EI Dosing question.

[Ketso]

Over at the Barr Report, Greg Watson suggests this dosing for a 40-60 gal high light and well planted aquarium:

• 40-60 Gallon Aquariums
  +/- 1/2 tsp KN03 3x a week
  +/- 1/8 tsp KH2P04 3x a week
  +/- 1/8 tsp K2S04 3x a week
  +/- 1/8 (10ml) Trace Elements 3x a week
  50% weekly water change

My tank is a 55 that is not high light or well planted (assumed he meant heavy). How would I dose based on his suggestion? Cut it in half?

 

[Zezmo]

The stock EI routine, as you have listed is just a starting point. EI in general assumes a 50% minimum water change per week, and adequate CO2 injection.
The idea is that even if you have zero nutrient uptake, you will never have an excess build up.
The +/- means adjust as needed based on the results you get. The dangers (algae, plant health, etc.) tend to come from running out of a nutrient. So you can start with EI as listed, then after say a month, adjust up or down based how your tank is doing.

BTW, the 1/8 (10ml) trace, is either 1/8 tsp dry CSM+B, or 10ml (2tsp) of liquid Trace mix.

 

[Ketso]

OK.

I guess that means there is no clear cut esay way to figure dosing amounts for a tank such as mine. I'll just keep doing what I have been until problems arise. One of which just showed up - hair algae. I'd had a touch of it a month or so back but it disapeared. But, now it's back. I am keeping everything the same except for lighting. Switched off one bulb to reduce it to 96w for awhile.

That may be the wrong thing to do. Not sure. It's all so confusing for me. I thought this would be easier to understand than it is. Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually. But I think the cause to most of my problem is too few plants. Currently trying to locate some hornwort to add. Wish me luck.

 

[Purrbox]

Are you injecting CO2? If not then there Tom Barr has an alternate dosing routine for your type of tank. Of course I can't find the particular article for the life of me right now, or I'd post a link. Basically the initial dosing amount are much lower since the plant uptake rate will be quite a bit slower in this type of tank.

 

[Ketso]

Running a DIY for a few months. Then going non-Co2 alltogether. Just trying to give the plants I have a jumpstart. Nowaddamean?

 

[Argblarg]

I used that EI schedule for my 46 gallon with 1x96w but before every weekly water change I tested Nitrate and Phosphate to see how much excess I had left for a month to get the hang of how much my plants were consuming. I ended up lowering the amount of KNO3 I was adding by about half since I was ending up at 20ppm Nitrate on Sunday, and didn't put in any KH2PO4 for the first dosing day since my tap water had 1.5 ppm Phosphate already.

If you aren't planning on running CO2 you are probably stuck running only the 1 96w bulb, above 2 wpg really needs CO2.