EI Dosing Micro Toxicity

[bcarl_10gal]

First off, I want to start this thread by saying nothing has been 100% proven and this is still very much an active research topic. Do not immediately change ANY dosing routine. This thread is a summary of a much larger thread/discussion, that I would like to share on this forum.

Hypothesis: Dosing EI levels of traces can lead to toxic levels of metals causing poor plant growth and be lethal to fauna.

Q:Will dosing high levels of traces effect my tank?
A: Possibly, many factors are still being explored on why some tanks experience toxicities and others do not. Some leading factors seem to be water hardness (GH) and substrate CEC.

Q: How does water hardness effect this?
A: Basically the metals in CSM+B are more toxic until they bond with CaCo3 or MgCo3. Once they precipitate (bind with the hardness molecule) they are not as toxic. Therefore tanks with higher GH readings would have to dose more traces in order to see a toxicity since the metals are able to bond with more hardness molecules.

Q: Should I change my dosing or stop EI?
A: NO! EI still is a great idea in High light, Co2 injected tanks.

Q: How do I know if my tank is effected?
A: Well you should ALWAYS start with Co2, but once again this is most commonly found in tanks that have soft water, either RO or tap water with a GH around 5 or less. The only way you can know is try, test, document. Change one variable such as increase Co2, if that does not help try stopping CSM+B for a few weeks and do a few large WCs. Try, test, document.

Now I will share my personal opinion on this. When this idea was first introduced to me I quickly rejected it, as most of us did. Zapins, the godfather of deficiencies and toxicities, was a lone wolf on this for a long time. I think we may have went wrong using CSM+B with iron as a proxy for traces. Iron is still the major league micro but the levels of Zn, B, and most importantly Cu can be dangerously high if we target Fe at .5ppm per dose. Cu can cause issues at .02ppm and this level can be easily attained dosing at this level over a short period of time. Chleating/ precipitation seems to play a large role in this. This post is not 100% proven, currently there is a large amount of scientific points mixed with a ton of personal experiences. We have a lot of data points and are trying to connect the dots to iron out the issues and explain it scientifically(no pun intended).

I would like to share my personal experience. Long story short I have a 5 gallon tank that I use to "play" with and try to understand the issues with my large tank. I use 50/50 RO tap mix with a GH around 4. I followed EI method including traces to a "T". Co2 was increased a about 4bps to eliminate any CO2 suspicions and I believe the tank has around 70ppm of Co2. I increased micros to daily and here were some of the results after 2 weeks.

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I stopped dosing CSM+B and performed a large water change and here are the results only after 1 WEEK, no other variable was changed.

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Personally, I recommend the following micro mix for all tanks: 500ML mixing container 1.5 TSP of CSM+B and 3/4 TSP of GLA Iron mix. This should be dosed 3 times a week at 1ML/Gallon (based on water volume not tank size). This would be the equivalent of CSM+B dosed at PPS pro and the remaining iron should be around 1.5ppm per week between the two or .5 per dose. The full discussion is located here: CSM+B Toxicity Experiment - The Planted Tank Forum

Please feel free to voice your thoughts, concerns, questions!

 

[Delapool]

Very interesting.

Would water conditioners that bind heavy metals make any difference?

 

[bcarl_10gal]

Very interesting.

Would water conditioners that bind heavy metals make any difference?

Hmmm... Great question. I will admit I have a very limited chemistry background. The prime bottle says it will bind metals at "typical tap water concentrations." When dosing EI traces we are well above these levels. Also a few drops added to the tank right after water changes means most of the metals would most likely be bonded. If you dosed it prime with your traces it might be able some to bind these metals but limited to the amount commonly found in tap water. Hopefully someone with a chem background can give some better insight here.

 

[tiger terror]

First off, I want to start this thread by saying nothing has been 100% proven and this is still very much an active research topic. Do not immediately change ANY dosing routine. This thread is a summary of a much larger thread/discussion, that I would like to share on this forum.

Hypothesis: Dosing EI levels of traces can lead to toxic levels of metals causing poor plant growth and be lethal to fauna.

Q:Will dosing high levels of traces effect my tank?
A: Possibly, many factors are still being explored on why some tanks experience toxicities and others do not. Some leading factors seem to be water hardness (GH) and substrate CEC.

Q: How does water hardness effect this?
A: Basically the metals in CSM+B are more toxic until they bond with CaCo3 or MgCo3. Once they precipitate (bind with the hardness molecule) they are not as toxic. Therefore tanks with higher GH readings would have to dose more traces in order to see a toxicity since the metals are able to bond with more hardness molecules.

Q: Should I change my dosing or stop EI?
A: NO! EI still is a great idea in High light, Co2 injected tanks.

Q: How do I know if my tank is effected?
A: Well you should ALWAYS start with Co2, but once again this is most commonly found in tanks that have soft water, either RO or tap water with a GH around 5 or less. The only way you can know is try, test, document. Change one variable such as increase Co2, if that does not help try stopping CSM+B for a few weeks and do a few large WCs. Try, test, document.

Now I will share my personal opinion on this. When this idea was first introduced to me I quickly rejected it, as most of us did. Zapins, the godfather of deficiencies and toxicities, was a lone wolf on this for a long time. I think we may have went wrong using CSM+B with iron as a proxy for traces. Iron is still the major league micro but the levels of Zn, B, and most importantly Cu can be dangerously high if we target Fe at .5ppm per dose. Cu can cause issues at .02ppm and this level can be easily attained dosing at this level over a short period of time. Chleating/ precipitation seems to play a large role in this. This post is not 100% proven, currently there is a large amount of scientific points mixed with a ton of personal experiences. We have a lot of data points and are trying to connect the dots to iron out the issues and explain it scientifically(no pun intended).

I would like to share my personal experience. Long story short I have a 5 gallon tank that I use to "play" with and try to understand the issues with my large tank. I use 50/50 RO tap mix with a GH around 4. I followed EI method including traces to a "T". Co2 was increased a about 4bps to eliminate any CO2 suspicions and I believe the tank has around 70ppm of Co2. I increased micros to daily and here were some of the results after 2 weeks.

[/URL][/IMG]

[/URL][/IMG]

I stopped dosing CSM+B and performed a large water change and here are the results only after 1 WEEK, no other variable was changed.

[/URL][/IMG]

[/URL][/IMG]

Personally, I recommend the following micro mix for all tanks: 500ML mixing container 1.5 TSP of CSM+B and 3/4 TSP of GLA Iron mix. This should be dosed 3 times a week at 1ML/Gallon (based on water volume not tank size). This would be the equivalent of CSM+B dosed at PPS pro and the remaining iron should be around 1.5ppm per week between the two or .5 per dose. The full discussion is located here: CSM+B Toxicity Experiment - The Planted Tank Forum

Please feel free to voice your thoughts, concerns, questions!

1ml per gallon or 1ml per 10g?

sit in silence...

 

[bcarl_10gal]

1ML per gallon. It is a dose equivalent of PPS Pro, I see the confusion. The point was to give a micro solution to replace the "recommended" EI concentration. Also you could probably go down to a 1/2 tsp of GLA Iron mix and still be fine.

 

[tiger terror]

1ML per gallon. It is a dose equivalent of PPS Pro, I see the confusion. The point was to give a micro solution to replace the "recommended" EI concentration. Also you could probably go down to a 1/2 tsp of GLA Iron mix and still be fine.

In my case that'd be 32ml for the dosable volume @3 doses a week...I dose 35ml now @3 times a week...

sit in silence...

 

[Brookster123]

I dose a lot more than that too.. i dry dose the micros at this point.

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[bcarl_10gal]

I dose a lot more than that too.. i dry dose the micros at this point.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

I think this is the reason why your star repens would start melting as well.

 

[bcarl_10gal]

In my case that'd be 32ml for the dosable volume @3 doses a week...I dose 35ml now @3 times a week...

sit in silence...

EI calls for 3.25 TSP of only CSM+B per 500ML mixed at 1ML/Gal.

 

[tiger terror]

EI calls for 3.25 TSP of only CSM+B per 500ML mixed at 1ML/Gal.

The 35ml is from my stock solution mixed in a 500ml bottle.

sit in silence...

 

[bcarl_10gal]

Like I stated in the first post, toxicity is not observed in ALL tanks at EI levels. There are some people that can dose the EI levels with no issues. The thought is GH plays a role in this.

 

[bcarl_10gal]

Just reran some numbers: A more appropriate mix might be 1.25 TSP CSM+B and .5 TSP GLA Iron. 500ML mixed at 1ML/Gal dosed 3 times a week.

 

[Delapool]

Thanks for the link on this. I read through it (skimmed parts so may have missed something) but did think it was very interesting.


I dose CSM+B each week in one dose to give 0.5ppm Fe and 0.01ppm Cu. About an EI half dose. The thread is right that I selected the Fe dose I wanted and never gave much thought to the rest. I do need to get dry ferts soon so could order Fe specially to dose separate. Having said that I haven't noticed the issues mentioned (although in my tank it would be hard to tell )


Tank is GH = 8, KH = 6, phosphate = 1ppm, nitrates 10-20ppm. Potassium is 78ppm (not sure if I trust test there but most times the test reads 70 to 120ppm).


I've never managed to get the Fe test to read anything much. Tank has been going several years so organic matter is probably high.


The copper, ph level and carbonates rang a bell with reef tanks so that seemed to make sense (I note here I don't even know enough to be dangerous),


http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/copper-sulphate


Some other thoughts were:


With the testing you did would you have ppm levels you increased to? Just wondering what it was that the plants found toxic levels.


Did anyone notice any algae dying off? Would algae be more sensitive or less to toxicity from micros?


Have you tried increasing gh along with the increase in micros?


Not disagreeing or anything. It's way above my level but from some notes/thoughts I scribbled down.

 

[bcarl_10gal]

The only issue with dosing micros one time of week is the metals might bind and be unavailable to the plants after a few days.

I personally dosed 2.7 of Fe from CSM+B a week. This is an outrageous amount for any tank. Some people have speculated about algae but I believe this is even harder to prove, but I would think the copper would reduce algae growth.

Yes I have tried increasing the GH a few points but I did not observe any improvements.

 

[coralbandit]

I can't comment on method or mixes I don't EI.
I will say from a common sense approach that the common 50% reset weekly should/could be augmented with a 75-90% change just to avoid toxicity every couple of months?

I find this to good practice in general for regular waterchanges on fish only tanks even.

Whether micros,hormones,or nutrients there always a chance of build up in a closed system.
We all get the math on removal....Minus 50% assumes what is not used is still only 1/2 removed....
And this may only account for what is in water column?If the micro has 'bonded' to plant leaf or sub you may not remove much at all?
Heres Dels link;
Copper sulfate | The Skeptical Aquarist
It didn't/ wouldn't come up for me.

 

[Delapool]

The only issue with dosing micros one time of week is the metals might bind and be unavailable to the plants after a few days.

I personally dosed 2.7 of Fe from CSM+B a week. This is an outrageous amount for any tank. Some people have speculated about algae but I believe this is even harder to prove, but I would think the copper would reduce algae growth.

Yes I have tried increasing the GH a few points but I did not observe any improvements.

That's a good point on micros. I could swap to more often per week and a lighter dose each time.

I have dosed Fe to 1.5ppm I think trying to get a test reading but have never noticed anything either on a test or with plants playing up (more than normal).

I forgot to mention I'm dosing PMDD as well every night. I'll have to dig up notes.

I see Tom didn't sound entirely convinced?

 

[bcarl_10gal]

Your GH is high enough to be able to dose a significant amount with issues. Plant species also plays a large role as there sensitivities vary. Some plants suffer and other can be fine. Bylxa can be grown in the worst conditions where R macandra is more sensitive.

Don't get me started on Tom. For someone who only doses 1/2 EI strength and claims he "lards it on" and since he has no issues we shouldn't either, he loses a lot of credibility.

CB: We know the toxicity ranges for macro's is very high, almost no risk of overdosing therefore we can SAFELY eliminate any case of a macro deficiency. We know with traces that plants absorb them SLOWLY and there is a chance for buildup and toxicity, there is no logical reason to dose with the same EI methodology. It could be ineffective anyways since the molecules could precipitate over time and be unusable to plants. Why not just dose an amount that the plants will actually use in the first place, and avoid any potential complications?

 

[PerfectDepth]

Don't get me started on Tom. For someone who only doses 1/2 EI strength and claims he "lards it on" and since he has no issues we shouldn't either, he loses a lot of credibility.

To be fair, Tom knows this stuff in and out, and has far more knowledge than your average hobbyist. You seem to think he is contradicting himself, but I think if he considers 1/2 EI amount to be "larding it on", I would tend to think he means what he says. I'm not even sure what you mean by 1/2 EI strength, since there is no standard set-in-stone EI amount - it was always meant to be increased gradually in small increments until no more improvement is noticed.

Until recently I had no idea that some people were actually dosing CSM+B to 0.5 ppm Fe three times per week. I had never heard of this. The most I was aware of was 0.2 Fe via CSM+B (usually not even that much), along with another Fe source if more iron was necessary, usually targeting 0.5 in total (not solely from CSM+B).

This was all I was dosing, and even with a GH of 7-8 I still had toxicity issues. So "larding it on" may be exactly the right way to put it.

 

[Delapool]

To be fair, Tom knows this stuff in and out, and has far more knowledge than your average hobbyist. You seem to think he is contradicting himself, but I think if he considers 1/2 EI amount to be "larding it on", I would tend to think he means what he says. I'm not even sure what you mean by 1/2 EI strength, since there is no standard set-in-stone EI amount - it was always meant to be increased gradually in small increments until no more improvement is noticed.

Until recently I had no idea that some people were actually dosing CSM+B to 0.5 ppm Fe three times per week. I had never heard of this. The most I was aware of was 0.2 Fe via CSM+B (usually not even that much), along with another Fe source if more iron was necessary, usually targeting 0.5 in total (not solely from CSM+B).

This was all I was dosing, and even with a GH of 7-8 I still had toxicity issues. So "larding it on" may be exactly the right way to put it.

That's an interesting question.

Reading some EI dosing posts the impression here is that it is dose, water change, repeat and considered set and forget. I've never quite considered that was the intent reading back through the history of it and prefer to tailor dosing, monitor and test water chemistry. Some consider this over the top and not what EI is about. Which could be.

From wets(?) calculator it appears an EI dose range is shown so half EI is half way. Perhaps that is bad terminology on my part? For myself it probably ties in with the posts I have seen where EI dosing is a steady consistent dose and water changes are to reset. No testing needed.

So according to the calc website I could double my dose and still be in EI dosing range. So perhaps I'm missing something here as on the one hand perhaps this thread is saying I could be overdosing (if water was soft) but the website is saying not?

http://yanc.rotalabutterfly.com


Edit - hopefully that makes sense. I typed half of it on the train. I think where I'm trying to get to is if toxicity from micro's by dosing within the EI range is possible or unlikely. In my tank I haven't noticed anything but last night decided to order iron dry ferts along with more K dry ferts (running out). The iron dry ferts were mainly just making up the weight to the post pack as the ferts are very cheap and the post pack is a large cost so I like to fill it to weight limit (my excuse anyways )

 

[PerfectDepth]

I think the calculators are where the confusion came from. They calculate based only on iron for micro mixes. If we look at the actual EI ranges, it's just 1/32 tsp of csm+b for 10-20 gallons. 1/32 tsp in 20 gallons is only 0.12 ppm of Fe, and in 10 gallons it's 0.24 ppm of Fe. The upper end of this range (read: 'larding it on') is just less than half of the 0.5 ppm target for Fe, so trying to hit this target with csm+b alone is probably asking for trouble in many cases.

Also, when you consider many are also adding micros to the substrate (osmocote +), there is probably no need to dose as much csm+b, so you can adjust to an even lower dosage without having deficiencies.


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