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Re: P.E.I. soil in substrate.



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Wayne wrote

> About a month ago I set up a new 120 gallon tank and used a small amount
of
> P.E.I. soil in the substrate.

Roger said

OK, I give.  What's P.E.I. soil?

And what else are you fertilizing the tank with?

Wayne replies

Sorry I guess I didn't think about about the fact that this list is
published internationally. P.E.I. is short for Prince Edward Island. This a
small province of Canada located on the east coast. (Canada is a country
north of the U.S.A.)  ;-)

I am using a little bit of PMDD with the potassium nitrate included in the
same manner that I use it in my 90 gallon tank. In that tank I just dose a
pop bottle cap full once a week. The water is changed at the rate of about
5% per day and this seems to keep the any excess nutrient levels under
control. I also put Jobes plant sticks under the Echinodorous plants. The
new 120 is not as densely planted or as fast growing as the older 90 so I am
dosing at about 1/2 a cap full once a week and I put a single plant stick
under each Echinodorous plant. I think this level of fertilization is
actually more than the 90 gallon gets based on the mass of plant material
being produced. The thing that is bothering me is that this never happened
before and the only real difference that I can see is the substrate.  Same
plants, same lighting, same water changes, same CO2 levels and same
fertilizer regimen. One difference between the two tanks is that I only have
algae eating fish in the 120 but even so I feed the tank a little bit of
flake food everyday to try and put in any nutrients such as phosphate that
might be misssing. My basic strategy is to add the same amount of PMDD
weekly and to always do the same level of water changes. If I see more algae
than I like I feed the fish less and if I see too little I feed a little
more.

Wayne