EI and vacations.

[Jen]

I will be getting my dry ferts today. I was planning on getting the co2 tank and bits shortly after, and looking at getting the ball rolling, say, next week.

Now, I'm going out of town for a week and a half in the end of september. Would it be smarter to wait until I get back to start on the EI? I've got someone to feed my fish, but I don't think she'd be to happy having to test and dose too.

btw... for EI, it says to mix the ferts in RO or distilled water. Anyone know if sterile water will work? I work in a hospital and can get as much of that as needed.

Thanks

 

[zig]

Id say sterile water is ok, RO water is just purer than normal water, it has most of the minerals stripped out of it, so id say sterile water is probably even purer still.

As regards EI i would commence dosing straight away, no need to wait, by the time your holiday comes around you will have a much better idea of how much you should be dosing and the uptake rate by the plants, and this will allow you to be able to have a good idea as to how much to dose before you leave on holiday, you can also reduce the WPG and this will help a lot also, as the plants will take up the ferts slower than normal.

Good luck with EI i dont think you will regret it, you wont ever go back to the old way once you get the hang of it.

 

[Jen]

so, if i know that my plants use for instance, 2 ppm per day of each chemical (i know it will be different... just an example), i would be safe to dose 28ppm with out harming the fish?

 

[zig]

so, if i know that my plants use for instance, 2 ppm per day of each chemical (i know it will be different... just an example), i would be safe to dose 28ppm with out harming the fish?

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Well you could go that high but there is probably no need if you reduce your lighting for the period you are away, if you cant reduce the lighting from say 3 to 1 WPG (maybe your lights cant be individually controlled) you could always reduce the photoperiod each day from say 10 hours to 5 hours or something like that and therefore the plants will need less fertiliser, but i would'nt dose 28ppm of nitrate into a tank if the fish were not used to this level of nitrate, not in one go anyway, id slowly build it up over a week or two, but the reduced lighting option is probably easier.

 

[Jen]

I can cut my lights in half, from 2.4 to 1.2. If I do that, then I should cut my co2 and ferts in half as well, right?

 

[zig]

Depending on the uptake you could probably safely cut the ferts in half, co2 wont do any harm so id leave it alone.