Its All About Balance

[Themuleous]

Hey people,

I am forever hearing that a tank should be in balance, but very little on exactly how this is achieved and/or what is meant by 'balance'. It is a case of doing the same thing week in and week out, and allowing the plants to adapt to that regime? Or it is more to do with balancing the excess ferts with excess light and co2?

Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated

Sam

 

[JamesC]

That's a very good question. I think a tank is said to be in balance when what you put in is the same as what is used up. By this I mean the fish food that is eaten provides enough nutrients for the plants or nutrients added for the plants are just enough to keep them ticking over without producing an excess or limitation. As you can imagine a very hard thing to maintain.

In today's high tech systems IMO balance doesn't come into the equation. We add nutrients to excess and perform large water changes to prevent large excesses building up. But in low tech setups a la Diane Walstad balance still comes into play.

My thoughts only.
James

 

[craynerd]

You see i don`t see a balance as such as the Walstad theory.

I think a balance is still there in high tech tanks. Balance to me, means that everything that a plant needs, it has. Just because you dose in excess, its enough for the plant so its still balanced.

Its a good question....a bugger to answer.

Chris

 

[Themuleous]

Its a good question....a bugger to answer.

Cheers for the reply Chris, I agree!

So it might actually worth worth saying 'all the plants need, they get' rather than 'balance'?

Sam

 

[JamesC]

We talk about a balanced diet for us so I suppose it makes sense for plants to have a balanced nutrient diet as well.

 

[plantbrain]

"Balanace" means many things to many folks.

Most would define it as a balance between fish waste and plant uptake.
Some might define it as the amioun t of nutrients coming in to maitnain and reasonable range of parameters.
Some might think it's a fish load that's "balanced".

Hard to say unless they are more specific.

I hate the term personally.
It's too generalized and said a lot but when asked what does it mean , many scrurry off.

I tend to give hard data for ranges, if you ask me what to add, I'll tell you specifically.
You still balance things with EI, it just removes the need to test so much/at all.

Same with the non CO2 methods, it's not Diana Walstad's btw, and she makes no such claim either.
The fish load is much mor eimportant in such tank tanks but a little dosing can really enhance things in such tanks and with what is now known about the water column, we can predict and dose the water column effectively without much/any testing for that method as well and still not do any water changes.

But the basic balance premise is:

Inputs/imports= outputs/export

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Themuleous]

I was coming to the conclusion that it was a bit of a duff term, as you say, few seem to be able to explain it properly.

Just out of interest Tom, do people (including me!) not put enough emphasis on low fish mass? I.e. we talk lots about light, co2, ferts, substrate, etc, but seem to miss that having a low fish stocking is also a key factor in an algae free tank, presumably due to the lower NH3 production? That would certainly explain a lot about my tanks!

Many thanks

Sam

 

[zig]

To me I have always thought of balance as the tank being algae free, I always find my tank and plants happiest when I dose and do water changes in a consistant manner week after week, when I start missing water changes and not being regular in my dosing, then I usually begin to have problems, and this to me is a tank out of balance, I can usually bring order back quite quickly by being consistant again, so I guess for me consistancy is the key, presuming im dosing correctly in the first place.

 

[plantbrain]

Fishloading does play a significant role in some tanks, but if you do lots of water changes./larger ones, they play a much lesser role.

If you have a non CO2 tank, then their role is very important, virtually all and in many cases, all the nutrients come from the fish food/waste.

Faster plant growth=> higher light/more CO2=> more nutrient demand.

Faster input and faster output.

Now why can't we keeop addign more and more fish and not add any KNO3?

What does fish waste start out as?
Organic N, then urea and NH4...............

Not NO3..........

when you drive things faster, then you rely more on inorganic ferts, just like farmers do with agricultural crops, the organic farm has less production as well, but if we did not add any ferts, how long would the fuields last then?

Same deal here, we need to add things to garden well, inorganic forms work better and are much less toxic, by about 200-500X and much easier to maintain residual levels to supply the plants.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Themuleous]

So really I should stop fiddling with my tanks, set the dosing and get on with growing the plants!

Sam

 

[Waterloo Kid]

I'm not sure you'll ever get a definative answer to your question. What's been said seems fair to me. As I've been told a thousand times:

Provide for the plants and concentrate on getting them growing and the algae issues will sort themselves out. I suppose that's the balance we're all looking for in the end.

Thinking about it, it's not balanced at all. It's a concentrated effort to skew the environment towards plant growth to the exclusion of algae growth.

Like a fat bloke and a small kid on a see-saw!


WK