Re: Daily vs weekly.

[Thomas Barr <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

> Tom Barr has recently spoken of heavy
> dosing on the day before a water change, something I haven't tried at
> any stage, but I wonder whether weekly dosing of nutrients may not be
> advantageous to algae and whether they may adapt better to "boom then
> bust" dosing than the plants do while the plants may react better to
> low, daily doses and outcompete the algae as a result.

This notion of "competing for nutrients" is not a good way to approach any
of this. Boom bust notions can play a role but within the ranges I state so
many times here and in articles etc, if you stick within these ranges and
make sure things do not run out(this is very important) for more than a day
or so, then the plants will be healthy and grow well.

They need more nutrients than the algae do. Algae appear when the there's
not enough nutrients for the plants. They also appear when there's so much
nutrient loading that it destabilizes the entire system and bacterial cycles
start taking over the processes that the plants were doing.
 
> I realise that my suppositions about what is going on with the change
> in dosing style are just that - suppositions - which may or may not be
> right. On the other hand the tank is running better than it ever has
> and I see no reason to swap my dosing strategy to return to weekly
> dosing, though I may decide to add a bit of Phosphorous also on a daily
> basis and see what happens.

You are on the right track. Why not compromise and dose 2-3x a week?

Here's the deal: weekly for most CO2 enriched tank with 2W/gal or more run
out of nutrients within the ranges I mention and near week's end the plants
stunt. Adding it daily will help a great deal and prevent this. But you can
keep the nutrients within an acceptable range by dosing 2-3x a week with
high light also. Weekly is not enough for many tanks.
Adding PO4 will also help your tank a great deal.

Even the highest light tanks I have can easily deal with dosing 3x a week.
I like to go places for a couple days without worrying about daily dosing
etc. 

I think you will also need to raise the trace levels up for your tank.
I have a tank a tad smaller and I add 5mls of Flourish 3x a week. Your might
need 2x a week, 5mls each dose. You can break it up into 3.3 mls every 3
days etc. It makes little difference with these frequencies in plant health
and growth.
 
> In the meantime, I thought I'd toss out the option of daily dosing with
> Seachem products for others to experiment with and comment on.
> 
> I'll add that I shifted house last May and had to break the tank down
> to shift. When I re-established it, I swapped from gravel and laterite
> to Fluorite and am extremely impressed with the way the plants have
> adapted to the Fluorite and have grown since. Fluorite may be expensive
> - - at least here in Australia where we seem to end up paying about
> 50-100% more on US products after taking the exchange rate into account
> - - but I'm more than happy with the results in my tank.
> David Aiken

Well, perhaps cost will come down later. But try the K, N and P. It works
very well and there's no stalling in your tank anymore.

If you would like you can read the DFW plant club's article I wrote about
how to keep the proper ranges of nutrients etc. It's an easy routine, cheap,
works etc.

Regards, 
Tom Barr