# EI - Logic & Reason Check



## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

OMG I think I have finally go this figured out, just a couple of things and I'll be quiet.

I was thinking about the 50% water changes once a week, and it occured to me... wouldnt there be accumulation? I mean just if uptake wasnt as expected? i.e. If i'm adding to reach 10ppm of something, and change the water when theres 5 ppm left, then add 10 ppm that would total 12.5 ppm and would go up exponentially wouldnt it? Am I off or is there possible danger here?

How do I factor in a full fishload to these dosages? This is something that just slipped my mind previously.

Does CSM+B still have Magnesium or is that missing too? I saw something that said it's now missing, but it wasnt a known source.

Some numbers for you EI Superheros. 
I dose twice weekly starting the day of the water change. WC's on fridays then add macros, sat traces, then 
mon-macros, Tues-Traces.
I've been adding 1/4 teaspoons of KNO3 to reach 7.02ppm Nitrate and 4.43 Potass. I've seen the long talks about "To add K or To Not Add K". Does this seem ok, or should I shoot for 3/8 teaspoon to get 10.67 Nitrate and more importantly 6.73 potassium? Is there a definitve answer on the K question?

Other than that I've been dosing 1/4 teaspoon CSM+B (Thanks Andre) to get .37 Iron. But I just saw Tom speak about Iron as high as 5ppm. So could I add Flourish iron at 3ml and hit a total of .63 (closer to 1.0), or add more CSM+B?

Other than that I add .125ml's of Fleet to obtain .74ppm

I dose everything to water column straight except the CSM+B which of course I mix two Tablespoons to 500ml

So have I finally got it? ](*,) ](*,) 

PS - I use distilled water for the CSM+B, but can i use tap? it would make life easier


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## Jason Baliban (Feb 21, 2005)

Take out a piece of paper and skribble out the dose, WC, dose, WC, dose, WC routine. You will see after about 5 WC's on paper that it never does multiply. In fact you will never get more the double what you dose for the week with 50% WC, even if there is no uptake.

There is a lot of talk about no K or K. Personally, I add more K then EI suggests. I seem to see positive results from it.

If you are looking for higher iron, you may just want to add more micro's that have the iron in it. There was just recent discussion about how you cant over dose micros. I would do it that way rather then just going straight iron.

jB


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## gregwatson (May 24, 2004)

urville said:


> Does CSM+B still have Magnesium or is that missing too? I saw something that said it's now missing, but it wasnt a known source.


It's not missing ... it just doesn't have enough ... its best to use 1 Tablespoon of Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt) for every tablespoon of Plantex CSM+B ...



> PS - I use distilled water for the CSM+B, but can i use tap? it would make life easier


I personally use aquarium water ...

Greg


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

I think the main things folks do not realize why something does not infinitely build up:

When you do a water change, the remaining 50% left (or whatever % you chose) mixes with the new water. When you do another 50% the follow week/time unit, part of the original 50% is removed, it is not __retained__.

Think about it, folks do water changes to remove waste build in fish only tanks. They do 25% perhaps every 2 weeks etc, the NO3 does not build up to infinite levels even though there is zero uptake(unless you add a NO3 reducers). And the above example that is less water change volume % and 2x the time as the standard EI routine.

Also, do not add 5ppm of iron please...........that's for Hydrilla and in an isolated growth chamber, there's no need, the point is that we can add more traces without fear and perhaps a few plants will do better.

Do not bother testing iron though, estimate trace dosing, use a volume in mls per unit frequnecy, say 2x a week, or 3, daily etc, a certain mls per dose.

That will be consistent in your dosing routine. (More so than a test kit will be and in terms of what amount is needed for the plants)

If this works for Traces, then why not NO3? Or PO4? K+? Ca/Mg?

That's sort of where this whole notion came out of from.
The idea is very simple, anyone anywhere can add the same ferts, without test kits, getting them to actually use the test kits, paying for them, availability, differences in brands, calibrations, then using them consistently.

Water changes on the other hand are already a general aquarist habit.

Regards, 
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

OIC! It's dilution. It's diluting the original properties plus i'm pulling half of it out so the number becomes so small it's irrelevant on the larger scale.

from what i heard iron tests rarely work accuratley anyway, i was just using the various calcs to estimate the ppm per the dosage concentration, and only to about .6 or so

how important is Ca? Greg said he adds two tablespoons of epsoms, and if i add calcium... well i guess what i'm reallya sking is how much does it take to change my gh? i have peat and mulm, then arcillite, then quartz sand from bottom to top as a substrate. i rather like the soft water maybe my tetras will breed. I've seen amano talking about gh as low as 1 and 2 degrees.

so should i ignore the full fish load when dosing or at least test for nitrates, and if already suitable just dose minimal K?


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Low GH is fine, but I generally suggest adding a little SeaChem Eq or poor man's EQ (see my thread on it) to rule out whether it's low Ca or Mg, all you'd need is a 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon after a water change to rule that out.

GH(high low) does not bother fish(Discus bred and do well at higher GH's).

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Urville, here is a simple spreadsheet that illustrtes the water change point. It's very basic since I am not much of a spreadsheet user  

This assumes no uptake by the plants and uses the WC as the only removal for the NO3 that is dosed. 

If you want to change the amount of NO3 you add to the tank, just change the amount in cell B2. All of the other cells copy the value in B2...

If anyone is more proficient at Excel than I, feel free to modify this for everyone


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

i like the excel sheet, the question there is that if the amount left after is 10 once you get in a ways, then you add 10 yopur at twenty right? am i assuming too much? so you hold steady at 20

Tom - 

Just out of curiosity... if the EQ has both Ca and Mg, then how do i determine which is the factor? or are you saying this will raise it and eliminate the need to ask the question? sorry i'm confused...


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

urville said:


> i like the excel sheet, the question there is that if the amount left after is 10 once you get in a ways, then you add 10 yopur at twenty right? am i assuming too much? so you hold steady at 20


If you add 10ppm of NO3 per week then yes you would be at 20ppm by week's end after 20 weeks or so of dosing. Again, this assumes no uptake by plants. If you were to assume that the plants use only 1ppm of NO3 each day you would only have 13ppm by the end of the week! A 50% WC would remove half of this amount.

I don't think 20ppm is too much NO3 to have in a tank unless you are trying to N starve the plants to get some red coloration out of them. Then again, I don't think having PO4 above 2ppm is a bad thing either


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

holy cow 2ppm ppo4?
seriously, i added that much once, and didnt even make it a week, even without dosing anymore and i was starting to get a diatom bloom, and i WC'd and i never saw from the bloom again and never went that high again.


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

urville said:


> Tom -
> 
> Just out of curiosity... if the EQ has both Ca and Mg, then how do i determine which is the factor? or are you saying this will raise it and eliminate the need to ask the question? sorry i'm confused...


Do you want to know or do you want to address the deficency or potential?

You can do either if tyou wish.
You can add say CaSO4 or CaCl2 alone and then MgSO4 alone.

But we know you have soft water already..........so adding more Ca will not hurt(never seemed to cause any plant issue I know of unless too low...........)

So adding both is a wiser routine, also, tap water variation also changes with respect to GH, both Mg/Ca can and do change throughout the year.

Do not trust one reading for both, simply dose enough for the plants if there is no Mg or Ca.

The excess like the rest of the nutrients will not build up and you will also not need ot test.

You might want to take the Excel spread sheet, then graph those iterations as they approach 10ppm from 5ppm after the first water change.

You should get a nice curve that flattens out over time.

Take that data from these Excel spread sheets and plot them over time for each of your dosing routines.

Or don't I think you have the general concept.
Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

Well it seems to me with mg i added to my trace, sorry greg i read this as i was mixing so i only added one T. hehe anyway it seems it makes little difference either way and is easiest to just add the eq and know the problem is dealt with.

oh my god i feel so stupid tom! lol, the idea is to target the total over long term but add half that to meet the target and slowly build up to it. so the leftover levels were already figured for. sheesh 

well i appreciate everyones help, tom you da man. it took me forever, and tons of <i'm sure rather annoying> posts to get this right. hopefully if anyone else like me comes along they will be there to help.


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