bcarl_10gal
Aquarium Advice Addict
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!
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.
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.
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!