Ei Adjustments

[TrickySpot]

Hey guys,
 
How do other EI fertiliser users adjust for Nitrates from fish waste, phosphates in fish food which comes out in waste and phosphates in tap water??  I can see EI is simple enough if you have no fish, but how do you adjust when you do have fish?
 
Thanks!
 

 

[daizeUK]

The idea of EI is that you don't adjust.  It's not recommended to try to guess or test how much of any nutrient you already have in your tank because testing is not accurate enough and amounts can fluctuate, even the chemistry of your water supply is variable depending on season and rainfall etc.
 
Proponents of EI will tell you that it doesn't matter if you have too much of any nutrient as long as you have enough of all of them.  It's not about trying to maintain a specific concentration of chemicals but rather ensuring that no nutrient is deficient.  This is usually assuming that your tank is high tech with high levels of pressurized CO2.

 

[SO19Firearms]

What Daize said.
And if you don't use CO2 - dose about 1/3 E.I.

 

[TrickySpot]

I have pressurized CO2 and now the explanation in the EI article I read, that too little of some nutrients causes algae, makes sense, I was worried that adding mag phos + phos in tap water would be like a free buffet for algae 

 
Been going for a week, so will be interesting to see how the tank develops relative to when I just used a off the shelf all-in-one fert.
 
Thanks for the insight guys!

 

[SO19Firearms]

Easy E.I. Calc here too if you want to adjust anything in the future.