[Laith]

Excellent overview!

I'd just like to add a point about the water changes/resetting the tank. If you change 50% of your water once a week, you will *never* have more than a maximum of twice your weekly dosing of fertilizers. And that's without taking into account plant uptake.

For example, if you dose 3mg/l (ppm) of NO3 a day, or 21mg/l a week, your NO3 levels should never reach more that a maximum of 42mg/l. Add in what the plants can use up and the amount will be lower. If they do go above the 42mg/l in this example, you don't have enough light/CO2/plants or you're overstocked with fish.

So obviously if you change less than 50% of the water once a week, or wait longer between water changes, the "reset" aspect will vary and you should adjust your dosing accordingly. I think that the dosages recommend above are based on 50% water changes...

 

[Laith]

What you should not do is mix KH2PO4 and any Fe trace mix in a bottle in order to dose them together. The concentrations in the bottle will be such that the Fe and PO4 will combine (FePO4) and precipitate out.

However, adding each separately to a tank shouldn't be a problem as they will very quickly become very diluted. Using autodosing I dose both every day but just to be on the safe side they are dosed a couple of hours apart. I probably wouldn't have any problem dosing them within minutes of each other or even at the same time at different spots in the tank...

 

[Laith]

Ok guys... I have a 160 gallon aquarium that is planted and I want to try EI dosing. I am completely new to the EI dosing scene and want to know what I should buy from Greg Watson's, and what would be a good dose amount and how often?

THx

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...zing/15225-estimative-index-dosing-guide.html

 

[Laith]

Sorry, I just realized I referenced this same thread... Not enough coffee that morning...

For a 160g you could start out with the dosing suggested for a 100-135 gallon tank. Watch the plants and adjust accordingly. Assuming 140g of water in your tank, that dosing will give you almost 10mg/l of NO3 per dose and just over 3mg/l of PO4 per dose. You could even start out with slightly lower PO4 dosing.