Information needed on dosing ferts..

[Thumper828]

Hi all...I do quite a bit of reading and research when it comes to add ferts to planted tanks. Can some one give me a heads op on these techniques I read about, ex...PPS-pro, PPS-classic, IE, ect....

Thanks for your time....

 

[Old Scales]

PPS Pro versus E. I.
I think the main difference between PPS Pro and E.I. Is that PPS is dosed at a lower amount every morning while E. I. Is all dosed at once right after each water change. With PPS you mix the nitrate by itself in one bottle, the potassium and phosphorus together in one bottle, and the micros in the third bottle. You'd add the recommended amount of dry powder to each bottle then add distilled water. Shake it up well and let it set overnight so that it will fully dissolve. Then when you dose every morning you shake the bottle a little and then dose. Many people with a fair amount of fish discover they do not need to dose the nitrates as the fish produce enough themselves. Hope this helps you out at least the PPS part of the GLA fertilizer system. OS.

 

[flitabout]

I prefer the pps because I like OS said never need to add nitrate. I can totally customize it for each of my tanks. One of my tanks is on tap water and the other uses RO water. So their needs are different.

 

[Rak9378]

Hi Thumper. I'm actually doing the same research right now. I have mostly been focused on EI up to now. Basically the theory behind EI is to dose ferts so that nutrients are never lacking without having to test/monitor parameters. The theory being that you can provide micro/macro nutrients based on an estimated calculation based on tank size. You don't have to worry about testing levels because once a week you will do a "large" (typical recommendation is 50%) water change which resets the nutrient level in the water column. The EI method is meant to be very flexible and can be altered to your specific situation. There are dosing guidelines you can follow and it typically consists of alternating the days you dose micro and macro ferts. You don't have to dose all ferts at one time using EI. You can also choose which macro ferts you want to dose. So as the previous poster mentioned if you don't want to dose nitrogen you don't have to. You can by the ferts individually and you can also dose the ferts dry or through a solution as suggested above. Again it is meant to be very customizable. There is a ton of info out there if you search Estimative Index Method. The creator of the method is Tom Barr. I am just starting to understand this stuff myself so if anything I said is incorrect I'm sure someone will correct me

 

[Thumper828]

Thanks for the response. it makes a little better sense now when reading.

 

[Rak9378]

Glad I was able to help!