I have used the EI method, or some wacky variant of it, for a couple of years on my 75 gallon freshwater tank. I've kept it heavily planted, use CO2, and have had great success with plant growth, and for the most part, they look good. However, I have been constantly plagued with algae, either on the leaves of the slower growing plants, on the leaves of fast growing plants that are out of direct light, on the hardscape and on the glass.
I've used all manner of methods to remove it- manual removal, Hydrogen Peroxide, Seachem Excel, 2 Hr Aquarist Fixit, UV light, etc. They all work some, but it always comes back.
In the beginning I did a ton of reading on the Estimative Index- enough to find a good set of nutrients and a recommended dosage based on my set up. However, as I had problems, I just tried to figure them out myself by attacking the symptom and not the problem. I even knew I was doing this, but just kept ramming into that wall.
I have been chit-chatting with #Aquatopia about all this, asking about his experience. It has caused me to really THINK about the issue, rather than just randomly doing stuff.
I'm pretty sure the issue is very easy and has been in my face for a long time.
I think my problem is overfeeding. I always have higher levels of nitrate and phosphate than I should, even when I stop dosing the macros.
To make it worse, what I've been doing for the last 8 months or so, is just dropping most of the dosing- only dosing micros every other week or so. I KNOW I overfeed my fish- I joke about it all the time- but I was not willing to change- it's so weird how much I like to feed them....
I have started other tanks with the idea of doing things differently- I'd do super-high lighting, or super-low lighting, or use all-in-one fertilizers....pretty much anything except not feeding so much. My results have been the same every time- big surprise- except for 1 tank where I keep a billion black bar endlers- I don't fertilize the plants at all in that tank- it's just guppy grass and water wisteria- and I don't have the algae problem in there like I do in others, but the plants, although they do grow and are alive, are not as robust...anyway, I'm drifting away, here...
I've decided to feed my fish every 3 days (2 days fast, 1 day feeding) for awhile and monitor the phosphate and nitrate. If it drops below ideal levels (20ppm for nitrate and around 0.5ppm for phosphate I think), then I'll start dosing the macros again. In the meantime, I'm going to restart the micros twice a week (maybe 3- see below). I'm also going to dose potassium separately, since it's the part of the macros that isn't supplied by fish waste.
I also change water on my tanks twice a week. I do like to somewhat overstock the tanks, so I need to keep the water changed frequently, but how much of that is due to overfeeding??
If my levels drop the way I hope they will, I will back off on water changes and see if the levels of phosphate and nitrate remain at a reasonable level. If so, then yay! I'm not changing water on 6 (soon to be 7) tanks twice a week anymore.
At any rate, it is nice to have a possible solution. I'm amazed that it took me this long to come to it. I think I knew all along that this was it at some level, I just wasn't willing to curb my desire to feed those fishies...
I've used all manner of methods to remove it- manual removal, Hydrogen Peroxide, Seachem Excel, 2 Hr Aquarist Fixit, UV light, etc. They all work some, but it always comes back.
In the beginning I did a ton of reading on the Estimative Index- enough to find a good set of nutrients and a recommended dosage based on my set up. However, as I had problems, I just tried to figure them out myself by attacking the symptom and not the problem. I even knew I was doing this, but just kept ramming into that wall.
I have been chit-chatting with #Aquatopia about all this, asking about his experience. It has caused me to really THINK about the issue, rather than just randomly doing stuff.
I'm pretty sure the issue is very easy and has been in my face for a long time.
I think my problem is overfeeding. I always have higher levels of nitrate and phosphate than I should, even when I stop dosing the macros.
To make it worse, what I've been doing for the last 8 months or so, is just dropping most of the dosing- only dosing micros every other week or so. I KNOW I overfeed my fish- I joke about it all the time- but I was not willing to change- it's so weird how much I like to feed them....
I have started other tanks with the idea of doing things differently- I'd do super-high lighting, or super-low lighting, or use all-in-one fertilizers....pretty much anything except not feeding so much. My results have been the same every time- big surprise- except for 1 tank where I keep a billion black bar endlers- I don't fertilize the plants at all in that tank- it's just guppy grass and water wisteria- and I don't have the algae problem in there like I do in others, but the plants, although they do grow and are alive, are not as robust...anyway, I'm drifting away, here...
I've decided to feed my fish every 3 days (2 days fast, 1 day feeding) for awhile and monitor the phosphate and nitrate. If it drops below ideal levels (20ppm for nitrate and around 0.5ppm for phosphate I think), then I'll start dosing the macros again. In the meantime, I'm going to restart the micros twice a week (maybe 3- see below). I'm also going to dose potassium separately, since it's the part of the macros that isn't supplied by fish waste.
I also change water on my tanks twice a week. I do like to somewhat overstock the tanks, so I need to keep the water changed frequently, but how much of that is due to overfeeding??
If my levels drop the way I hope they will, I will back off on water changes and see if the levels of phosphate and nitrate remain at a reasonable level. If so, then yay! I'm not changing water on 6 (soon to be 7) tanks twice a week anymore.
At any rate, it is nice to have a possible solution. I'm amazed that it took me this long to come to it. I think I knew all along that this was it at some level, I just wasn't willing to curb my desire to feed those fishies...
