Ei Problem

[Waterloo Kid]

I am in the process of trying the EI method for the first time with any conviction. I have learnt that it’s not something that can be done half heartedly!

Anyway, my lighting is up at 1.9 wpg, which I understand is pretty good for larger tanks (Rio 400), my nitrates are reading around the 20ppm mark and phosphates at 1ppm. I dose a liquid trace (JBL Ferropol) twice weekly (20ml at a time). CO2 is at approx 15ppm using a pressurised system running with the lights (10hrs a day Mon-Friday, 12 hrs on the weekend). My substrate is plain gravel with a fair amount of detritus present (on purpose I might add!).

Plants present are vallis, amazon sword, E. Tellenus (grimmly hanging on), glosso (just added to see if it would survive my lighting), riccia (floating), java moss (going crazy) and anubia nana and barteri. My vallis, Amazon swords and anubias pearl like crazy and the java moss and glosso pearls slightly (which is pretty good in my books seen as it’s under 50cm of water).

My problem is that the tank is being overtaken by what I believe to be BBA. It’s everywhere, to the point that I’m soon going to have to remove my anubias and scrub them clean as they are being smothered. It has coated the CO2 diffuser (the ever ugly JBL cylinder) in a week and a half.

I know my CO2 is low but I’m increasing it slowly as my water is very soft. I don’t want to overdo it.

I think the problem lies with not enough fast growers. I did think the vallis would be enough to soak up the nutrients but I may have been wrong. I have not needed to dose NO3 at all as my levels seem fairly constant at 10-20ppm (moderat fish stock). I see this as the indicator that I do not have enough plant growth to cope with the lighting/ferts. Can anyone confirm this for me please?

If my hunch is correct then I will plant a big clump of H. Polysperma, as it’s grown well in my tank in the past (to the point of being a pain and being removed), as a nutrient sponge.

While I’m on here, one last question. If I always have a nitrate reading without having to dose is that an indication of too low a plant uptake, or can the EI method be successfully used with few enough plants to always have a background level of nitrate/phosphate present?

Thanks for reading,

WK

 

[JamesC]

Your lighting is good for a tank your size. With EI you don't need to test and to be honest it's best not to. NO3 and PO4 test kits are so unreliable it's best not to follow them. They are OK if you want to have a rough idea. If you do a weekly 50% water change then you won't get above twice your weekly dosage.

IMO lights only need to be on a max 10 hours per day. Any more you can start to have algae probs. I actually find some of my plants start to fold up at about 8 hours and I've only got 3wpg of T8 lighting.

My substrate is plain fine gravel and this works fine with EI. It does make life a bit more difficult though as you have to be sure your water column dosing is spot on as there is no room for error.

Plant's wise you need some fast growing stem plants in there and the more the better. Without them you are asking for algae trouble.

Your CO2 is way low. The BBA is a sure sign of this. Water hardness doesn't matter with CO2. It's the KH that matters. I try to keep mine at 4 to 5 but anything above 3 should be OK. If yours is low then it's a simple matter of adding some sodium bicarb. If you have soft water are you also dosing Mg and if it's very soft Ca as well?

Lot's of fish in a planted tank is always going to cause problems as they produce ammonia. It's best not to try to use fish to provide nitrates for the plants. The fewer plants you have the harder EI becomes especially without a nutrient rich substrate.

I'm a great fan of EI and it does work really well.
Keep up the good work

EDIT - Just seen your water stats in your sig. As you say your water is soft. I might be inclined to add a bit of equilibrium and sodium bicarb.

James

 

[Waterloo Kid]

Thanks for the reply James.


My sig is slightly out of date. I have a piece of dried coral in my filter which has helped raise the KH to 4. A nice healthy number. It's dissolving pretty quickly.
I'm going to up the CO2 over the next few days. The JBL diffuser isn't being particularly efficient (and WAY ugly) as bubbles of a reasonable size are reaching the top so I might be getting a different diffuser.

I will also plant a big bunch of either H. Polysperma or Hygrophila difformis. Whatever I can get my hands on this weekend really. Any other suggestions of freely available good fast growers I can use?

I'm having problems with water changes at the moment as I have an upper back injury which prevents me from lifting buckets of water etc. 50% is a lot of water in this tank!

My fish stock is likely to reduce in the near future. The biggest mess makers in the tank are my four angelfish and these are likley to be sold off soon and replaced with smaller fish.
I'm going to stick with it for a few months to try to balance things out. It's a right mess right now so it can't get too much worse (fingers crossed).

WK

 

[plantbrain]

Two things,

Python water changers, or make your own version, makes the bucket brigade a thing of the past.
There's a DIY internal diffuser I design some 15 years ago or so thread on the Plant Tank forum.
These take about 15 min to make are easy and work extremely well.
There are about 2 copy cat designs, but they lack a few key features(because they really never designed it, they just copied it).

But CO2 is the issue, as previously and wisely mentioned.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Waterloo Kid]

CO2 on it's way up.
Lots of Hygrophila difformis added too.

Thanks for the reply.

WK

 

[Waterloo Kid]

pH is now down to 6.7 giving 25+ ppm. I'll leave it there I think for the time being.
My nitrates have suddenly dropped to about 5ppm so I'll have to start dosing that I suppose. Shows it's working though!

I'll let you know how the algae situation develops.

Once again, thanks guys,

WK

 

[plantbrain]

Just be agressive and prune, clean the algae good now, fluff the dead plant waste, algae etc off, and then net it out, scrub glass good and often, do frequent 1-2x a week water changes, then you can settle down and relax after the algae subsides.

During this time, with good CO2, nutrients, algae does not grow, so the plants will be growign very well.

Watch plant growth, that's the key to things, much more than algae growth, things are fairlyu bad if the algae is growing well, the plants will respond and slow growth, do poorly first, then the algae will come in secondarily.

Good CO2 is about 95% of all algae related issues.
DIY users, even higher.

See that reactor, it'll help and it's cheap to make.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[AlexAndCarmen]

Hi all, can I just ask Mr Barr if he would kindly drag out his old diffuser design and post it for us to see.

Thanks Alex

 

[plantbrain]

Here it is: