# Advice on EI dosing



## mistryde (Jan 31, 2013)

I want to try EI dosing daily. But I want to premix all the ferts (except Fe) My Tank is 67 US Gal. heavily planted, photo attached. Lights 1.5 wpg 12 hrs DIY Co2 1bps

I plan to use the ferts listed in the attached file, dilute in 1000 ml distilled water and use 11 ml of the solution daily. 50% wc once a week. Last two columns are an option, i'll prepare premix either for 1 month or 3 months.

Experts please check this out and point out if i'm doing something (or everything ) wrong and suggest improvements / corrections.


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## mistryde (Jan 31, 2013)

Please reply somebody !


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

I always just use http://calc.petalphile.com/ to make my EI solutions.


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## Phil Edwards (Jan 22, 2004)

I highly recommend Hydro Buddy. It's designed to formulate hydroponic fertilizers but is easily adapted to use in the aquarium. It's got an amazing array of functionality and precision.

http://scienceinhydroponics.com/2013/02/the-first-free-hydroponic-nutrient-calculator-program-o.html


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## Apprentice (Sep 17, 2008)

Hi mistryde. At 1.5 watts per gal. this should be low light tank. Unless light is led or MH. At low light you probably don't need full on E.I. dosing. I have a medium lit tank (50 par average), CO2 and dose daily at half E.I. with good results. Not to say full E.I. will do any harm as long as you stick to 50% water changes. I second AaronT recommendation on http://calc.petalphile.com/

This site offers a lot of dosing calculator options. E.I., E.I. daily E.I. low light weekly, PPS Pro, PPMD, dose to reach target and result of dosing. Also options for dosing DIY dry, DIY solution or buying premixed. The online calc will also tell you if your dry amounts are soluble in the amount of D.I. water you are using.

Other factor to consider is your substrate. Nutrient rich or inert. If inert consider adding root tabs for a bit more wiggle room in dosing regimes. Particularly if considering leaner water column dosing.

Regards


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

Apprentice said:


> Hi mistryde. At 1.5 watts per gal. this should be low light tank. Unless light is led or MH.


 Really?? I think this is the cause of 90% of the algae. People thinking that they need something like 4 wpg for high light. With 2WPG T5 and good reflectors I can grow any plant I want, ANY! Not one failed due to too little light. When I apply 1.5 wpg above my tank, even suspended a few inches I get a PAR of 200 at the substrate, and in the corners about 75. How is this low light? I think this is only low light if you use T12, no reflectors, bulbs with terrible PAR or a tank below 5G. To tell you a secret, there is almost no one who uses more than 2 wpg in the NBAT (Dutch contest, try googling it).

The big problem with the assumption that you have low light, is that you won't need high CO2, not much fertilizer etc. I can grow glosso with only 1 wpg (it grows up a little, but this stops at 1.5 wpg). What I'm trying to say is that WPG tells you nothing, and that people always advise too much light. I know, I started with over 3 WPG as well, uncontrollable and unnecessary! CO2 is much more important in those so called high light plants, especially when using EI! So to reply on the OP, I think you've a good start, try to make sure CO2 is enough (1 bps tells me nothing) and focus on maintaining your tank pristine!


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Mistryde,

I have no doubt you chose EI only after carefully researching the other ways to run a planted tank (El Natural, and ADA). I know you did the research because you seem like a careful person and even made a spreadsheet.

Now please tell me what makes EI better than the other approaches?


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

Based on the information provided it's pretty much impossible to tell what kind of light he has. Giving the FACT that every tank is different not only in height, but in what's in the tank in terms of shade, etc. There are are many lighting setups at 1.5 WPG that to me would still be low light. Low light to me means the system is limited to what it can grow. '

Judging from the picture the OPs tank looks tall and shaded by taller plants. Also the difference between PAR on some T5 fixtures is night and day (no pun intended). These low/mid/high designations are really bad anyway. If I have 'low-light lets say 0.5 T5HO and then I give just a one hour burst of 2.0 T5HO what is my setup low/mid/high? I have found even one hour of strong light does wonders for some plants and doesn't create adverse affects like increased algae.


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## Apprentice (Sep 17, 2008)

Yo ho Yo-Han! Not sure what you think I was implying! Never suggested that anyone go high light. I run 50 PAR (Low end of medium) and pressurized Co2 in my tank. Also a little confused how you consider 200 PAR as anything but high light. Is your tank really huge? Just curious. I know watts per gallons tends to be inaccurate in general, at very large or very small aquariums even more so.
T5 is a very efficient light. T12 or T8 less so. In the case of your tank 200 PAR full E.I dosing and heavy CO2 is a must. I'm sure you get rapid and fantastic growth. OP stated has CO2. Never stated he should not use it either. My reply to the OP is based on what info he gave. So I can only guess what light levels he has. So with the info given and photo appearance just a guess. Not trying to ruffle your feathers Yo-Han, just trying to help OP.

Regards; Rob

P.S. Found your tank Johan. 100G explains PAR. Very nice aquarium.


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## mistryde (Jan 31, 2013)

Hi Guys, thanks for helping me & sharing your expert advices. Especially Yo-han, thanks I’ll make sure that the water is pristine. Infact I took the photo just before I did a WC & trimming. Sorry for that. 
Hi Niko, as per whatever knowledge I’ve obtained by net reading EI is used in a ‘high light’ tank to give the maximum growth rate. I was considering EI daily when I posted this thread. However then I realized and changed to PMDD which seems to be working perfectly fine for me, so far.
Earlier I was having a problem with algae. I thought that was due to insufficient light and CO2. I trimmed the floating plants, increased the CO2 and that got rid of almost all the algae. At the same time I switched to PMDD. Till then I was using API Leaf Zone once a week & Flourish twice in the recommended dosages. I couldn’t find the chemicals for DIY fert. Now I got these chemicals I tried PMDD and seems to be working fine. I got some growth on my H. Difformis & Echinodorous which were not growing for some while. 
Below is the latest photo of my tank as it looks now. (Will post a better pic later, this is on my mobile)


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

Apprentice said:


> Yo ho Yo-Han! Not sure what you think I was implying! Never suggested that anyone go high light. I run 50 PAR (Low end of medium) and pressurized Co2 in my tank. Also a little confused how you consider 200 PAR as anything but high light. Is your tank really huge? Just curious. I know watts per gallons tends to be inaccurate in general, at very large or very small aquariums even more so.
> T5 is a very efficient light. T12 or T8 less so. In the case of your tank 200 PAR full E.I dosing and heavy CO2 is a must. I'm sure you get rapid and fantastic growth. OP stated has CO2. Never stated he should not use it either. My reply to the OP is based on what info he gave. So I can only guess what light levels he has. So with the info given and photo appearance just a guess. Not trying to ruffle your feathers Yo-Han, just trying to help OP.
> 
> Regards; Rob
> ...


It was no attack on you but just the fact that everyone seems to advise more light as a solution. I see 4wpg mentioned quite often and IMO (besides the fact that wpg is almost useless) this is way too much and not advisable for a rookie.

@mistryde: PMDD is not my preferred dosing method because of the simple reason you're limiting plant growth with it. EI is unlimited, ADA is almost unlimited, so this way you can at least rule out almost all nutrients except CO2 when you see algae. Now your focus shifts to CO2, maintenance and scaping!

With PMDD you're most likely running into deficiencies (read: algae) sooner or later , not knowing what nutrient to blame, and than it is very hard to find the cause of the algae. I myself started with PMDD and Redfield Ratio ones and it made everything very complicated. But I must admit, the slow growing plants were a big plus!


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## mistryde (Jan 31, 2013)

Thanks Yo-han, so you're suggesting that I shift to EI. But then can I do EI daily with this setup exactly or I need do do any changes ? LED/Halogen & CO2 cylinder is not an option I plan to go for.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

If I had a choice between EI and PMDD, I would pick the EI. But it depends on lifestyle as well. EI will be more intensive. When I need to pick between EI and ADA, I pick ADA. But with both methods you can have excellent plant growth.

Never been a fan of DIY CO2 but it can be done. Just make sure you don't use too much light. If you go for EI, you can just use regular EI daily. The amounts of ferts left before the WC are a little higher, but as long as you do water changes of at least 50% weekly this will cause no problem. You can probably tweak it down ones you know your tank, because you won't get max growth. But I would advice against it to start with, because you can run in the same problems I explained above. For a good read about light and CO2 (and nutrients): http://www.tropica.com/en/tropica-abc/basic-knowledge/co2-and-light.aspx


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