Journal Greggz 120G Rainbow Fish Tank - Part Deux!

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GreggZ said:
So here's the next summation from my old journal.

Front Loading Macro Nutrients. What is it and why would anyone do it??

As some of you may know I have been front loading all macro nutrients right after a water change for years now. I get a lot of questions about that so I going to try and explain why this works for me, and why it may work for you.

When I got started I was dosing like the majority of people do. I’d perform a water change, have a day of rest (whatever that means?), then start dosing macros and micros on alternating days. I did this without really thinking much about it, it was just what I read and seemed like what everyone else was doing.

But along the way I began to notice something. Some plants seemed to really stall after a water change, and then would peak just before the next water change. This happened mostly to sensitive species or large fast growing colorful stems.

After observing this long enough I decided to rethink what I was doing. It occurred to me that with my large (70%) water changes I was removing a large amount of nutrients out of the water column. So I put together a spreadsheet to better understand and visualize what was happening in my tank. I also started thinking more about plant uptake of nutrients and tank generated nutrients. As I began to examine things more closely it really changed the way I looked at nutrient dosing.

Let’s look at my tank. At the time I was dosing 21 ppm NO3 weekly with 70% water change. For now I will ignore plant uptake and tank generated nutrients. Excluding any other variables this is what happens from one water change to the next. The number to focus on is the Daily NO3 level in week 11. I used week 11 because as you may recall from the post on accumulation anything past week ten is reflecting the maximum theoretical accumulation.

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It's not surprising you see a steep drop off of nutrients, and then a slow rise until they peak again just before the next water change. This also correlates exactly to what I was seeing with certain plant species. Their peak health was on the same timeline.

Now let’s say for the sake of argument that 30 ppm NO3 in the water column is the optimum number to keep the highest number of plants happy at one time. If that were true, why would I want my numbers to be constantly changing, and why wouldn’t I just want to keep it at that peak level?

One thing that I have learned over the years is that plants like stability. They don’t like change. I look at plants like a factory. After a period of time the factory is humming along. But when things change all of the sudden things are not so smooth. A good example is when you get plants shipped to you. Sometimes that plant will go through a pretty rough period. It’s adjusting to the parameters of your tank (CO2 levels, light levels, nutrient levels, etc.). But once it adjusts and figures things out the growth is robust and healthy again.

Since I am big believer in stability, I started looking at ways to keep my water column numbers more stable. So let’s say instead of dosing that 21 ppm NO3 in three doses, let’s dose all of it right after a water change. Well here’s how that looks.

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Again pay attention to the daily NO3 level in week 11. Shocking, right? The water column level is completely stable. So which do you think is better for plants? For me there is no question it’s better to keep things as steady as possible.

Now those are very simple examples. I didn’t include plant uptake or tank generated nutrients. In my tank with my large fish load I have determined that the two pretty much cancel each other out (about 2 ppm per day each). But other tanks may be different. Let’s say someone has a high light tank full of stems but no fish so little to no tank generated nutrients. Let's estimate the plants are taking up 2 ppm of NO3 daily. How would that look?

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As you see now the tank peaks with nutrients right after a water change then nutrients slowly get depleted throughout the week. In this case someone may want to split their dosing into two doses, ½ after a water change (replacing the nutrients), then two smaller doses later in the week. This is how that would look.

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So you see in this case by splitting up the doses it keeps the water column more relatively stable.

My thought about posting this is to help people think outside the box, and not to be afraid to try something new. Every tank is different and you need to think in terms of what would work best in your own particular tank.

I can tell you this I have been front end loading macros for many years now and would never go back. If nothing else for the convenience factor. The interesting thing is that my readings are almost exactly the same no matter what day I take them, and my TDS is almost exactly the same right before and after a water change. I remember when I announced I was going to try this a lot of people gasped. Now I know a lot of people using the same or similar methodology. I hope that is interesting to some of you out there.
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This just blew my mind and made things click for me. Thank you for sharing this!
 
Hey Greg, I did a recap of your journal (sometimes I reread to acquire more info on how to improve), after you started using inert gravel, do you use any root fert?
 
riioKen said:
Hey Greg, I did a recap of your journal (sometimes I reread to acquire more info on how to improve), after you started using inert gravel, do you use any root fert?
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Good question.

I have tried root tabs here and there over the years. I've never seen much if any difference in either active or inert soil.

My thought is that if you keep enough nutrients in the water column they really don't do much.
 
Burr740 said:
Thats basically been my experience too. With stems it makes zero difference. Rosettes it can help a little bit, mostly speeds them up
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Well going to test that theory again. As we discussed the Samolus valerandii I have is doing OK but not great. Growing very slowly.

Just plopped an APT root tab under it. Will see if it has any effect.
 
GreggZ said:
Over time I am more and more convinced that substrate health and cleanliness plays a greater role than most suspect.

When I remove a patch of plants for trimming I take that opportunity to give that area a good vacuum. And every so often I remove every plant and do a whole tank thorough vac.

Interestingly I find a direct correlation between substrate cleanliness and TDS. If I see TDS rising a good substrate vac brings in right down. And in my tank the lower the TDS the easier things are.

If the substrate is dirty you can try all the fert levels in the world and it won't fix it. What usually works better is some good old fashioned elbow grease.
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How do you monitor TDS in your tank? Do you use a meter or test kit?
 
TRyan said:
How do you monitor TDS in your tank? Do you use a meter or test kit?
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I use a TDS meter.

Like I said if TDS is rising, then something is off. The substrate and dirty filters are usually the main cause.
 
Thank you, @GreggZ!

Is there a meter that you'd recommend? I bought a $30 one from Amazon, but it really didn't hold up, or perhaps (more than likely) my laziness when it comes to calibration and proper storage of these meters, caused its early demise.

I'm truly inspired by the content and journals from you, @Burr740, and many others on here and another forum. After reading 2 of the best tank journals on the internet from you and Joe, I have made many changes with fertilization, maintenance and substrate.

That bit about front loading your macros into a storage container was a game changer and works perfectly with my schedule. Genius. I switched to RO water and dose per 5 gallon bucket ( I have 2 twenty gallon tanks and limited space, so this works well for me) then use an electric submersible pump to get into the tank. Very stable way to do it, and I can do as many water changes as necessary without trying to get the tank super clean with only one 50% change a week without messing up the dosing schedule and nutrient levels.

Also, do you sell plant cuttings? I bought a few from Joe and was very happy with the stems I received. I can see that purchasing stems from other hobbyists is the way to go!

Thanks again,

Tim
 
Count Krunk said:
What TDS level makes you go hmm time for some cleaning?
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It could be different for different people. Much depends on the source water and the base dKH/dGH. I use RO so my base TDS is almost zero. Most times fully dosed it's about 160 or so. If it gets nearer to 200 gets my attention. Usually coincides with noticing things are off just a bit in general.
TRyan said:
Thank you, @GreggZ!

Is there a meter that you'd recommend? I bought a $30 one from Amazon, but it really didn't hold up, or perhaps (more than likely) my laziness when it comes to calibration and proper storage of these meters, caused its early demise.

I'm truly inspired by the content and journals from you, @Burr740, and many others on here and another forum. After reading 2 of the best tank journals on the internet from you and Joe, I have made many changes with fertilization, maintenance and substrate.

That bit about front loading your macros into a storage container was a game changer and works perfectly with my schedule. Genius. I switched to RO water and dose per 5 gallon bucket ( I have 2 twenty gallon tanks and limited space, so this works well for me) then use an electric submersible pump to get into the tank. Very stable way to do it, and I can do as many water changes as necessary without trying to get the tank super clean with only one 50% change a week without messing up the dosing schedule and nutrient levels.

Also, do you sell plant cuttings? I bought a few from Joe and was very happy with the stems I received. I can see that purchasing stems from other hobbyists is the way to go!

Thanks again,

Tim
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Tim I am glad to hear my ramblings (and Joe's!) have helped you out. As you know it's been many years of documenting trials and errors and you never really know how many are following.

I will say after the debacle with TPT there was an outpouring of people who had been following the journal for years and I never knew it. It was cool to see there were more than I thought following along.

As to TDS meters I don't really have anything special. Just one of the many offered on Amazon. I've had mine for many, many years and still works quite well. And keep in mind my main interest in that it gives me good relative readings. That is I really don't care much about the absolute value, but rather the relative value between readings. Rising in general is no good.

In general I am not in the plant selling business. But almost everything I keep Joe farms and sells and you can't get better quality than he provides.

I do swap/trade from time to time with people that I know in the hobby. If there is something in particular I have that you are interested in PM me and I can let you know if I have some to spare.
 
Hey @GreggZ, I have a question about micro dosing.

I understand that you front load all macros into your RO holding bins which keeps incoming water stable as can be. This also allows for performing several smaller water changes throughout the week if need be. I also know you dose micros daily. I'm using Burr micros dosed 3 times /week. How do you dose your micros? Do you dose your holding bins with micros or do you dose directly into tank?

I'm trying to figure out a way to keep micros stable if I choose to do a couple of water changes a week, instead of one 50% change/week.

I hope I'm making sense. I'm sure I'm overthinking this, but still curious as to what you do.

Thank you, have a great day!

Tim
 
GreggZ said:
For those that are interested here is more than you probably want to know about my tank.

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In other news over the summer I went through a period of testing lower light and lower dosing. Tank did OK but was not great. Plants healthy but not near peak color. Some like Pantanal looked quite a bit worse. Nodes became further apart, heads smaller, and stems thinner. It was spending all of it's energy trying to race to the light. Turned light back up and increased ferts and things are back on autopilot.

In fact rather than testing lower limits of dosing I am now going the other way. Some people think more ferts create algae. Well I am going to be testing that theory and keep slowly raising ferts and see how tank does. I've actually already started and so far so good. I'll report back as things progress.
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Downloaded and studying!
 
GreggZ said:
I mentioned earlier that I am going to try to recreate some discussions from my old journal here. Today the topic is:

Accumulation……what is it and why does it matter?

As you progress in the hobby, you will notice that people often report their weekly fertilizer dosing. You might see some report they are dosing NO3 : PO4 : K at 20:5:20.

First of all what does that mean? It’s the total weekly dose of each nutrient into the water column. People post it as a reference to their dosing schedule. In the above example someone is dosing 20 ppm of Nitrogen (NO3), 5 ppm of Phosphate (PO4), and 20 ppm of Potassium (K).

So most people think if I just copy this dosing then I am dosing the same thing. Makes sense, right? Well the truth is not really. The thing people don’t factor into the discussion is the water change percentage and frequency. Depending on those two variables that dosing can mean a lot of things, and if you aren’t on the same schedule then your water column nutrients could be wildly different.

To understand why you need to understand how accumulation works, and something we refer to as the maximum theoretical accumulation. The maximum theoretical accumulation is the highest level the water column ferts will accumulate to over a long period of time. It’s theoretical as we are not taking into account the uptake of nutrients by plants or the tank generated nutrients that come from fish waste, fish food, dead/decaying plant matter, etc. For what it’s worth in my tank I believe those two pretty much cancel each other out.

Let’s take a look at what happens when we dose 20 ppm of NO3 into the water column and perform 50% water changes once a week. The tank starts with 20 ppm NO3 in the water column. At the end of the week you perform a 50% water change which removes half of the NO3 which lowers the NO3 level to 10 ppm. Then you add another 20 ppm NO3 and the tank is now at 30 ppm NO3. And so it goes. The next week you remove 50% of the nutrients which brings the tank to 15 ppm NO3. Then you add another 20 ppm NO3 which brings the level to 35 ppm.

And this goes on and on until after 10 weeks you are constantly at your theoretical maximum. There is actually a formula to calculate this number quickly. It’s the ppm of the amount of nutrients dosed between water changes divided by the water change percentage. For instance in this case the theoretical maximum would be 20 ppm divided by 0.50 = 40 ppm. And note I said the amount of nutrients dosed BETWEEN water changes. If you are performing water changes every two weeks use the total nutrients dosed in those two weeks for your calculation. Same goes if you are changing water twice a week……..use the total nutrients dosed between water changes.

So why does this matter? First of all when someone reports their dosing it is not the same as reporting their preferred level of nutrients in the water column. It is simply reporting how much they are dosing. But let’s say instead of changing 50% of the water someone changes only 25%? What is the effect? Let’s use our formula. 20 ppm NO3 divided by 0.25 = 80 ppm. So you see the accumulated nutrients are twice as high. Then let’s compare that to someone who changes 75% of their water. 20 ppm divided by 0.75 = 26.66 ppm.

So the point is that if you think you are following someone’s dosing, if you aren’t performing the same water change percentage at the same frequency then your end result can be drastically different.

I put together the chart below to help visualize how accumulation works. If you can understand what is going on in this chart then you will understand accumulation and why it matters. Remember after ten weeks you have hit your maximum accumulation and the nutrient levels will be stable at the number.

I hope this is helpful to some folks. It’s something that should be discussed more often. I thought I would lay out my thoughts on the subject so I can refer people back to this when it comes up.

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Thank you 🙏 master…
 
GreggZ said:
I figured it's about time for an update. Life has been super busy lately. Between work, travel, home improvement projects at my daughters house, and life in general the tank has not been getting the attention it deserves.

So on Sunday I spent a few hours trying to whip things back into shape. Have an idea of where I am going but will need some time for things to grow out a bit over the next few weeks. Right now most everything is just mowed down to similar heights but that will change over time.

My Barclaya Longifolia has gone dormant again for the fifth time over many years. I think the last substrate cleaning was too much for it and it rebelled. I still have a bunch of bulbs planted and I know at some point it will peak it's head out again. But it can take months. So I put some L. Repen Rubin in that spot for the time being.

I also pulled the Nymphoides Hydrophylla 'Taiwan'. I was looking back at pictures and realized it has been in the same spot in the back left corner for about 5 years. Figured it was time for a bit of change. Also been trying to be better about keeping too many species and and am down to 21 right now. That's about as low as it has been in years.

I often say be careful what you wish for. Once you get plants growing....well...they grow.....a LOT. Here is the tank after I got back from a trip, and then after about 3 hours of cleaning/trimming/replanting.

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Is that Wapoga Red Laser Rainbow? I love them..😍 I can’t find any online that look like yours. How/does one get them as good as yours. My daughter is obsessed with pink and now so am I…

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GreggZ said:
It’s been a long time since I provided an update on the tank. The summers are short here in Michigan and between work, golf, travel, the lake, my home projects, my daughters home projects…..well let’s just say it flies by and the tank gets put on the back burner for awhile'

So fall is here and I thought it’s about time I updated what has been going on with the tank.

A warning what I am about to say may shock some and make them gasp.

As I have mentioned I believe that substrate health and cleanliness plays a greater role in our tanks than most give it credit for. I’ve mentioned how every so often I thoroughly clean my substrate which seems to put the tank on cruise control for a while. I switched over from BDBS to soil over four years ago, so the soil was getting pretty old. I began to find my “cruise control” period getting shorter and shorter.

So I reached out and had a few discussions with some folks I greatly admire in the hobby. One in particular was @Marian Sterian . He said with a Dutch type garden tank with lot’s of uprooting that soils can release a lot of nasty stuff in to the water column, which is why he runs his tank with inert substrate. This is something I had been thinking about for a while. When he confirmed what I was thinking that kind of sealed the deal.

So I got up one Saturday morning went over to my local Tractor Supply Co. Figured I can sit here thinking about it or just do something. So I picked up 5 bags of BDBS for $60 and went home to make the swap.

I took out all the plants and left the fish in the tank. Took out all the old soil and vacuumed every last thing out of it. Kept the filters running. Not gonna lie tank was the water was really dark. Did a large water change and in about two hours it had cleared up pretty good and tossed the BDBS in. No rinsing. No nothing. Just opened the bags and dumped it in. Another two hours later replanted everything. That's it. Ammonia never got over 0.25 or so.

One of the most immediate things I noticed was how clean the glass stayed. When the soil deteriorated one of the signs for me was algae on the glass. It pretty much instantly went away. Why? I don’t really know but it sure caught my eye. Of course I have also mentioned that Barclaya hates being moved, and it melted away to nothing. Good news is as usual it sat there for a while mad at me but then suddenly showed signs of life and is almost back to it’s former glory now.

There was a short period of rebellion with other plants as well, but all in all everything went very smoothly. Tank has been pretty much back on auto pilot for a while now, even during the neglectful summer months. With a high energy tank it’s easy to let things go, and when you are not trimming, pruning, arranging, etc. the presentation is what really suffers.

So this past weekend I decided it’s about time to give the tank some love and try to whip things back into a more presentable shape. Here’s where it’s at today after a major trim. Going to let things grow out a bit and get more serious about the presentation over the next few months.

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I need to think about this approach!
 
GreggZ said:
I thought some of you might enjoy this.

My daughters find this whole planted tank journey of mine fascinating. They have been following it for years, and get a kick out of it when I am mentioned somewhere or write an article.

So this year they got me these two framed photos for the bookcases in my den where the tank lives. I thought that was really thoughtful and pretty cool.

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And here's where the tank is currently. If I can borrow a saying from @Burr740 it's a jumbled mess of indecision. Things have calmed down pretty much from the two set backs. Not perfect but getting better. So this is kind of the sausage being made picture. I have a vision but will take a bit to get it there.......of course with this hobby that never ends!!

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That’s amazing 😢 daughters are amazing!
 
Yugang said:
Where did you get a pair of extra tall arms to manage this?
I am serious, when buying a tank I do check if I can reach to the bottom, so how troublesome is this for you?
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Everyone mentions this but then I am 6’5” tall with bigger ape index so maybe that’s why 🤔?
 
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