Question About Ei

[soggyhome]

I have a Juwel Rio 180 litre tank with the standard lighting (I've changed the tubes to arcadia freshwater) giving me 1.25wpg also i have reflectors. I was going to increase the lighting but was put off by Jimboo's experience with the cracked centre brace, I have added pressurised Co2 which is constant at 28.

Right here's the question. Would it be advisable to start EI with my low lighting? The reason I ask is because a few of my plants are developing black areas on there leaves and also some have gone very pale/yellowish, but they are growing like mad. I use an all in one liqid fert at the minute (plantamin) I dont have a phosphate test kit but will get one in the next day or so.

Thanks

Graham

 

[soggyhome]

anyone. . .please

 

[ChrisP]

Dont be put off by one persons experience, I have doubled the lighting on my Rio180 and have had no problems so far.

If you ask me that was more than likely a defect in his tank and not the lighting but who knows. They sell Rio 180's with twin light bars so its highly unlikely that was the problem.

As for the EI I would not bother, I would just dose a bit of trace as and when needed, I cant see that a low light tank would chew through ferts that quick. I could be wrong though!

 

[riverman444]

anyone. . .please

Love your Sig

 

[ghent_3rd]

I am nearly in exactly the same position as you are!!

I am just about to upgrade the lighting in my Rio and have also ordered some Seachem ferts from the internet to start dosing the tank. I may have an extra lighting starter unitif you want to buy it off me, it will be fairly cheap and I see that you are in Leicester, like myself!!!

It would be good to compare similar aquariums with someone that should have similar water to myself. I am guessing you use Birstall's F.I.S.H by the sounds of your forum name??

PM me if you want, we can see how close we actually are to each other??

 

[zig]

You can use EI at low light levels, but you need to scale it right back to suit the growth rate, the growth rates at 1.25 WPG will be very slow, so probably if you have a reasonable fish load this will provide the macronutrients and as stated just add some trace fertiliser occeasionally and this should be enough, low light tanks can go longer between water changes also and this will help as well, but tbh at 1.25WPG you are not going to be able to grow very much at all, even adding one more tube would help loads, and would mean you could grow a lot more veriety of plants.

 

[soggyhome]

Thanks for the replies everyone

Most of my plants grow like wild fire, Cabomba would hit the top I'd cut it and replant the 4 inch piece and in a week it would have grown almost to the top which suprised me. I think I'm going to invest in the extra lighting bar and flaps that Juwal make and then should be able to widen the choice of plants. Would love to get some Riccia growing

Glad you like the siggy Riverman

Hi ghent_3rd, yes I do use F.I.S.H also started going to Clearwater Aquatics which is a nice shop with great staff.

 

[ghent_3rd]

You should definately give Natural World, in Syston, a try. Colin and Tom are two quality guys and have helped me out a lot in the last 6 weeks or so. I love the set-up at Clearwater but to be honest I have always found the staff very un-approachable, although I am planning to go there again now I know a bit more about fish in general and I may find it a bit different.

 

[Nim]

You can grow plenty of plants with 2x T8s on the tank but I am afraid that you may not be able to grow riccia submerged at that lighting level.. you will only be able to grow it floating.

You will also not be able to extract out all the benefits of the EI method in low light because your plants will not be able to consume up all the nutrients fast enough but if you just stick with a decent fish load and use things like flourish twice a week with no real need for dosing Nitrogen or phosphorous, things could be very much stable.

Nim

 

[soggyhome]

Well I've taken the plunge so to speak and increased the lighting to 115 watts I think thats about 2.4 watts per gallon anyone got any spare Riccia