Ei Safe For Fish ?

[-=Joel=-]

Is following the EI method safe for fish such as discus ?

Joel

 

[Themuleous]

Mate, people have been doing EI for years with fish, I think we'd know if it wasn't safe, even with discus. In fact being able to 'control' fert levels, in particular NO3 are a good thing when keeping sensitive fish like discus as you can keep it at low levels.

Sam

 

[-=Joel=-]

Nice one

Even though I said I wouldnt go the EI route I think I might now.

Just need to invest in some good test kits Lol.

Thanks,

Joel

 

[plantbrain]

Is NO3 derived from fish waste/food the same as NO3 from KNO3?

What does fish waste and foos start out as?

Hint: it's not NO3.............

I've gone to 100ppm + with Discus, no issues with KNO3.
Color, feeding finnage etc.

Isolated test can show you a lot more than myths and general things.
10-30ppm is a decent target range for NO3.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[-=Joel=-]

Thanks Tom ...

sadly im not a chemistry guy and cant understand it without it being put in very simple terms.

Appreciate the input,

Joel

 

[plantbrain]

Well, the fish waste starts off as NH4, ammonium. Very toxic to fish and a great way to induce algae spores.
NO3 does not impact fish health nor algae over a very wide range unless linmiting to plants.

That's the part they often leave out, NO3 is the end product of fish waste in most fish tanks, so folks do water changes to prevent build up.

As an aquarist, you need to be aware of and understand the nitrogen cycle.

See here:

http/www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

You'll note that plants will remove both NH4 and NO3.
Some claim they remove NO2, but I've not seen any evidence that this is wide spread in planted tanks ands would argue against it.

So plants, if they have good conditions, CO2, K+, etc, will remove that NH4 very fast, if something slows the plant growth down or stops it, the NH4 will be available for algae spores, then you'll get the algae bloom.

If you keep adding more and more fish in a CO2 enriched tank to supply the NO3, yiou';ll also end up with algae because the bacteria and the plants cannot keep up with NH4, but NO3 is not an issue.

So adding a lot of NH4 to a field growing corn will also do a similar thing, it'll burn the corn.
So to help, they add a mix of NO3 mainly and some NH4.

Same deal here, we min the NH4 from fish waste and add plenty of KNO3 for the K+ and the NO3 part.

Farmer Bob sees the fertilizer bag and sees how much NPK, those 3 no#'s on the sides of the bags and knows what he adds, no chem needed.

The main differenc ehere, we only want to add NO3 for the plants and have the plants mop up, as well as the bacteria any NH4.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[-=Joel=-]

Tom your a star mate ... nice one and helpful post

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Nice post Tom....I understand much better now also