# The EI Concept explained



## Rak9378

Great post! Thanks Zorfox!


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## Zapins

Very nicely explained.


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## plantbrain

Just add enough ferts to not run out of anything even at high light/growth tanks and then do a water change to prevent anything from building up.

Hobbyist have done this same thing for many decades with fish, they "dose" fish food, LOTS of it to grow the fish well, then do frequent water changes to prevent waste/build up.

Hardly my idea. I just argue for it since it's simple and easy. I think many get all into the details too much really. Which is fine and all, but the question is you do not want to spend too much worry over ferts as a newbie, rather, light and CO2. EI just makes ferts independent for any planted aquarium, so you can focus on light/CO2. That is the main goal.

One of the biggest problems folks had were based on old myths about the dangers of excess ferts when I suggested this in the 1990's.
I thought those ideas were correct myself, but then noticed they could not be.


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## Zapins

plantbrain said:


> One of the biggest problems folks had were based on old myths about the dangers of excess ferts when I suggested this in the 1990's.
> I thought those ideas were correct myself, but then noticed they could not be.


This is partially true.

Macro ferts have much higher toxicity levels than micro ferts do. Heavy metals are many times more toxic and have fairly low toxicity ranges, some like copper well below 1 ppm (0.15 ppm actually). Long term exposure to heavy metals makes the toxic concentration lower.


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## Zorfox

Thanks guys. I think it's more important to understand a technique rather than following the steps of one. Without understanding, when problems arise, we have no idea where to turn.




plantbrain said:


> Hobbyist have done this same thing for many decades with fish, they "dose" fish food, LOTS of it to grow the fish well, then do frequent water changes to prevent waste/build up.
> 
> Hardly my idea. I just argue for it since it's simple and easy.


Give yourself a little credit. It matters little that others have noticed improved plant growth with a given technique. Describing a common application and improving it happens to be the birth of many new discoveries.

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi


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## Jack Gilvey

This is a great post and I appreciate the effort it must have taken.



Zorfox said:


> Thanks guys. I think it's more important to understand a technique rather than following the steps of one.


Sure it is, as in "teaching a man to fish" - I get it. Still, as evidenced by the daily posts here, the vast majority want to be told exactly what to put in and when - they just want to be given a fish for today.


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## anfield

According to the nutrient calculator, using the EI low light weekly dosing, I would have to add 22ml of Flourish Nitrogen once a week to my 40g tank? Surely that can't be right?


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## NanoDave

Thank you for the in-depth take on why we do what we do, or should be doing for that matter.


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## STS_1OO

Excellent post Zorfox. Folks like you bring some real value to these forums and the effort is much appreciated.


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## KribsDirect

This should be put with the FAQs.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I've been looking for more info I could understand about EI. I just bought some ferts from Nilocg for a tank I'm building while still unsure of what I'm supposed to do other than just follow the dosage instructions. This was very helpful in learning more about it.


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## ipkiss

kudos. added to my links to reference to. thanks!


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## plantbrain

Zapins said:


> This is partially true.
> 
> Macro ferts have much higher toxicity levels than micro ferts do. Heavy metals are many times more toxic and have fairly low toxicity ranges, some like copper well below 1 ppm (0.15 ppm actually). Long term exposure to heavy metals makes the toxic concentration lower.


That is rather tough to do, I've tried.

I'm sure you could dose enough, but it would REQIURE gross error, massively so, on part of the aquarist, I've never once seen this in some 15+ years of experience of helping folks on line.

Can it occur? Sure, will it? Well, 15 years is a long time and lot of folks have made some really large errors thus far, no one's done it yet near as I or anyone else looking for me can tell.

I've dosed 100-200X what I am suppose to, dosing pump dose it all at once because I did not set the switch on the pump correctly. No death, but a nice yellow red color in the tank. that was with SeaChem Flourish and TMG. Maybe CMS will? 

No one has show that to be the case yet, so for macros and micros, you need to get 10X or more dosing errors before you see risk which is a wide wide error range.

Partially true? 
Please support such statements. 
I've had these same discussions for nearly 20 years perhaps 100 times now.
Shrimp, fish die for many reasons, even without plants and such.......we have to exclude those possibilities prior. If we have a case where they have not died and done well in spite of the high dosing of Traces........well, that falsifies the claims.

That's how it's done, not correlation alone.

Now if we cannot dose say 10X the suggested amount, then we cannot say it's the trace, but perhaps likely it is, but we cannot rule other basic aquarium causes either.

If the livestock is fine, and plants etc are doing well over time, then we can rule out Traces and rule out basic aquarium care/other causes for death since the livestock is doing well. This is basic logic.

When you say a specific hypothesis, liek traces kills things, cause algae, whatever..........you are best off stating a specific ppm etc, say 

"0.2 ppm Cu from CMS+B will kill 50% CRS if you dose this amount daily for 4 weeks."

Now you have something to test and to try and falsify. Generalizations are near worthless. They offer little to the knowledge base for aquarist.


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## plantbrain

Zorfox said:


> Thanks guys. I think it's more important to understand a technique rather than following the steps of one. Without understanding, when problems arise, we have no idea where to turn.
> 
> 
> 
> Give yourself a little credit. It matters little that others have noticed improved plant growth with a given technique. Describing a common application and improving it happens to be the birth of many new discoveries.
> 
> “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi


Arguing for logic, I'll accept that, but not the idea.
Discus folks had been doing it and I figured there's no reason to test if you make a reference solution 2x a week basically with 50-80% of the tank water.

It was mostly to get away from test kits.
It also worked well because large water changes mitigate CO2 and algae issues. 

I've yet to meet a single person who got into the hobby that was interested in testing NO3 and PO4, and such. Gardening? Yes, Water changes are part of the labor? Certainly.

Can water changes be greatly reduced using EI? Yes. In fact, that's one of the goals once the user get some good observational experience. I do many on my 120 Gallon Dutch tank, but I move stuff around a lot, have a messy sediment that makes muddy messes, uproot etc, so it's more to keep it clean than anything to do with fert management. The other Buce tank gets a water change once a month. Light is less, dosing is less, uprooting virtually non existent. Taken to the end point, you do with non CO2 enrichment/no excel and low light with rich sediments and perhaps dosing 2-4x a month, maybe 1/10th EI doses. 

No set method will be all things to all goals, but a conceptual approach will allow someone to adjust and understand how to do it.

In terms of light and CO2:

http://www.tropica.com/en/tropica-abc/basic-knowledge/co2-and-light.aspx

This covers virtually 100% of all planted tanks in terms of light and CO2.
They used non limiting ferts for the test.

If you add ferts to the table 1 matrix, now you'd have 9 x 3 boxes....(for 3 levels of ferts). 

Best to manage light 1st, then if that's too much, manage CO2 next, then lastly........ferts, as CO2 and light are the main players.

Ferts are easy frankly. Aquarist make them complicated.:icon_cool


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## Zorfox

anfield said:


> According to the nutrient calculator, using the EI low light weekly dosing, I would have to add 22ml of Flourish Nitrogen once a week to my 40g tank? Surely that can't be right?


Can't it be? Let's look and see why that makes sense. This is a good time to explain why water changes and dosing amount and/or frequency are closely related. Changing either will significantly impact the other.

We have 40 gallons of water we want to dose.

Using a nutrient calculator, it recommends 22ml of Seachem Nitrogen for low/light weekly EI dosing. The 22 ml dose raises NO3 (nitrates) to 10 ppm.

The range we want to maintain is 5-30ppm of NO3. So 10 ppm is in that range. Great! 

Below are a couple of graphs from wet's calculator. We enter the PPM, the dosing frequency, water change amount, and finally water change frequency. 

The first image is 10ppm weekly and a 50% weekly water change.










Notice how that 5-30 ppm range for NO3 are seen for each uptake group? This uptake percentage (ratio) will be driven by many factors but the most important two are light and CO2 (excel included). So the uptake ratio will change based heavily on which type of tank we have, "low" - "high tech".

The image below depicts the same 10ppm weekly dose of NO3. However, we changed the water changes to 50% *monthly*.










Now we see a huge change. Our range is from 7 ppm - 75 ppm! That range has crumbled away without weekly water changes. Not to worry. If we don't want to do weekly water changes we can adjust our dose. Changing the weekly dose to 3.5 ppm we can stay within the range we want using monthly water changes.

This concept is important to understand. Modeling nutrient ranges in this way can predict very accurately what we can expect to see based on our own maintenance schedules. A "one trick pony" way of dosing for EI or any other method is not necessary. EI is NOT simply daily dosing and weekly water changes. It can be scaled to any application you wish.


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## Zorfox

plantbrain said:


> It was mostly to get away from test kits.
> It also worked well because large water changes mitigate CO2 and algae issues.
> 
> Can water changes be greatly reduced using EI? Yes. In fact, that's one of the goals once the user get some good observational experience. I do many
> 
> No set method will be all things to all goals, but a conceptual approach will allow someone to adjust and understand how to do it.


It's funny I was writing my response above when you posted this lol. 

I agree it needs to be mentioned the thought process behind why you initially conceived this. Balancing water changes with dosing eliminates regular testing not to mention the other benefits to regular water changes. From my experience however, most new and many old hobbyist never learn the basics of nutrient management. So they usually get stuck into following a dosing regime without understanding how to adjust. This basically prevents them from ever making those needed changes based on their own tank. As you said nutrients are easy. This is especially true when you understand the basics. Without that knowledge, it's like the difference between riding a bus and driving your own car. The bus will take you where it wants to go. Drive a car and you decide where to turn.


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## anfield

Zorfox, thanks, it makes sense, to be honest I was just shocked at how quickly I would burn through ferts. Not too different from dosing drugs and pharmacokinetics in humans.

According to the tropica article that Tom Barr linked, seems to indicate that nitrogen and phosphate supplementation are not required for well stocked planted tanks?

Some great info in this thread, will definitely be bookmarking it.


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## Zorfox

anfield said:


> Not too different from dosing drugs and pharmacokinetics in humans.


Maybe that's why this makes sense to me. Nearly 30 years of dosing patients. Administration types, therapeutic levels, clearance times etc. all relate to this. All the way down to the acid base balance system used to interpret blood gases. 



anfield said:


> According to the tropica article that Tom Barr linked, seems to indicate that nitrogen and phosphate supplementation are not required for well stocked planted tanks?


Yup. Remember this from the initial post.

_"Nitrogen, represented by NO3 (nitrate) above. This is the result of nitrifying bacteria. This means we can have nitrogen without dosing. The amounts we have are based on the amount of organic matter that is processed by the bacteria. We can also get nitrate through our tap water. Many water supplies have nitrate levels from agricultural runoff."_

Phosphates are another thing we can see from a well stocked tank. Accounting for endogenous nutrients is easily done when we understand the basics.


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## ipkiss

anfield said:


> Zorfox, thanks, it makes sense, to be honest I was just shocked at how quickly I would burn through ferts.


Anfield, 

This is why we buy dry fertilizers and mix them ourselves. Your 22ml of flourish will finish that bottle way too fast. Get a pound of KNO3 dry fertilizer from someone like nilocg on the sales forum and it'll be way more economical.


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## Zapins

plantbrain said:


> I'm sure you could dose enough, but it would REQIURE gross error, massively so, on part of the aquarist, I've never once seen this in some 15+ years of experience of helping folks on line.


Not as high as you'd think depending on the micro we are talking about.



plantbrain said:


> I've dosed 100-200X what I am suppose to, dosing pump dose it all at once because I did not set the switch on the pump correctly. No death, but a nice yellow red color in the tank. that was with SeaChem Flourish and TMG. Maybe CMS will?
> 
> No one has show that to be the case yet, so for macros and micros, you need to get 10X or more dosing errors before you see risk which is a wide wide error range.


Two things, 
Flourish is quite dilute, so 200x a normal dose isn't that high of a concentration. CSM+B is much more concentrated being in dry form so I'd expect that to be more likely to cause an overdose. Compared with a 200x overdose on CSM+B which would almost certainly ruin a tank.

When you dose a concentration a given nutrient the short term effects of a toxicity are not seen unless the concentration is very high. That is why ~1 ppm copper is considered "toxic" to algae and plants for a short term exposure (1-3 days). If you increase the exposure time to a few weeks copper becomes toxic at 0.15 ppm, possibly even lower, to many plants. The recommended dose for copper is below 0.02 ppm to avoid any sort of inhibitory effect.



plantbrain said:


> Partially true?
> Please support such statements.
> I've had these same discussions for nearly 20 years perhaps 100 times now.


I can ask the same question of you. Please support your statements with actual scientific background literature. It is very easy to refute another person's argument, but much harder to support your own with published long term study evidence, or peer-reviewed literature based arguments. 

My work-in-progress literature research into toxicity ranges (mainly for unchelated micros):
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...eficiency-literature-research.html#post661246

I am fairly certain you have already read the CSM+B iron toxicity thread where I provided background research and thought on the matter but here it is again so you don't have to search for it:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=503585



plantbrain said:


> Shrimp, fish die for many reasons, even without plants and such.......we have to exclude those possibilities prior. If we have a case where they have not died and done well in spite of the high dosing of Traces........well, that falsifies the claims.


The effects of certain concentrations of nutrients on shrimp and fish have been extensively studied and there are very well documented LD50 values for that. Copper is one of those that has been looked at very thoroughly. So when you say we have to exclude those possibilities when trying to figure out if high traces makes a difference I disagree. It is very relevant. If we are reaching known values for toxicity or even approaching a fraction of those values then we are entering dangerous territory. 

Furthermore, there is no need to overdose micros (except possibly iron), plants simply don't use that much of them. Have you ever seen a molybdenum deficiency? A copper deficiency, manganese? Do you know that many researchers actually have difficulty keeping their sample water pure enough to actually demonstrate a deficiency of many of these micro nutrients? What benefit do we get from massively overdosing traces when we know - from hundreds of studies - that heavy metals can and are toxic to fish, shrimp, plants, bacteria etc at very low concentrations...?



plantbrain said:


> Now if we cannot dose say 10X the suggested amount, then we cannot say it's the trace, but perhaps likely it is, but we cannot rule other basic aquarium causes either.


Many studies I have read also talk about ED05 or ED10. Basically the dose that it takes to negatively affect 5% or 10% of the plants. Do you think we can easily see toxic effects on plants if they are at the lower end? Affecting only 5-10% of the plants? Does that make the toxic effects on our tank inhabitants any less concerning if we are aiming for unlimited healthy growth? 

Again, I see no point overdosing micros when 99% of the time you'll never get a micro deficiency even with very low concentrations. On the other hand toxicity is a very real possibility and there are documented literature values where researchers have exhaustively tested and found low concentration effects.

What about people who have naturally higher levels of certain micro nutrients in their tap water? What happens when we add very high trace nutrients to their tank? Both doses combine and you can fully enter toxic ranges. 

What about people who have small tanks and accidentally add a teaspoon of micros 3x a week? A teaspoon doesn't seem like that much to a beginner, but in a small tank it can quickly reach toxicity levels especially since plants don't use up micros as quickly as they do macros.



plantbrain said:


> When you say a specific hypothesis, liek traces kills things, cause algae, whatever..........you are best off stating a specific ppm etc, say
> 
> "0.2 ppm Cu from CMS+B will kill 50% CRS if you dose this amount daily for 4 weeks."


I never said they cause algae. I said they damage plants when micros reach certain ranges.


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## plantbrain

Zapins,

Analysis
EI:
0.5 Fe
0.01 Cu

Say you want 0.2ppm of Cu at your threshold:

0.5 Fe x 20X = 10 ppm
0.01 Cu X 20X = 0.2 ppm 

Overdoing it 20X is not been done by anyone I've known or seen on line ever. 

Say the toxic dose is 0.02 ppm Cu
That's still 2X the more than the upper limit for EI.

Math don't lie.

If you chose 0.02ppm which is a long tern residual, vs a pulse dose which is taken up by plants, that is two very different issues, dense plant beds are very effective at removing metals from water. A small amount like this will not last long in the water column.

Have you tested copper in planted tanks? It does not last long. Try it and see for yourself, do not take my word for it. Plants can handle quite a bit. Shrimp are the best bet for a hyper sensitive species. They are the best bet for a "canary in the coal mine" 

I've shown there's no risk at high CMS+B dosing for Shrimp.
I've got video, I've got long term photo journals, I've got dozens of local hobbyists who have seen my tanks in person.
Those are the facts. 

You cannot logically conclude that there is risk, when others have show otherwise. People make these claims X is caused by Y, but then do not test *their own hypotheses. * These are not *my* hypotheses. They are yours, you argue for them, then you do the work.

I'm not coming to you and saying "here's my conclusion, let's see what facts I can to support it." I've dosed and not found observations support the claimed risk. So I cannot logically conclude that there is a risk even over a wide range.

Even if there might be and you want to use belief, you can still switch to a different brand. Both management issues are easily met. 

Chelation makes a massive difference in toxicity, and we all add chelated metals for traces. I am also unaware of any shrimp studies that had planted tanks, CO2 enriched systems, this makes growth, uptake and many other issues very different compared to the research.

Research is a good starting point, but unless it's pretty specific to our systems and there's also observations that are not falsified already, it can be misapplied. We assumed that PO4 above 0.2ppm induced algae based on that same logic and research for support.

Clearly that was not true. The same logic I used there I'm using here. All I have to do is falsify it. If I or others cannot, then I tentatively accept it.
I've already falsified your claim way beyond the typical dosing routines and errors newbies and folks who are prone to make mistakes might do. 
CMS might be more toxic to livestock than Flourish, but........I've gone overboard with both enough to know there's little associated risk.

As far as plants, they are very tough till you start getting pretty high with copper.

CO2? 

People fish their fish weekly on many forums being careless with that, but we do not see much fear mongering there curiously. Traces? I've yet to see any cases. Could you do it? sure, but you'd have to really try.
I've tried way beyond the highest plant demand, no issues here.


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## plantbrain

Zorfox said:


> It's funny I was writing my response above when you posted this lol.
> 
> I agree it needs to be mentioned the thought process behind why you initially conceived this. Balancing water changes with dosing eliminates regular testing not to mention the other benefits to regular water changes. From my experience however, most new and many old hobbyist never learn the basics of nutrient management. So they usually get stuck into following a dosing regime without understanding how to adjust. This basically prevents them from ever making those needed changes based on their own tank. As you said nutrients are easy. This is especially true when you understand the basics. Without that knowledge, it's like the difference between riding a bus and driving your own car. The bus will take you where it wants to go. Drive a car and you decide where to turn.



Well, then you get folks who say they do not want all that, just tell me what to do

Ya cannot win.

So I just take each person one at a time and others watch and get the ideas and info they want. 

Some get it right away others want to argue about it, others still have trouble with the concepts. Some do not want to fuss with all them liquids and ppm's of this or that, which was were I came from initially myself. I liked a brand name and not some unknown nameless sack of white powder. I did not want to change the routine.

Many are that way. The problems are much more social than anything.


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## Zorfox

I think both would agree that dosing excess nutrients without water changes or compounding that problem by dosing incorrectly (tablespoons instead of teaspoons) would lead to toxic levels of anything. We cannot dose "above the barrel" without reset. It's simple logic.

Why argue over whether toxic nutrient levels can exist, they can. Water changes and proper dosing can prevent all of this. The problem lies in the sentence preceding this one. Every hobbyist makes mistakes. Yes, they may be huge mistakes by our standards but the possibility still exists.

What is the toxic level for trace element X in aquatic plants? Beyond a few papers on copper, nitrates, zinc and a few others I have no idea. It would be nice to know, as well as what to look for just in case. I'm like every other hobbyist. I'm human and prone to error.

As you both probably know I'm from a medical background. What would happen if doctors decided no one would ever eat 5 bottles of Tylenol? We would have a lot of unknown deaths. Instead accept that the possibility exists and develop a clear identification method of what may be going on. It just makes sense.

What can we do to prevent toxicity? Dose appropriately and perform water changes. Sorry to derail any debates. But I'm more interested in managing nutrients to prevent both limits and toxicity in the first place. To put it bluntly you are both correct. You just need to move towards the middle a tad more. I respect both of you tremendously but that's what I see here.



plantbrain said:


> Well, then you get folks who say they do not want all that, just tell me what to do
> 
> Ya cannot win.
> 
> So I just take each person one at a time and others watch and get the ideas and info they want.
> 
> Many are that way. The problems are much more social than anything.


Yes, I've seen the same thing. Those "just tell me what to do folks" invariably are asking for help a month after you tell them dose X and change Y every Z days lol. 

This thread is for those folks that watch and get the info on their own. I can't force everyone to understand the basics but I can offer information for those that want to learn more than the "insert part A into slot B" audience. Social? I would tend to agree.


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## Zapins

Tom, you have not addressed several of my points in your last reply, nor have you provided any links or journals which support your conclusions that micros don't build up to toxic ranges in the aquarium. If you want to talk about proof then you need to back up your claims as well. You mentioned your 15+ years aquarium experience in an earlier post. That is not proof. I also have 15+ years of experience, as well as many years working in research labs, Yale University being one of them.



plantbrain said:


> Zapins,
> 
> Analysis
> EI:
> 0.5 Fe
> 0.01 Cu
> 
> Say you want 0.2ppm of Cu at your threshold:
> 
> 0.5 Fe x 20X = 10 ppm
> 0.01 Cu X 20X = 0.2 ppm
> 
> Overdoing it 20X is not been done by anyone I've known or seen on line ever.
> 
> Say the toxic dose is 0.02 ppm Cu
> That's still 2X the more than the upper limit for EI.
> 
> Math don't lie.


If you are starting with pure RO water with no other sources of micros then you are correct. However, most people do not reconstitute RO water, they use city or well water which have varying quantities of micro nutrients in them. I do not claim that copper is the heavy metal that always causes toxicity problems in our tanks. Most of the micros can cause issues when in toxic ranges. There are many situations that can bring about higher than normal concentrations of one or many micro nutrients. I already stated two in my previous post:



Zapins said:


> What about people who have naturally higher levels of certain micro nutrients in their tap water? What happens when we add very high trace nutrients to their tank? Both doses combine and you can fully enter toxic ranges.
> 
> What about people who have small tanks and accidentally add a teaspoon of micros 3x a week? A teaspoon doesn't seem like that much to a beginner, but in a small tank it can quickly reach toxicity levels especially since plants don't use up micros as quickly as they do macros.


I have seen these both happen and have documented water values for each micro nutrient that was in the water at the time. In each case micro nutrients had entered the toxic range and unsurprisingly the plants showed micro nutrient toxicity symptoms. In addition, when micros were flushed out of the tank using RO water the problems disappeared as well.
Ex: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilizing/88403-trouble-farm-help-8.html#post660565

Yet another example is when soil is used and heavy handed EI dosing is continued. The combined micros leaching from the soil and from EI can easily reach toxicity ranges.
Ex: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=476929



plantbrain said:


> Have you tested copper in planted tanks? It does not last long. Try it and see for yourself, do not take my word for it. Plants can handle quite a bit. Shrimp are the best bet for a hyper sensitive species. They are the best bet for a "canary in the coal mine"


I have actually. I had my water samples analyzed by lab grade equipment several times and there seems to be a lot of interesting data showing which micros end up staying in the water column. The most consistent part is that plants show signs of toxicity every time the heavy metals exceed certain concentrations. Read the second thread I provided in post #20. In addition to that thread, there are several other threads on various forums that describe similar examples.

See the table of test results when CSM+B was used:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showpost.php?p=4874569&postcount=3



plantbrain said:


> I've shown there's no risk at high CMS+B dosing for Shrimp.
> I've got video, I've got long term photo journals, I've got dozens of local hobbyists who have seen my tanks in person.
> Those are the facts.


It is good that you are documenting your tests. However, showing that shrimp do not die when CSM+B is dosed in moderation is not what I am claiming. If your copper levels reach the proven LD50 levels for copper or other heavy metals the shrimp will likely die. It is in the literature, or are you arguing that the literature values do not apply in our tanks?



plantbrain said:


> You cannot logically conclude that there is risk, when others have show otherwise. People make these claims X is caused by Y, but then do not test *their own hypotheses. * These are not *my* hypotheses. They are yours, you argue for them, then you do the work.


Tom, you clearly didn't read through the links I provided where I showed the potential risk. 

In addition, you have not provided any evidence in this thread to show that there is no risk.



plantbrain said:


> Even if there might be and you want to use belief, you can still switch to a different brand. Both management issues are easily met.


Hobbyists test all kinds of things in their tanks every day arriving at all sorts of conclusions, what makes them wrong and you right? You have not provided any links to your relevant toxicity tests, your means of analyzing results, or even background literature evidence as I have when writing replies. There is no way to fact check your statement that 'we can never realistically reach micro toxicity ranges in our aquariums.' You asked for proof of my ideas, and I provided links to some of my research, now where is your evidence for your claims?



plantbrain said:


> Chelation makes a massive difference in toxicity, and we all add chelated metals for traces. I am also unaware of any shrimp studies that had planted tanks, CO2 enriched systems, this makes growth, uptake and many other issues very different compared to the research.


Chelation does reduce toxicity, sometimes by quite a lot depending on the metal we are talking about. I have been very careful to state this in several of my previous posts and summaries. 



plantbrain said:


> Research is a good starting point, but unless it's pretty specific to our systems and there's also observations that are not falsified already, it can be misapplied. We assumed that PO4 above 0.2ppm induced algae based on that same logic and research for support.


Research is the most valid way we have of examining the processes that occur in our tanks. Most of the studies I have looked at on toxicities use the aquatic plant species we often keep, there is no closer analog to our system than that or do you believe that your personal tests are more accurate than peer reviewed lab tests conducted by a team of researchers with funding?



plantbrain said:


> Clearly that was not true. The same logic I used there I'm using here. All I have to do is falsify it. If I or others cannot, then I tentatively accept it.
> I've already falsified your claim way beyond the typical dosing routines and errors newbies and folks who are prone to make mistakes might do.
> CMS might be more toxic to livestock than Flourish, but........I've gone overboard with both enough to know there's little associated risk.


One calculation hardly constitutes falsifying all my evidence especially when I have made it easy for you to examine my data and my ideas by providing links, research journals and data from research publications. You also have not addressed all of the points I brought up in my previous post. 

If you wish to do more research and post your findings then I will look them over and perhaps we can mutually agree on what ranges are realistically toxic for each micro nutrient, otherwise as you have stated yourself in several places you do not know what the toxicity ranges are for the micros.


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## Zapins

Zorfox said:


> I think both would agree that dosing excess nutrients without water changes or compounding that problem by dosing incorrectly (tablespoons instead of teaspoons) would lead to toxic levels of anything.
> 
> Why argue over whether toxic nutrient levels can exist, they can. Water changes and proper dosing can prevent all of this. The problem lies in the sentence preceding this one. Every hobbyist makes mistakes. Yes, they may be huge mistakes by our standards but the possibility still exists.


I think we do both agree that toxicities can occur, but what I do not understand is what is the problem with using the literature values we already have on the topic (which I have looked up already) to figure out where the toxicity range should be and then do a few tests of our own to confirm the range?



Zorfox said:


> What is the toxic level for trace element X in aquatic plants? Beyond a few papers on copper, nitrates, zinc and a few others I have no idea. It would be nice to know, as well as what to look for just in case. I'm like every other hobbyist. I'm human and prone to error.


I've collected about 150 papers so far on various nutrients and the toxicity ranges for certain plants. There is no one toxic value for each of the micros that will hurt every species of plant we keep in all situations, but there are certainly ranges which should be avoided in order to keep our plants safe. 

I believe we should take the lowest literature toxic value and then ensure that we do not dose anywhere close to that value. In medicine when a drug is brought to market usually it is required to have a toxic concentration at least 10-100x above the effective dose concentration. So using the copper example, if we were to say that 0.15 ppm is the lower toxic range, then do not dose more than 0.015 ppm to be in the safe zone.



Zorfox said:


> What can we do to prevent toxicity? Dose appropriately and perform water changes. Sorry to derail any debates. But I'm more interested in managing nutrients to prevent both limits and toxicity in the first place. To put it bluntly you are both correct. You just need to move towards the middle a tad more. I respect both of you tremendously but that's what I see here.


Nutrient management is definitely an important part of growing aquatic plants. I use and love the EI method above all others, the idea of abundance rather than nutrient limitation is a good one especially when it comes to macro nutrients. My only issue with the system is the potential for overdosing micro nutrients exists given certain circumstances. Micros are far more toxic than any of the macros and so they need to be addressed properly.


----------



## Kevin1

Great write up Zorfox! I still have a few questions but that really clarified a lot for this newbie.


----------



## mightymizz

Great read, and thanks for posting.

As a very new person to planted tank, and just starting to get into the dosing, it is very hard to understand a baseline of PPM levels to start from with the EI method. 

I think I am going to try the PPS just because it gives me a baseline to start from (this many grams of NO3 for 500ml bottle, for example), and then I can go from there.

I have no clue when trying to use the calculator, how many PPM I want...I do want someone to tell me a general starting point which is neither too little, nor too high, of which I wouldn't really know myself.

Lastly, why does the PPS want a few extra Ferts (when you buy the packages) where as the EI doesn't come with the extra Ferts? Wouldn't they both need the same ones?


----------



## DarkCobra

Love the visual aids in this thread. Awesome job [Zorfox]!



mightymizz said:


> Lastly, why does the PPS want a few extra Ferts (when you buy the packages) where as the EI doesn't come with the extra Ferts? Wouldn't they both need the same ones?


Using EI, you add more than is necessary, and remove the buildup with regular water changes. By adding an excess of potassium nitrate, you can typically be sure that your plants are getting enough of _both_ potassium and nitrate.

Using PPS, you try to keep addition and consumption of major nutrients the same, so that nothing ever builds up or is depleted, and water changes can be minimized. You add potassium nitrate only as much as _nitrates_ are needed. Fish food is another source of nitrates, and so in a well-stocked tank little or no additional potassium nitrate may be needed. But _potassium_ is still needed even if the nitrate is not, as fish food is a poor source of that. So you need a separate source of potassium _without_ nitrate, and that is potassium sulfate - one of the extras in the PPS pack.

The other is magnesium sulfate. EI assumes you get enough from hard tapwater, or if your tapwater is soft you're adding a GH booster that contains magnesium; either way, magnesium is being replenished on a weekly basis. But with PPS you minimize water changes, and magnesium is not being regularly replenished. So it's likely enough that you'll need to dose it separately, to warrant its inclusion in the pack.


----------



## plantbrain

Zorfox said:


> It's funny I was writing my response above when you posted this lol.
> 
> I agree it needs to be mentioned the thought process behind why you initially conceived this. Balancing water changes with dosing eliminates regular testing not to mention the other benefits to regular water changes. From my experience however, most new and many old hobbyist never learn the basics of nutrient management. So they usually get stuck into following a dosing regime without understanding how to adjust. This basically prevents them from ever making those needed changes based on their own tank. As you said nutrients are easy. This is especially true when you understand the basics. Without that knowledge, it's like the difference between riding a bus and driving your own car. The bus will take you where it wants to go. Drive a car and you decide where to turn.


Well, other folks are writing that, not myself.
I've made it clear 1001 times, but people keep repeating and coming up with their own versions of what EI is. 

No issues there, but they lack common sense often times. 
I started explaining it VERY SIMPLY.

But then a bunch of people had more and more questions. they a bunch claimed it caused algae, they claim virtually each individual fert was the root cause for X, Y and Z. After falsifying those, they then back pedaled and went after fish health, then it was shrimp, all falsified easily. Then it was growing the plants too fast. Next is was water changes are BAD. 

Heck, what the do folks want?

I made it simple as any method possible.

*Add ferts, do water changes to keep the ferts within a range.
Now ferts are independent of other dependencies(light and CO2 mostly)*

That's it.


----------



## plantbrain

Zorfox said:


> I think both would agree that dosing excess nutrients without water changes or compounding that problem by dosing incorrectly (tablespoons instead of teaspoons) would lead to toxic levels of anything. We cannot dose "above the barrel" without reset. It's simple logic.


Folks have done this many times, the tanks did not have issues. I suppose if you went out long enough. Or you did not do any water changes, but that's not EI. That's just bad care. No method prevents that. :wink:



> Why argue over whether toxic nutrient levels can exist, they can. Water changes and proper dosing can prevent all of this. The problem lies in the sentence preceding this one. Every hobbyist makes mistakes. Yes, they may be huge mistakes by our standards but the possibility still exists.


Sure, that's nice to say........but it is meaningless unless you have a ppm to associate with it.

Your question is not specific. Mistakes, we all make, the risk is the issue. and to assess risk, you NEED to have a range. Saying something can build up does not tell us much, the question is what risk are involved and what ranges can we go to before there is a risk.

I know what plants take up over time.
I know I can lard on a lot more ferts than we need without that much issues, but I see little good reason to do so. Weekly good care and water changes is a good idea for most folks and planted tanks that use CO2 gas. 
I'm hardly alone in this view.



> What is the toxic level for trace element X in aquatic plants? Beyond a few papers on copper, nitrates, zinc and a few others I have no idea. It would be nice to know, as well as what to look for just in case. I'm like every other hobbyist. I'm human and prone to error.


I know for copper because it's used as an aquatic algicides and herbicide for aquatic weeds.

Sure, it might be nice to know, but I've seen no issues larding on a lot of traces over several years on multiple tanks, others report similar examples.

Say, I know, how about a bunch of hard to grow picky plants?
I sell them routinely, show pics of them over long time frames, garden extensively etc.



So if there are toxicities, you'd have to go way beyond EI's ranges to find them.

Sure they exists, but I do not know, nor have I've seen anyone show what ppm's ranges those actually are to date. It's been 15 years and thousands of users. You'd think by now...........but nope. You basically have to go way beyond the non limiting level and stop following the basic advice I gave to begin with. 

Folks make mistakes, no matter what you write.
So you get in and help them, one person at a time if you see something incorrect.



> As you both probably know I'm from a medical background. What would happen if doctors decided no one would ever eat 5 bottles of Tylenol?


I thought you said you had a medical background?
What is the risk there .....compared to someone who did not read the article about what to dose their plants and dumped a pound instead of teaspoon of X Y and Z?

Look, people like this likely should not keep pets. 
We all have killed fish at some point, learning is a step wise process(hopefully), there is no way to prevent errors 100% of the time, that is not even my goal.

Risk such as children getting into a bottle, we have tamper proof and child proof caps now. How can we stop the aquarist kids from over feeding the fish and killing them 2 lbs of flake food?

I can make such statements also, they do not support your argument however.
*
Risk is the basis.
*




> We would have a lot of unknown deaths. Instead accept that the possibility exists and develop a clear identification method of what may be going on. It just makes sense.


Most folks who make such mistakes never read the article nor comprehended it. All they see is add X, Y and Z and you have a tank like mine. ADA, Tropica, myself, you name it, they all have folks who see something then think they just need to do one thing etc.

And it's not the articles fault in the least.
You say you are in the medical field but you are not taking into account much about Humans.

This is a social issue, not one so much about the article itself.
Any/every article can be better written.
But the reader...........?? Well, they will take only what they do.
antibiotics, they nag and tell them to take all the pills for the full treatment time, but many do not after they feel better.

The risk there far outweighs anything we might do here.



> Social? I would tend to agree.


See? We do agree, hehe.

It gets down to what are the risk, and what are the ranges associated with said risk. Without that specific information, we cannot say if 2 bottles of Advil is toxic or not to lab rats or is it only 4 mg per adult 500 gram 12 week mouse? 
We NEED a range to work with if you want to add that information.

You do not get to "guess" and make stuff up:redface:
Has not stopped many:icon_roll

I simply went with a very high light and and CO2(thus these are the upper bounds that most hobbyists would ever have. Any and everything else would fall BELOW that value for uptake/demand.

So no need to lard more ferts on beyond that.
Likewise, this implies that 99.9% of all aquariums will have LESS demand than this.

So EI is a good start point.
Then you have independence for ferts and can lower it progressively and slowly and eyeball a good Critical point. The point where you see a decline in growth rates. 

Then bump back up to the last prior dosing. There is no need to research and try to kill your plants with ultra high dosing. Many have made gross errors in the past and had little issue.

The goal is to have good growth without much management risk or issues. 
Nice to have the other info, but few hobbyists are honestly THAT interested, they want to garden nicely with aquatic weeds. They do not want to use and fiddle with dosing and test kits, do all sorts of research.

Not seen many state that was their goal. Just the nice gardening.


----------



## plantbrain

DarkCobra said:


> Using PPS, you try to keep addition and consumption of major nutrients the same, so that nothing ever builds up or is depleted, and water changes can be minimized. You add potassium nitrate only as much as _nitrates_ are needed. Fish food is another source of nitrates, and so in a well-stocked tank little or no additional potassium nitrate may be needed. But _potassium_ is still needed even if the nitrate is not, as fish food is a poor source of that. So you need a separate source of potassium _without_ nitrate, and that is potassium sulfate - one of the extras in the PPS pack.


So in order to do this and avoid the water changes, you need to test.
This assumes that all 400+ species of plants have the same fert requirements, this is not true.

Water changes are much more effective and part of the routines, what folks signed up for when they got an aquarium, *reduces FAR more risk* than test kits and avoidance of water changes. I've done this. And if anything get too far off? Then they defer to a water change to remove user errors anyway.
Telling folks not to do water changes is not good advice for 95-99% of the planted hobbyists.

It can be done, I've done it. But it's easier if you remove the CO2 and reduce the light, then you do not have to dose and can get away with a much more effective non CO2 method.

Still, it's not for everyone also. 



> The other is magnesium sulfate. EI assumes you get enough from hard tapwater, or if your tapwater is soft you're adding a GH booster that contains magnesium; either way, magnesium is being replenished on a weekly basis. But with PPS you minimize water changes, and magnesium is not being regularly replenished. So it's likely enough that you'll need to dose it separately, to warrant its inclusion in the pack.


Mg is often overlooked/forgotten. But you can tell in a day or two if adding it helps.

GH booster should be added with EI.

PMDD included it with the Trace mix.


----------



## mightymizz

So, If you are not dosing CO2 (I'm just using Flourish Excel), should I not do either EI or PPS? Or should I use one of the systems, but at a reduced amount of dosing?


Thanks all so far, this is helping me learn!


----------



## Zorfox

mightymizz said:


> So, If you are not dosing CO2 (I'm just using Flourish Excel), should I not do either EI or PPS? Or should I use one of the systems, but at a reduced amount of dosing?


You can certainly use a reduced EI dose. I would reduce the dose to 25-33% of EI if you are not using CO2 injection. 




plantbrain said:


> Folks have done this many times, the tanks did not have issues. I suppose if you went out long enough. Or you did not do any water changes, but that's not EI. That's just bad care. No method prevents that.


This is my entire point. I’m not suggesting that the EI method causes toxicity. However, I think it’s important to make cautionary statements when explaining something. My suggestion that toxicities can develop is accurate. If you don’t follow the advice this is a consequence. I don’t need to have specific ppm for every nutrient to make this statement. There are toxic levels for various nutrients. You realize this so I don’t need to support an argument that they exist. 



plantbrain said:


> I thought you said you had a medical background?
> What is the risk there .....compared to someone who did not read the article about what to dose their plants and dumped a pound instead of teaspoon of X Y and Z?
> 
> I can make such statements also, they do not support your argument however.


 I think you have misunderstood my point. It appears to this reader that you’re suggesting we shouldn’t warn that toxicities can occur if the plan is not followed because thousands of users have had success. People do make mistakes. You can kill your fauna and/or flora with excess nutrients. I doubt the same number of people who have made mistakes post their failures as opposed to success stories. The statement I made that you quoted was intended to mean “don’t stick our heads in the sand” thinking users will follow the plan. A surprising number of people don’t read directions leading to problems every day. We can’t ignore that. Providing cautionary statements was my argument. Nothing more.

Lack of communication, misunderstanding? Probably. The way I see it we actually agree. I’m sure you’ve had to argue many issues over the years and had huge criticisms from other hobbyists. I’m not one of them. EI works. The idea of providing non limiting nutrients is a logical approach. Why would I argue this?


----------



## sleepswithdafishez

Thank you for opening this thread.Many of my questions were answered here.
I still have a couple ,though:
If I don't use any CO2 or Excel ,and follow the EI/Low light weekly ,dosing as suggested by the calculator (for the water column volume only) ,- can I have easy ,fast growing plants(wisteria ,Najas G. for ex) ,along with low light plants like ferns and anubias?(to help remove any excess?)
Or - are the fast growers a No-No ,if dosing the amounts suggested by the calc?can the result be imbalance and algae on the slow growers?

I want to switch to this method ,give up on most of my stem plants ,and replace them ,in time ,with ferns and Anubias.
I have collected many species of plants ,from Anubias to Hemianthus ,to Liliaeopsis to Ammania ,Cardamine ,Vallisneria ,etc....,which have different needs of course ,and I guess competition between them also contributes to imbalances.

So ,what I mean is ,if I want a large plant biomass ,should I use less/not at all -the easy ,fast growers , along with low light ones?And should I completely remove the stem plants ,and keep only plants which have the same uptake range ,more or less?

Again ,your taking the time to explain EI in this thread ,making it so easy to be understood ,is highly appreciated ,Zorfox.Now you've really opened my eyes into the subject!
This is a picture of my tank.I collected a lot of weeds since starting the hobby ,like your average eager beginner.What would you do ,what plants would you keep if it was yours and wanted a Low light/weekly EI routine?

My plants : Hemianthus ,Hairgrass ,Lobelia ,Rotala ,Bacopa ,Ammania ,Vals ,Najas G. ,Wisteria ,Amazon Sword ,Anubias ,Crypts ,some moss ,Liliaeopsis -and a couple algae species


----------



## Zorfox

sleepswithdafishez said:


> If I don't use any CO2 or Excel ,and follow the EI/Low light weekly ,dosing as suggested by the calculator (for the water column volume only) ,- can I have easy ,fast growing plants(wisteria ,Najas G. for ex) ,along with low light plants like ferns and anubias?(to help remove any excess?)
> Or - are the fast growers a No-No ,if dosing the amounts suggested by the calc?can the result be imbalance and algae on the slow growers?


You can grow many stem plants without CO2 and high light. They just grow much slower. Choose plants based on their light requirement. I would recommend Excel or generic glutaraldehyde. It does make a difference albeit nowhere near as effective as CO2 injection. 

Don't confuse yourself or over think nutrient management. I realize it may sound daunting with all the chemical names and jargon but in essence just supply non limiting nutrients and you're done. As long as you have enough nutrients for the most "hungry" plant you're all set. You can house any number of plants together. Plants don't care if their neighbor uses more or less as long as there's food in the fridge for them lol.

EI for low light weekly would be fine. I would prefer to dose more often but that's my own preference. It provides some nutrients that won't be available all week. However, your plants will still survive on once a week dosing just fine. As far as excess nutrients causing algae I have not seen this to be true. I have dosed far above EI levels and never experienced an issue. It's an easy thing to blame when you can't figure out what is going on. It's a myth many people still hold fast to.

Btw. Nice looking tank. You're certainly doing something right


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## mightymizz

Thanks again for the response and this article!

I purchased a Fert. pack for PPS dosing and it is on its way to me. I think I want to try the EI method instead as I like the idea of doing 1 large water change for the fish's sakes too.

I like the PPS because it tells me how much of each fert (in grams) to put into the bottle, along with the other Ferts., then tells me how many ml to dose. Is there a calculator for EI that can do the same? 

I have a 29g tank for reference, and here is a link for reference as well if that helps here.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=587513


----------



## Zorfox

mightymizz said:


> Thanks again for the response and this article!
> 
> I purchased a Fert. pack for PPS dosing and it is on its way to me. I think I want to try the EI method instead as I like the idea of doing 1 large water change for the fish's sakes too.
> 
> I like the PPS because it tells me how much of each fert (in grams) to put into the bottle, along with the other Ferts., then tells me how many ml to dose. Is there a calculator for EI that can do the same?
> 
> I have a 29g tank for reference, and here is a link for reference as well if that helps here.
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=587513


There is a calculator. Here is the link. The problem many people seem to have is the differences in tanks parameters. Should I choose EI, low/light, PPS because I have XYZ? I am in the process of writing another calculator. I intend to add a wizard to ask these questions and suggest a good starting point to work from. Carlos (Wet) has been a great help with this endeavor thus far. Beyond that the calculator is very helpful and accurate. Where do you start?

You have a moderately planted tank. The plants are rather undemanding. I would start with 1/3 or so of the EI dose to start. Once you see how your plants respond you can slowly reduce that dose until you see a change.

Using that calculator you can choose EI low light weekly. There is another option you can start with. Choose EI daily and dose that amount every other day. It's a little more than you need but won't cause any problems what so ever. I like dosing something every day for several reasons.

The traditional EI method requires weekly water changes. This is important if you choose those doses from the calculator. If you want to modify the water change schedule you can look at the levels that will be expected in this calculator. Our goal here is to maintain a range of nutrients listed in the original post.

So basically, if you're willing to do weekly water changes I would choose the daily dose and use that every other day (more than you need but not harmful). We want to start above that barrel. Then decrease and find that critical point where we see changes. Do we need to reduce doses? Honestly I don't see any reason to. The levels are not toxic to fauna or flora. Is it expensive? Not at all. Do we need this much fertilizer. No, but is there any harm?

The entire point to this method is to supply non limiting nutrients. Then we can work on more important things like CO2 and basic gardening. Nutrients are the easiest part. We can tinker with various levels and argue over other aspects but the fact always remains the same. Just dose enough fertilizers for the plants needs.

Using EI low light weekly or daily dosing using that amount every other day, schedule below, will provide appropriate nutrients for any plants you may have. 

Mon Macros 
Tues Micros
Wed Macros
Thrus Micros
Fri Macros
Sat Micros
Sun 50% water change (GH booster)

Does this make sense?


----------



## mightymizz

It is starting to make more sense.

However, where I am getting stuck on now is where I find out how much of each Fertilizer I need to add to make my dosing solution (ideally in grams for a 500ml bottle), while taking into account the information regarding how KNO3 for example also provides some K. I am not even sure where a general baseline of PPM to be looking at?

5-30ppm is a huge range. There has to be some "generalized idea" of where to start, or where in that range has been found sufficient. Also, Do I need to know both my GH and KH? And what is the GH booster?

Am I wrong to be thinking that I will be able to combine all of the Fertilizers (minus the Micros) in one bottle and then pull a few ml's out everyday? Or is there a better alternative that I am not seeing?


----------



## sleepswithdafishez

Thanx for the reply ,Zorfox.
It's only been a couple of weeks since I started dosing using wet's calculator ,so it's too early to draw any major conclusion - except no extra algae growth.
I did dose Excel also ,in the first week(0.5 ml for my 0.6 gal water column) ,but I noticed less activity/deaths from the Red Cherry ,and Amanos also looked somewhat less active.Fish were breeding fine ,though(Peacock Gudgeons).No Vals melting.

My tank is a 10 gallon long - 30 '' x 8'' wide x 10'' high ,and I use a single T8 18 watts tube full spectrum ,to cover the length of the tank.I dare say 1.8wpg ,but tank is really shallow.
The light ramp you see in the picture is actually one of those long plastic flower pots ,turned upside-down ,in which I screwed the T8 end caps.When tightening the screws ,the tube goes higher- now it's at max height ,close to the bottom of the pot.I removed it's clip-on reflector ,trying to lower light intensty as much as I could.

So I gave up using Excel ,and now the shrimp are active again.The plants were gathered from friends or LFS (I want that one ,and that one too - like a kid) ,without considering their different needs.Most of them were planted no matter how ,no matter where ,without any aquascaping goals whatsoever.I;m not sure whether to let the leaves touch the surface or not(Vals for ex.) - since it would mean no more CO2 limiting ,along with intense light - more nutrient uptake for them ,less nutrients left for the other plants.That's what I meant when mentioning imbalances and algae ,not excess nutrients by themselves.I know now that is a myth ,tried it ,and convinced myself.

Most of the plants still have algae on the lower leaves (since before starting dosing properly),I also have some BBA on the Anubias ,and hair algae on Crypts.
What seems weird to me is that there is no algae whatsoever on the Hemianthus - despite being planted in the middle of the tank ,where the T8 is at its most intense.


----------



## sleepswithdafishez

mightymizz said:


> Thanks again for the response and this article!
> 
> I purchased a Fert. pack for PPS dosing and it is on its way to me. I think I want to try the EI method instead as I like the idea of doing 1 large water change for the fish's sakes too.
> 
> I like the PPS because it tells me how much of each fert (in grams) to put into the bottle, along with the other Ferts., then tells me how many ml to dose. Is there a calculator for EI that can do the same?
> 
> I have a 29g tank for reference, and here is a link for reference as well if that helps here.
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=587513


Maybe you should check your tap water also ,see if you have,say, excess NO3 for example.
My tap has 20 ppm NO3 ,and almost no PO4 - this might have been the limiting factor in my case ,despite my feedings ,I have low bioload(3 Peacock Gudgeons ,1 oto ,3 Amano ,1 African Filter shrimp and some Red cherry) ,in my 10g.
To see if I still needed to dose NO3 on the side,I inserted a fictive quantity of weekly NO3 dosing - 0.1 ppm ,doing like so:

*"Want to model long term effects of NO3 dosing? Click  here!  *"
- on the lower right side of the calc screen ,after the first results appear.
It leads to the Rota.la calc ,which asks - "Each dose of stuff is" in the first rectangle.
I inserted 0.0001 ppm - the smallest quantity(in reality I don;t dose at all) ,filled up the other rectangles(dosing ,each WC is ,etc.) ,then I clicked Optional....then...
Fourth rectangle - Tap/waterchange water has known concentration of Stuff - I inserted my tap water NO3 ppm(20.7) ,and left the others blank ,including the food.
I clicked "chart me" ,and it showed the ppm buildup of "stuff" ,to finally settle in the 20ppm range. - the stuff calculated was only for the 20ppm in my tap ,the fictive amount of 0.0001 inserted at first was only to make the Long term effects/click here appear ,and ,being a small amount ,it does not influence the calculation for buildup with the 20 ppm in the tap water.
I hope that makes sense ,maybe others can confirm if I did it right.


----------



## plantbrain

Zorfox said:


> There is a calculator. Here is the link. The problem many people seem to have is the differences in tanks parameters. Should I choose EI, low/light, PPS because I have XYZ? I am in the process of writing another calculator. I intend to add a wizard to ask these questions and suggest a good starting point to work from. Carlos (Wet) has been a great help with this endeavor thus far. Beyond that the calculator is very helpful and accurate. Where do you start?
> 
> You have a moderately planted tank. The plants are rather undemanding. I would start with 1/3 or so of the EI dose to start. Once you see how your plants respond you can slowly reduce that dose until you see a change.
> 
> Using that calculator you can choose EI low light weekly. There is another option you can start with. Choose EI daily and dose that amount every other day. It's a little more than you need but won't cause any problems what so ever. I like dosing something every day for several reasons.
> 
> The traditional EI method requires weekly water changes. This is important if you choose those doses from the calculator. If you want to modify the water change schedule you can look at the levels that will be expected in this calculator. Our goal here is to maintain a range of nutrients listed in the original post.
> 
> So basically, if you're willing to do weekly water changes I would choose the daily dose and use that every other day (more than you need but not harmful). We want to start above that barrel. Then decrease and find that critical point where we see changes. Do we need to reduce doses? Honestly I don't see any reason to. The levels are not toxic to fauna or flora. Is it expensive? Not at all. Do we need this much fertilizer. No, but is there any harm?
> 
> The entire point to this method is to supply non limiting nutrients. Then we can work on more important things like CO2 and basic gardening. Nutrients are the easiest part. We can tinker with various levels and argue over other aspects but the fact always remains the same. Just dose enough fertilizers for the plants needs.
> 
> Using EI low light weekly or daily dosing using that amount every other day, schedule below, will provide appropriate nutrients for any plants you may have.
> 
> Mon Macros
> Tues Micros
> Wed Macros
> Thrus Micros
> Fri Macros
> Sat Micros
> Sun 50% water change (GH booster)
> 
> Does this make sense?



This is a good way to look at it.
Even if you under dose, the effects of adding ANY ferts will be positive on growth.

The only question is, are you adding enough to have independence from ferts?
Or are you still adding limiting fert values?

Liebig's law needs brought into the conversation. 
This is the entire point of EI/Hoaglands nutrient modified solution, the idea of a non limiting fert routine. Dupla, Tropica both address this as does PMDD.


----------



## plantbrain

mightymizz said:


> It is starting to make more sense.
> 
> However, where I am getting stuck on now is where I find out how much of each Fertilizer I need to add to make my dosing solution (ideally in grams for a 500ml bottle), while taking into account the information regarding how KNO3 for example also provides some K. I am not even sure where a general baseline of PPM to be looking at?
> 
> 5-30ppm is a huge range. There has to be some "generalized idea" of where to start, or where in that range has been found sufficient. Also, Do I need to know both my GH and KH? And what is the GH booster?
> 
> Am I wrong to be thinking that I will be able to combine all of the Fertilizers (minus the Micros) in one bottle and then pull a few ml's out everyday? Or is there a better alternative that I am not seeing?


5-30 ppm is a large range but it's also where we tend to see optimal plant growth. Some tanks might have 3x as much light, thus they will remove 30 ppm over time slower than 5 ppm which be gone in 24-36 hours in another tank, or fish loads might add some of the Nitrogen demand.

The point of EI is simply add more than the demand from plants even at high light and stem plant type growth. Then good sized water changes. 

You can fiddle all day long, but this rarely saves anyone any labor or time. Water. dose dry ferts(unless it's a nano tank or something). You need not fret over a few ppm of NO3.

No method should require such precision. 
Take what you might think you'd need for say 2 week,s dissolve that in a bottle, one for the micros, one for the traces.

Dose that.

You can complicate it, but it's actually VERY EASY once you do it for a week or two, after which, it's rather BORING/OLD HAT.

The how: add dry ferts based on tank volume, some common sense for plant load/type, do good sized water change soften.

The why: makes ferts independent for plant growth. Keeps tank nice and clean and less algae.

I think folks just worry a lot is all, they want reassurances they are not making a mistake. Chem and math are not many folk's strong suits and some view these are poisons and the great unknown. So they go on and on trying to get details, but lose sight often times of the basics. 

I was no different years ago. I'm the same as most newbie folks posting here, we all were at some point. 

I believed I did not need it(CO2 particularly) and tried to do it without. But the reasons and rational put forth, well, I got too curious. 

So "the how" was easy.
"The why" was a bit more painful for myself. 
That was the biggest mental block I had.

I think seeing other folks adding it helped. 
You basically only have to dose 3-4 things and teaspoons work fine. 
I do not fret over 3/4" th teaspoon of baking soda when making cookies. 
Nor should I here. 

Just a simple recipe. 

I do not need a ppm at all in fact. Farmers rarely think this way with ppm's etc, they look at their plants. They look at pounds per acre. 
Aquarist: teaspoons per gallons.

Less light, less plant biomass etc, slower growers, cut EI by 1/2 or down to 1/3 etc.

Observe and see. Should be fairly simple.
Your goal was to grow nice aquarium plants, gardening etc, not learn chemistry. You will pick that up later as you learn more, but.........I think successful and top scapers tend to be less obsessed with the fert routines and more obsessed with good general care(water changes, cleaning, routine care, trim/pruning, hardscapes etc).

I really do not worry much about the ferts.
I rarely discuss them in presentations and talks these days also.
More light and CO2.

You add ferts, you do water changes.
Pretty simple and straight forward.


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## mightymizz

THanks, 

The calculator tells me to add "this many milligrams" for my tank size. Do I need to bring out the scale every day to measure, since I can't really convert milligrams into teaspoons since the mass of various substances are different??

How do you easily and somewhat accurately dose then? This was a little bit of why I was liking the making of a liquid because I could just pull up a few ml's, and be done.

What about my question regarding the extra minerals that come along with dosing KNO3 for example? Where do I enter into the equation that dosing KNO3 also gives me extra K, for example?


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## Zorfox

mightymizz said:


> THanks,
> 
> The calculator tells me to add "this many milligrams" for my tank size. Do I need to bring out the scale every day to measure, since I can't really convert milligrams into teaspoons since the mass of various substances are different??
> 
> How do you easily and somewhat accurately dose then? This was a little bit of why I was liking the making of a liquid because I could just pull up a few ml's, and be done.
> 
> What about my question regarding the extra minerals that come along with dosing KNO3 for example? Where do I enter into the equation that dosing KNO3 also gives me extra K, for example?


What size tank do you have? It's easier and more accurate to dose smaller tanks with solutions. Dry dosing is easier for larger aquariums. 

The calculator has a teaspoon conversion. In the "and I am calculating for" selection choose "The result of my dose". Then you can enter amounts in teaspoons for the selected fertilizer. The result does not need to match the target exactly, just get as close as you can with the teaspoon sizes you own. 

Here is an example for a 10 gallon tank using 500ml and 5ml doses. This is EI daily dosing...

Selecting EI daily says I need to add 19.751 g to the container for each dose to raise NO3 3.2 ppm. So if we want to convert this to teaspoons choose "the result of my dose". Entering 3 3/4 says it will raise NO3 3.16ppm, close enough.

The results of your dose are listed on the right side. i.e.

Element	ppm/degree
K	2.02
N	0.72
NO3	3.20

Forget the nitrogen. The NO3 is a conversion of the nitrogen listed. Notice KNO3 also adds 2.02 ppm of potassium. 

If we also dose KH2PO4...

Element	ppm/degree
K	0.25
P	0.20
PO4	0.60

We see this adds 0.25 ppm of potassium. 

Add the potassium together. 2.02 + 0.25 = 2.27 ppm. The K in KNO3 is usually enough. If you want extra you can add the difference. 3.2 - 2.27 = 0.93 ppm. So you're lacking 0.93 ppm if you want the full dose of K. The EI daily dose of potassium is 3.2 ppm. I wouldn't bother using extra potassium unless you notice problems. 

Basically, just total all the elements. It doesn't matter which fertilizer provides it as long as you're doing them.


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## Whjdm069

Thanks for all the great info. This has made my decision about EI dosing easy. I would like to say that many people are not lazy or don't want to put the work in on figuring out a dosing regiment. Like my self I am a hands on learner. Some of us also have demanding jobs, wives, kids and just plain life. We do this hobby to relax and enjoy that one thing we created and can be proud of. I would love more time to do research but my employer says other wise. So does the women who all ready gets put to the side because of work. I'm just greatful that people have come up with these methods to help those that are limited to time for research. Thanks for all the great info.


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## mightymizz

I have a 29g tank. 

These are my Fertilizers:

Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) - 1 lb
Mono Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4) - 1 / 2 lb
Potassium Sulfate (K2SO4) - 1 lb
Magnesium Sulfate (MgSO4) - 1 lb

So, With the EI dosing, I really wouldnt need the KH2PO4 nor the mgSO4? The calculator has me adding a lot of the MgSO4 (over 200g) when I try entering it, as well the Calc. has an odd entry for mgSo4.

I also have some CSM + B for Micros

Thanks for your time, I didn't even see that part on the calculator, I will look now!


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## mightymizz

Well, Here is what I mixed into a 500ml bottle to dose 5ml daily, in my 29g. (I will try the every other day since I am not running CO2.

KNO3- 58g
MGSO4- 20g
KH2PO4-10g
K2SO4-30g

Hopefully this is ok. I needed to get some of these into the water to start mixing so I can start dosing some Ferts!

Does this mix look ok?


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## Zorfox

mightymizz said:


> Does this mix look ok?


Looks good to me. Don't forget the trace mix. Plantex CSM +B, would be about 33 grams. Just mix in a separate bottle if you haven't already.


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## OVT

Well done, Zorfox.
Now, just stick it 

v3


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## AGUILAR3

I have 2 newly set up low tech tanks at the moment(3mo), an all crypt tank and an Anubias, Java Fern and Jungle val tank. Both 20 highs with dual 13w cfl's, root tabs and safe-t-sorb substrate. Should I even bother with dosing EI? I was thinking of only using Flourish comprehensive then I started reading about EI and now I'm intrigued. 

Thanks in advance.


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## FatherLandDescendant

AGUILAR3 said:


> I have 2 newly set up low tech tanks at the moment(3mo), an all crypt tank and an Anubias, Java Fern and Jungle val tank. Both 20 highs with dual 13w cfl's, root tabs and safe-t-sorb substrate. Should I even bother with dosing EI? I was thinking of only using Flourish comprehensive then I started reading about EI and now I'm intrigued.
> 
> Thanks in advance.


I started out dosing Flourish products, when I got to looking into EI and adjusted my Flourish products to match EI levels I quickly saw how much more cost efficient it was to move to dry ferts. Plants look great, and their growth is much better than when I just following the directions on the bottle.


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## kman

^^ Same here. I started with Excel, because no co2. Then I decided I should really have some sort of ferts to add nutrients to the water column, so I added Flourish. My plants were ok, but not great, and I read about how low tech(ish) tanks are often low on Potassium, so I added SeaChem's Potassium. Then I added some red plants, and wanted them super red, but realized I probably should add iron. I was getting ready to buy SeaChem's Iron supplement when I realized how absurd it was getting: 3 different liquids, all on different schedules (some 3x per week, some 2x, some daily), and none especially cheap.

EI is so much simpler. Macros M-W-F, Micros plus Iron T-Th-Sat (so simply alternate daily) and change water on Sunday. It's actually easier to do EI every day than it was to track which liquid I was supposed to do on which date with the Seachem stuff. 

Mix new water+dry fert mixes every few months. ~$45 got me enough dry ferts to last me several years. (small tank, admittedly, but even with somewhat larger tanks the SeaChem liquids get stupid expensive fast)


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## AGUILAR3

I'm convinced but I would still like to know if my crypts,who are heavy root feeder, will actually benefit from water column fertilizers? If so, I'll be ordering some dry ferts from Green Leaf.


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## kman

AGUILAR3 said:


> I'm convinced but I would still like to know if my crypts,who are heavy root feeder, will actually benefit from water column fertilizers? If so, I'll be ordering some dry ferts from Green Leaf.


I would imagine they'll benefit, but I'm not sure that it should be used to the exclusion of root tabs, for heavy root feeders.


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## plantbrain

AGUILAR3 said:


> I'm convinced but I would still like to know if my crypts,who are heavy root feeder, will actually benefit from water column fertilizers? If so, I'll be ordering some dry ferts from Green Leaf.


Name the Crypt, I've likely grown it. 
Name the Buce for that matter, same thing, name the Anubias, same thing. 

Most all aquatic Ariods. 
No issues.


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## Zorfox

AGUILAR3 said:


> I'm convinced but I would still like to know if my crypts,who are heavy root feeder, will actually benefit from water column fertilizers? If so, I'll be ordering some dry ferts from Green Leaf.


Yes they will. I prefer water column dosing to root tabs. I've never had a problem using only water column dosing. The crypts below (wentii green) had no root tabs and 1/3 EI dosing in a low tech tank. Sorry that's the only picture I have from those. They simply got out of control for that tank which is why they are on the counter.


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## AGUILAR3

Then I'm definitely getting EI ferts.

btw zorfox, you need my address for those crypts? :hihi:


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## AGUILAR3

I'm going to place my order for some dry ferts tonight but have one question..GH Booster, yay or nay?


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## Zorfox

AGUILAR3 said:


> I'm going to place my order for some dry ferts tonight but have one question..GH Booster, yay or nay?


Sorry I missed your post last night. 

It depends on the water you're using. High GH? you probably won't need it. That said, the cost is pretty minimal if you add it to the order (five bucks or so). Adding it now will save the shipping charge which will be more than the item. It never hurts to have extras laying around. You may decide to use R/O for something in the future.


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## AGUILAR3

Thanks Zorfox. Ordered the EI NPK based NPK + CSM+B with GH booster package.


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## mattcham

Can somebody please explain why the maximum concentration reaches a plateau at day 36 of the graphical chart in the original post. Why doesn't the maximum concentration keep rising like the preceding 30 days?

Also I like how the OP used a barrel for the analogy. BARRel reminds me of Tom Barr. Heh heh.


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## Zorfox

mattcham said:


> Can somebody please explain why the maximum concentration reaches a plateau at day 36 of the graphical chart in the original post. Why doesn't the maximum concentration keep rising like the preceding 30 days?


Think of it as a bank account. Deposit the same amount every week and withdraw 50% of the balance once a week. Eventually your balance will be equal to what your weekly deposit is. You can't make money out of thin air.

Your plants would represent the bank fees. Your bank may deduct $1/week or $10/week. It all depends on the bank. Plants aren’t greedy like banks. The more they deduct from your account the more growth and health they return. Of course there is a limit to how much they can deduct. So as long as you keep your balance over that amount you’ll never see an “overdraft fee”. 



mattcham said:


> Also I like how the OP used a barrel for the analogy. BARRel reminds me of Tom Barr. Heh heh.


That analogy is not mine. It's been used for years to explain that idea. 

BARRel...lol


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## mattcham

Zorfox said:


> Think of it as a bank account. Deposit the same amount every week and withdraw 50% of the balance once a week. Eventually your balance will be equal to what your weekly deposit is.


Interesting. Intuitively it makes no sense but mathematically maybe it's a fact. I'll need to dwell on this for a while...

Update: I just did the math. Makes perfect sense now. Thanks for explaining with the bank analogy!


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## DavidZ

Very nice!!!


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## Zorfox

DavidZ said:


> Very nice!!!


Thanks. That's nice to hear!

The initial post was geared towards education. Hobbies are much like people IMO. We're all helpless infants from day one ( I certainly was :confused1. Then we have parents (mentors) explaining things rather than ordering behavior..."sit up", "don't chew with your mouth open, "hold that door open"...

When we understand why things work it seems to fall into place. It took me a while to get it. Once I did I didn't understand why people weren't explaining it in a way people can grasp. I don't know about you but I didn't get into the hobby to learn organic chemistry.

So that's what this thread was all about. "Teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish".


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## Immortal1

Zorfox said:


> Thanks. That's nice to hear!
> 
> The initial post was geared towards education. Hobbies are much like people IMO. We're all helpless infants from day one ( I certainly was :confused1. Then we have parents (mentors) explaining things rather than ordering behavior..."sit up", "don't chew with your mouth open, "hold that door open"...
> 
> When we understand why things work it seems to fall into place. It took me a while to get it. Once I did I didn't understand why people weren't explaining it in a way people can grasp. I don't know about you but I didn't get into the hobby to learn organic chemistry.
> 
> So that's what this thread was all about. "Teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish".


Exactly what I have been trying to do for the last few months - learning how to fish. Your organic chemistry quote really hit the nail on the head - especially with all the alphabet soup tied to feeding my plants LOL.

Anyway, don't think I have thanked you (and likely several others) for helping me learn some of the art behind a good planted tank. I'm no plant whisperer, yet, but I have been known to have enough persistence to achieve my goals.


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## nanomania

Im using the PPS -PRO method, i have 130g and i cant do wc every week, i can do 50% wc every month or max every 3 weeks. Also i have 90% red plants. PPS suggest dosing micro and macro everyday. So should i add both together or macro before lights and micro after? Im confused. This is my 1 week old tank:


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## Aquaticz

STS_1OO said:


> Excellent post Zorfox. Folks like you bring some real value to these forums and the effort is much appreciated.



+1 buddy


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## geektom

Hey all, I am trying to dive in and understand the EI method, so I started with this thread, which I realize may now be superseded by other threads.

It was *extremely* helpful! THANK YOU to the OP and contributors.

Are there new links for the calculators somewhere? The ones on this thread are broke.

A few questions:

* Ok, please don't laugh, but what liquid medium do I mix the ferts in? Distilled water?

* How much impact does my starting tap water have on my dosing? Am I wasting time and water to create RO water?

Here is my city's last water report- what comes out of my tap seems to test very close to this (to the extent that the LFS test kit can show, anyway)

http://http://www.riversideca.gov/utilities/pdf/wqar/2014-Water-Quality-Annual-Report.pdf

I will be filling a 20g tank in two weeks and have 20g of RO water ready to go. My initial plan was to mix the RO and tap until I achieved the correct GH.

I have EI dosing ferts on order and they will arrive before I am ready to fill the tank.

I will be using injected CO2 and decent lighting (24" Finnex FugeRay Planted +)

I think the desire for me to be "given a fish" is strongest around this start-up period... having read the entire thread here, the weekly dosing and water changes make total sense. I just don't to screw up my start!

Thanks for any help.


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## nothreat33

Accumulation Calculator. The ppm of the nutrient you are dosing seems to level out after the 30 day mark but if you do not know how much nutrients your plants are consuming this graph will not be helpful to you. In fact, by incorrectly gauging how many ppm your plants are using you could end up over dosing or under dosing your plants by a very large degree.


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## Greggz

nothreat33 said:


> Accumulation Calculator. The ppm of the nutrient you are dosing seems to level out after the 30 day mark but if you do not know how much nutrients your plants are consuming this graph will not be helpful to you. In fact, by incorrectly gauging how many ppm your plants are using you could end up over dosing or under dosing your plants by a very large degree.


You do know you are responding to a question that was asked over two years ago..................right?:grin2:


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