Caliban's AquaOpti 85L

[Caliban07]

Not many. Taking it slowly which may have helped contribute towards the diatoms.

Rotala bonsai, rotala wallichii, S.repens and Eleocharis acicularis.

Wallichii is coveted in brown. The brown mass is getting larger though so it's growing alright.

In theory it should be more stable. Less metals so I can calculate my dose more accurately etc.

 

[Bert2oo1]

Not many. Taking it slowly which may have helped contribute towards the diatoms.

Rotala bonsai, rotala wallichii, S.repens and Eleocharis acicularis.

Wallichii is coveted in brown. The brown mass is getting larger though so it's growing alright.

In theory it should be more stable. Less metals so I can calculate my dose more accurately etc.

Ah yea fair enough! Glad your getting back into it I started dosing micro's the other week and I got abit of curl again so I haven't dosed it for 2 weeks. Might go back to an 1/8 tsp per week and see how I go. I'm not dosing mg or ca anymore but the hygro compact is feeling the lack of mg I think so I might have to assess that aswell. I'm close to the balance though. Very close. I'm interest to see how your micro mix works out

Your not dosing mg or ca are u?

 

[Caliban07]

I dosed 1ppm mg a couple of days ago due to a paler leaves. I suspect though now that the problem is iron because of the reasons mentioned above. I don't dose any calcium.

I think it's the ratios in your mix that might be off. Especially when dosing high amounts of macros.

 

[Bert2oo1]

I dosed 1ppm mg a couple of days ago due to a paler leaves. I suspect though now that the problem is iron because of the reasons mentioned above. I don't dose any calcium.

I think it's the ratios in your mix that might be off. Especially when dosing high amounts of macros.

True, I've actually read a lot that calcium isn't really needed. A lot of people who use RO seem to not even worry about it. Mg on the other hand I feel is needed but only here and there as levels get too low. I was dosing 5ppm per week with water change and since not adding it this week my hygro has started melting lol

These hygro's are like sponges for nutrients lol

 

[fishenthusiast]

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/fishkeeping-answers/articles/is-rainwater-safer-than-tapwater

I like the idea. Super specific setup! I'm going to test my pH, nitrates, and phosphate today for probably the first time in a year and a half. If you live near an industrial company that produces any pollution, I'd advice against collecting rainwater. Other than that, I think you are all set.

 

[Delapool]

Plus one on the hygros - I think a whole tank of them would come with its own ferts shovel.

Hope the diatoms clear.

 

[Caliban07]

True, I've actually read a lot that calcium isn't really needed. A lot of people who use RO seem to not even worry about it. Mg on the other hand I feel is needed but only here and there as levels get too low. I was dosing 5ppm per week with water change and since not adding it this week my hygro has started melting lol

These hygro's are like sponges for nutrients lol

I think calcium is more of a micro nutrient. Perhaps the plants care more about Mg but still I don't think much is required for healthy growth. Magnesium deficiencies should be easy to diagnose in theory.

 

[Caliban07]

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/fishkeeping-answers/articles/is-rainwater-safer-than-tapwater

I like the idea. Super specific setup! I'm going to test my pH, nitrates, and phosphate today for probably the first time in a year and a half. If you live near an industrial company that produces any pollution, I'd advice against collecting rainwater. Other than that, I think you are all set.

I'm more interested in lowering the pH without adding high levels of co2. Lower ph should make nutrients more available to plants. When my 180 was in it's prime I was at about 5.9. I wonder now whether the plant growth was due to the extra co2 or soil nutrient availability.

 

[Caliban07]

Plus one on the hygros - I think a whole tank of them would come with its own ferts shovel.

Hope the diatoms clear.

Cheers Dela. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.

 

[Funken_A]

I think calcium is more of a micro nutrient. Perhaps the plants care more about Mg but still I don't think much is required for healthy growth. Magnesium deficiencies should be easy to diagnose in theory.

I dose calcium chloride 1/2 tsp at water change (30 gal tank) mostly to ensure calcium in the water for snails as I think it would help slow the erosion of their shells do to acidic water. It does raise my KH a tad (from 2 - 3 or 4) which puts me in a good spot to balance CO2 injection as well.

Following Tom Barr's EI teaching he always tossed a little calcium and magnesium in at water change, that was it for the week

 

[Bert2oo1]

Hey cal, I was thinking today... Does potassium block the uptake of another nutrient? I've always wondered why Barr goes so hard with potassium. He has it in his GH booster and also the EI target per week is rather high. If dosing both the booster and kso4 all week you would be getting up around the 30-40 ppm mark. That's a lot higher than anything else we dose into our tanks.

Surely it has to block or bind to something at such levels?

 

[Caliban07]

From what I have read I think so. I think any one element in excess will eventually and inevitably cause problems.

The literature is so varied it's hard to draw certain conclusions. For example, so far I've read excess potassium can cause issues with calcium, magnesium, (if they are low to begin with) boron, Zinc

Barr adds everything way in excess. For example 10ppm phosphate? Probably to combat GSA. May explain why he can get away with adding so much iron also. I'd imagine that most of it just precipitates. Then there is his 70ppm of co2. I would imagine pH is quite low which would facilitate nutrient availability. I don't thank any of the nutrients are required in large amounts. Just some larger in comparison to others.

Again it's one of those where things will differ depending on practically everything. The nutrients are so intertwined it can be impossible to say what ratio will cause a deficiency in one plant and not another. One thing I do know is that most of the 'low light' plants are extremely tolerable of nutrient ratios which is what I believe makes them easy to grow but even I had trouble with some.

EI can work but it's very specific to parameters whether you are successful or not.

Worries about excess potassium is of concern to the Germans and this spawned the likes of aqua rebel special N which focussed on N without as much K but even this worked for some and not others.

Lots to ponder. Fascinating stuff!

 

[flchamp89]

Some barr old phosphate numbers may have been influenced by source. He used live in Florida. Good general rule I like is 2 to 1 N to K

 

[Delapool]

Some barr old phosphate numbers may have been influenced by source. He used live in Florida. Good general rule I like is 2 to 1 N to K

Is that hard water over that way or something? (don't get out much lol)

 

[flchamp89]

Typically yes ..lot of wells are drilled through limerock to hit our aquaifer

 

[Bert2oo1]

Some barr old phosphate numbers may have been influenced by source. He used live in Florida. Good general rule I like is 2 to 1 N to K

Haven't seen u for ages! How's the tanks?

Yea I agree, variables are massive and it's hard to balance so many nutrients. I guess there is a reason why people with "perfect tanks" have been in the hobby for so long. They have just figured out what works for them. There is so many different forms of dosing products products now and I've seen so many used by many different people. I guess it's just working out what works for your water source etc.

Very interesting stuff!

 

[flchamp89]

New job killing me tanks are good. Nothing new. I had end of the tank dump killed off all but one of my fish never got the tank refilled so I stop dosing I can't tell the difference in the tank at all

 

[Bert2oo1]

New job killing me tanks are good. Nothing new. I had end of the tank dump killed off all but one of my fish never got the tank refilled so I stop dosing I can't tell the difference in the tank at all

Bugger about the fish [emoji20] awesome that the tank is 100% maintenance free [emoji106] must be perfectly balanced! Gotta love low tech plants!

 

[flchamp89]

Ya all rookie plants. Helferi look like trees lol

 

[Caliban07]

Some barr old phosphate numbers may have been influenced by source. He used live in Florida. Good general rule I like is 2 to 1 N to K

Hey champ good to have you back. Possibly. Ceg on UKAPs used to do it for the fun of it to try and 'prove' po4 didn't cause problems. People there also went on to talk about dosing pump failures which saw large amounts of Kno3 being added to there tanks with no issues. Thing is they all had notoriously hard water so I imagine they had to dose serious amounts of ferts to offset precipitation etc thus they wasn't actually proving anything other than how much Fertilisers they could waste.

Barr would talk about having done it in all water types, hard,soft but I suspect this is why he was found to be using about a third of EI micros in his tank during the CSM+B toxicity discussion yet copious amount of iron, probably to ensure some of the plants actually received it. Any less and he may have encountered issues. He would have done more water changes and maintenance than the average aquarist too I'd imagine. This contributed to the co2 obsession that threads are still riddled with on most forums. Yet your tank proves that co2 is not everything. It's almost a 100% U-turn on my old Barresque mantra that I openly admit may have been flawed for many.

I only have 4 plants at the moment. S.repens from tissue culture the leaves look smaller and paler than perhaps they should be but almost flat at least. I may need to up my boron as I kept it low to account for tap boron only I'm not changing that much water.

I may have to up my co2 for faster growth and to lower pH too. Rotala bonsai is the same also. I have rotala wallichii. The diatoms don't seem as easy to knock off this plant so it's hard to tell what is actually going on underneath. Eleocharis seems to be growing. Everything is slow. I'm limited someone but not massively deficient. I'm started to understand the difference now between the two.