# CSM+B in grams? EI system



## jah191 (Mar 22, 2010)

I am about to start trring the EI system. I am trying to avoid using teaspoons and would like to stick with my gram scale. I made the calculations for KNO3 and KH2PO4 but I can't find any guide to doing the same for CSM+B.

Can anyone point me to a source that converts the EI measurements for CSMB into grams? Thanks.

BTW, my container will be 200mL, and I would like to work it out to a dose of around 5mL.


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## DVS (Nov 20, 2005)

You can calculate your dosage from the fertilator (link above) and work from there. I calculated as 2.4 grams in 200 ml of water. (Double check that)


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## jah191 (Mar 22, 2010)

Thank you - I didn't notice that the fertilator had CSMB in its menus.

Please recheck this calculation to see if I put in the right numbers:

Aquarium volume: 10 gal (its a 20 tall with a decent amount of substrate, plants, and decorations, also I'm being conservative because I'm just starting to fertilize)

Nutrient: Iron in CSMB
Amount of dry compound added: 2.5g
volume of final solution: 200mL
desired ppm: .1

mL of solution to add: 4.64


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## Crispino Ramos (Mar 21, 2008)

*If you email GreenLeafAquariums.com, the owners (Orlando and Laura) will be able to give you the information you want to know.

http://www.GreenLeafAquariums.com 
*


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## hariom (Sep 2, 2008)

The best calculator our there is Chucks Fertilizer calculator.

Download it at http://csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_aquacalc.htm


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## bosmahe1 (May 14, 2005)

hariom said:


> The best calculator our there is Chucks Fertilizer calculator.
> 
> Download it at http://csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_aquacalc.htm


I just installed Chuck's, the only micro it seems to calculate is magnesium, not iron unfortunately.


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## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

Or, rather than depending on others, you could just calculate it yourself 

It doesn't take long to learn, and it means you can actually dose your tank with an understanding of why you're dosing what you are.

CSM+B is 6.53% iron. People tend to use their level of iron as a guide when dosing micros. The nice thing about CSM+B is that you can overdose it severely without issue, and it takes very little to accomplish non-limiting levels without going into luxury uptake. If you're doing EI, you'll notice that people dose the stuff at .1ppm all the way up to 1ppm of Fe, and around that point usually suplement with another chelate as well. If you want to go by the  original EI article, anywhere between .2-.5ppm will take care of the job in both theory and practice. Some of us have been going higher; there's a paper around indicating plants will make use of luxury uptake at 6ppm. A link to it, and another on the issue iron uptake through stoma in high CO2 environments is hanging around on the site somewhere but I can't seem to find it ATM.

So with that done, how do we calculate for dosing a given amount? The formula is pretty simple:

Required mg/l of CSM+B = 100/6.53 * Desired mg/L of Fe

So for .25ppm:

= 100/6.53*0.25
= 15.3139*0.25
= 3.8285

From there, simply multiply that number for the volume of tank water, and divide by the number of times per week that you'd be dosing. People like to work in gallons quite often, and EI calls for 3x a week micro dosing in its original method:

= 3.8285/3*3.7854
= 1.2762*3.7854
= 4.8309

From there, just multiply by the number of gallons in the column.

If you want to learn how to properly mix a stock solution, that's going to require a compound to keep the pH down so that the fertilizer doesn't spoil and you don't have to keep it in the fridge. Rather than dosing some inconvenient quantity like 4.64 ml, why not make your fertilizer dosing convenient? 1 or 2 ml for every 6L of column, 3x a week sort of thing? I wrote out full instructions here:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilizing/57466-flourish-trace-tropica-plant-nutrition-3.html#post530211
If you'd like to know the whys and hows behind it, let me know.


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