makes growing plants easy! Aquascaping is far and away the most difficult aspect of planted tanks.

Dave.

 

[Ian H]

So will this easycarbo stuff do the same as FE? as in kill off my bba?

 

[aaronnorth]

yes, it will kill it off.

 

[Ian H]

Great

Just as a side note i would like to reccomend EI dosing for anyone that can. Only been dosing since Sunday and my plants are pearling more looking forward to seeing the long term effects, especially with the bba gone