Aquatopia - 6x2x2 Low-Med Light, High Tech Angelfish Jungle

[Aquatopia]

This is the journal for my 6ft x 2ft x 2ft (180 US Gallon - 680 Litre) planted tank, which I haven't got yet but I will be getting, hopefully, in the next two weeks. I'm starting this journal to keep track of my decisions prior to getting the tank.

I have bought the tank and cabinet from AC Aquatics and have opted for the Opti white front and side panels. The tank is going to have a black background, cover glass and a hood.

I have decided to go high tech with low-med light. I'm going to use a low level of the Estimative Index (EI) for dosing nutrients and will be using pressurised CO2 but the CO2 will be at a fairly low level as well. I will be doing 50% water changes with tap water on a weekly basis, though I will be doing lots of them at first, when the tank is first setup and over the first month.

Here is what I have planned for the build so far:

Substrate - 40L Aquatic Compost and 25L Peat mix capped with 100 Kg black sand and 20 Kg blush brown sand for foreground - already here!
Rocks - 100 Kg Black Lava rock. - already here!
Wood - Mopani wood with some Spider Wood roots for detail. - already here!

Lighting: 4 x Fluval Plant 4.0 46w LED Lights - already here!
Filtration, heating & surface skimming - 2 x Oase BioMaster 2 Thermo 850 and an All Pond Solutions SKIM-2 Sufrace Skimmer. - partially here!
CO2 Equipment - CO2 Art PRO-SE Dual Stage Regulator with Integrated Solenoid, Aqua Medic CO2 Reactor 1000 and 2Kg CO2 Fire Extinguisher. - not here yet.
Dosing equipment - D-D P1 Dosing Pump - not here yet.
Monitoring and control - Reef Factory Thermo Control - already here!

Plants:
Anubias barteri v. coffeefolia
Anubias barteri v. nana
Anubias barteri v. nana 'petite'
Anubias barteri v. nana 'pinto'
Aponogeton madagascariensis
Bolbitis heudelotii
Bucephalandra - several species
Christmas moss
Crinum calamistratum
Cryptocoryne crispatula v. balansae
Cryptocoryne spiralis 'red'
Cryptocoryne 'Flamingo'
Cryptocoryne hudoroi
Cryptocoryne nurii
Cryptocoryne parva
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'green gecko'
Echinodorus ozelot green
Eleocharis acicularis
Fissidens fontanus
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Java Fern Trident
Limnophila hippuridoides
Limnophila sessiliflora
Ludwigia repens 'Super Red'
Nymphaea tiger lotus red
Nymphaea tiger lotus green
Red Root Floaters
Rotala Blood Red

Inverts:
Amano shrimp
Horned Nerite Snails
Malaysian Trumpet Snails
Ramshorn Snails

Fish:
15 Zebra Angelfish - I know I will be removing some of these Angels as they grow into adulthood.
200 Cardinal Tetra
10 Reticulated Hillstream Loaches
10 Kuhli Loaches
20 Orange Venezuela Corys
30 Otocinclus - I may or may not add these, I'll have to see what I think, but that won't be until the tank has been running for 3 months+
2 Apistogramma Cacatuoides Double Red (Pair) - These won't be added at first, not for 6 weeks or more.
20 Sunset Wagtail Platys

Once the tank has been setup I will keep this first post updated with the latest full tank shot.

If anyone has any questions, comments or feedback please feel free to join in.

 

[Aquatopia]

50Kg of Lava rock that arrived on the 10th of September, ready for the hardscape.

 

[Aquatopia]

Pieces have been arriving for a while but now I have a total of 18 pieces of Mopani wood.

I think that may be enough for a decent scape.

 

[Aquatopia]

Here's some of the substrate. Westlands Aquatic Compost and Peat.

This is the blush brown sand. The bag split so I had to dump it into bowls.

These are some pleco caves, made from slate.

 

[Lcc86]

Looking at the shots of your old tanks in your other post I'm excited to see what this will look like!

 

[Aquatopia]

Looking at the shots of your old tanks in your other post I'm excited to see what this will look like!

Thanks! To be honest those tanks I didn't really put that much effort into. I knew they were short term, because of the expected move and I hardly did any hardscape. They were low light, no CO2 and not really a proper aquascape. This tank will be more thought out, I'll be spending quite some time on the aquascape so it should end up considerably better than those tanks.

This tank will be sticking around, hopefully for decades to come. I'm not going to be having lots of other fish tanks though. This will be my only 'fish' tank. I do plan to have a good few small emersed plant growing tanks (and possibly some submersed ones) in racks, to grow plants for my own use and to sell/trade with others. That will be in a year or two though.

 

[Aquatopia]

These are the spider roots I got for detailing.

 

[MuddyWaters]

This is the journal for my 6ft x 2ft x 2ft (180 US Gallon - 680 Litre) planted tank, which I haven't got yet but I will be getting, hopefully, in the next two weeks. I'm starting this journal to keep track of my decisions prior to getting the tank.

I have bought the tank and cabinet from AC Aquatics and have opted for the Opti white front and side panels. The tank is going to have a black background, cover glass and a hood.

I have decided to go high tech with low-med light. I'm going to use a low level of the Estimative Index (EI) for dosing nutrients and will be using pressurised CO2 but the CO2 will be at a fairly low level as well. I will be doing 50% water changes with tap water on a weekly basis, though I will be doing lots of them at first, when the tank is first setup and over the first month.

Here is what I have planned for the build so far:

Substrate - Aquatic Compost and Peat mix capped with black sand, blush brown sand for foreground - already here!
Rocks - Black Lava rock. - already here!
Wood - Mopani wood with some Spider Wood roots for detail. - already here!

Lighting: 4 x Fluval Plant 4.0 46w LED Lights - already here!
Filtration, heating & surface skimming - Oase BioMaster 2 Thermo 850 x 2 and an All Pond Solutions SKIM-2 Sufrace Skimmer. - partially here!
CO2 Equipment - Co2 Art PRO-SE Dual Stage Regulator with Integrated Solenoid, Aqua Medic CO2 Reactor 1000 and 2Kg CO2 Fire Extinguisher. - not here yet.
Dosing equipment - D-D P1 Dosing Pump - not here yet.
Monitoring and control - Reef Factory Thermo Control - already here!

Plants:
Anubias barteri v. coffeefolia
Anubias barteri v. nana
Anubias barteri v. nana 'petite'
Anubias barteri v. nana 'pinto'
Aponogeton madagascariensis
Bolbitis heudelotii
Bucephalandra - several species
Christmas moss
Crinum calamistratum
Cryptocoryne crispatula v. balansae
Cryptocoryne spiralis 'red'
Cryptocoryne 'Flamingo'
Cryptocoryne hudoroi
Cryptocoryne nurii
Cryptocoryne parva
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'green gecko'
Echinodorus ozelot green
Eleocharis acicularis
Fissidens fontanus
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Java Fern Trident
Limnophila hippuridoides
Limnophila sessiliflora
Ludwigia repens 'Super Red'
Nymphaea tiger lotus red
Nymphaea tiger lotus green

Inverts:
Amano shrimp
Horned Nerite Snails
Malaysian Trumpet Snails
Ramshorn Snails

Fish:
12 Blue Zebra Angelfish
200 Cardinal Tetra
6 Honeycomb Bristlenose Plecos
10 Kuhli Loaches
20 Orange Venezuela Corys
30 Otocinclus
2 Apistogramma Cacatuoides Double Red (Pair)
20 Red Platys

Once the tank has been setup I will keep this first post updated with the latest full tank shot.

If anyone has any questions, comments or feedback please feel free to join in.

Wow, that is a heckuva list! I can't wait to see it

 

[Aquatopia]

Wow, that is a heckuva list! I can't wait to see it

Thanks! I can't wait to get started on it. It's getting closer, day by day.

Once the tank arrives though it's not going to be setup and running quickly. I'm going to be taking my time with the aquascape. I think it's going to be a couple of months before it gets fish in. Hopefully before Christmas.

As the tank is going to be around for many years to come I want to get the aquascape exactly how I want it, which will take some time. I need to look at it for a good while, see what I want to change, until I have it exactly how I want it.

 

[MuddyWaters]

Thanks! I can't wait to get started on it. It's getting closer, day by day.

Once the tank arrives though it's not going to be setup and running quickly. I'm going to be taking my time with the aquascape. I think it's going to be a couple of months before it gets fish in. Hopefully before Christmas.

As the tank is going to be around for many years to come I want to get the aquascape exactly how I want it, which will take some time. I need to look at it for a good while, see what I want to change, until I have it exactly how I want it.

I like the idea of taking your time with the aquascape. I have done that a couple of times. The problem for me is I don't think I'm all that creative, and ...I just put stuff in there and say, "ok that' looks good!" I'm usually not disapointed, but over time, I think all aquascapes wear out their welcome lol.

I love that you're going to put stuff in and just leave it there to see how it feels over time. I would NOT have the patience to do that, but it's a great idea.

BTW- on the fish, do you have an order in which you will introduce them? I guess you could put all or most in there and just watch the ammonia etc. to make sure the existing bacteria are keeping up, but I think doing it somewhat gradually is probably safer.

I'll be interested in your buce plants. I ahve tried several times with them and failed- I'm trying again in my river tank, where I keep the lights at 10% and still having a lot of problems. Christmas moss also never did what I wanted it to do.

I used the EI method on my 75 gallon tank, but getting balance was just about impossible- my plants grow like crazy, but I have backed way off on fertilizer. Mostly I put the micros in there and even those only about once a week. I use the NilocG powders.

I think that folks who have those amazing aquascapes that look so pristine where you can tell they thought ahead for the placement of each plant and rock must be using RO water and adding everything the environment needs rather than trying to work with tap water to find a balance. Either that or they're just WAY better at it than I am- well, that's a given with a lot of them, but anyway...

[edit] - oh, one other thing- I tend to overstock my tanks and offset with frequent water changes. I'm sure that makes the balance more difficult because it's easy for me to have a higher quantity of nitrate and phosphate in the tank- not crazy, but I think my 75 is regularly around 40ppm for nitrate and 1 - 2 on the phosphate (although I just started testing the phosphate so not sure).

Thirty otocinclus! If they act where you are like they do here (GA, USA), you might have to buy 60 of them to get 30 to live. I thought I was killing them, but I read about how starved they are by the time they get to your house. BTW- with those, will you wait until the tank is pretty established, or do you have a way to make sure they have biofilm etc? I use some Bacter AE with hillstream loaches I have. Not sure it works for them, but I reckon they want the same stuff shrimp eat, so I put some in every 2 or 3 water changes just to jump start the growth. They're happy, so it's either working or it's not needed but it's not hurting

Anyway- I'm excited for you and admittedly a bit envious- you already have quite the pile of really nice stuff to work with. Have fun!!!

 

[Aquatopia]

I like the idea of taking your time with the aquascape. I have done that a couple of times. The problem for me is I don't think I'm all that creative, and ...I just put stuff in there and say, "ok that' looks good!" I'm usually not disapointed, but over time, I think all aquascapes wear out their welcome lol.

I love that you're going to put stuff in and just leave it there to see how it feels over time. I would NOT have the patience to do that, but it's a great idea.

Thanks! I'm definitely a creative. I've been into photography all my life, even semi-professionally at one point, so having a good looking aquascape is important to me. If you create something beautiful then I think it can stay that way for a long time.

BTW- on the fish, do you have an order in which you will introduce them? I guess you could put all or most in there and just watch the ammonia etc. to make sure the existing bacteria are keeping up, but I think doing it somewhat gradually is probably safer.

I do have an order for the fish and I will be doing something which many aquarists find controversial - a fish in cycle! I've done it before and if done correctly it works well and the fish are no worse off for it. It's just doing a cycle this way requires a lot more work, effort, time and dedication, which most people don't have the time for. I have all the time in the world and will be here with the tank all day, every day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I don't recommend cycling a tank this way for most people. Most people don't have the time or dedication to do this and should follow the more accepted method, which takes longer but if you have the transport to go buy fish as you go then it is the safer way to cycle a tank.

The main reason I am doing a fish in cycle is because I am having to order all the fish online. I have no transport and no LFS near me so online it is. When ordering fish online the delivery costs can take up a good chunk of cash. For example, I can get the 200 Cardinal Tetras for £159.96 including delivery, if I order them all at once. If I say break it down into four orders of 50 Cardinal Tetras then the cost goes up to a total of £219.93. If you then do this with all the other fish as well then you end up with the fish costing about 40% more altogether. As it is the fish will be costing me £713.58 so I don't want to add another 40% on top of that.

If I had my own transport I would be buying fish from an LFS and cycling the traditional way of adding a few fish at a time. Unfortunately I don't have my own transport.

This is how I plan to get the fish and cycle the tank:

Fish Group 1 - Once the tank is planted and filled I will order the first group of fish. This will include the 15 Zebra Angelfish, the 200 Cardinal Tetra, 6 juvenile Honeycomb Bristlenose Plecos and the 20 Sunset Wagtail Platys. The angels are juvenile so ~5cm, the Cardinals too so ~2cm, bristlenose ~5cm, and the platys ~3cm so whilst this is going to be a lot of fish it isn't actually that large a bioload on a 680 litre heavily planted tank. I know the tank won't have much algae at first for the Bristlenose but I will be feeding Hikari Algae Wafers and Courgette every day for them.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I will be adding a large dose of API Quick Start bacteria to kickstart the cycle and doing large 50% water changes every day for the first week after these fish go in. The second week the large water changes will be every other day, the third week twice a week and the fourth week I'll end up at the regular weekly 50% water change, which will then continue every week after that. I will also be monitoring the ammonia and nitrite every day and if there is a dangerous spike I can do another large water change immediately. This keeps the ammonia down and still allows the tank to cycle, safely, with the fish in.

You cannot cycle safely this way without all of these:

• Doing the large 50% water changes as laid out above.
• Testing ammonia and nitrite every day and doing more large 50% water changes if needed.
• Having a very heavily planted tank from the outset with enough fast growing plants.
• Having all the nutrients those plants need to grow well from the start, including CO2.
• Having sufficient light for the plants to grow well on for ~8 hours a day.

If you miss on any of that list then the cycle won't work and you will be putting your fish in danger. This is why this method is not recommended and why many don't like to see it being done. It can be dangerous for the fish but only if not done correctly. Doing it correctly takes dedication, time and a lot of effort and, I would say, a certain type of person (a perfectionist?). It is definitely not for most people.

Fish Group 2 - On the third week I will be ordering the 10 Kuhli Loaches and the 20 Orange Venezuela Corys. The plants have had time to get established by this time and the Corys/Loaches are less likely to disturb them.

The pair of Apistogramma Cacatuoides Double Red won't be added for at least 6 weeks or longer. It's basically when I feel the tank is ready for them but it definitely won't be before the 6 week mark.

Thirty otocinclus! If they act where you are like they do here (GA, USA), you might have to buy 60 of them to get 30 to live. I thought I was killing them, but I read about how starved they are by the time they get to your house. BTW- with those, will you wait until the tank is pretty established, or do you have a way to make sure they have biofilm etc? I use some Bacter AE with hillstream loaches I have. Not sure it works for them, but I reckon they want the same stuff shrimp eat, so I put some in every 2 or 3 water changes just to jump start the growth. They're happy, so it's either working or it's not needed but it's not hurting

The 30 Otocinclus - I may or may not add them at all, I'll have to see what I think, but it won't be until the tank has been running for at least 3 months before I even think about it. At that point it will depend how the tank is. I'll know if it is ready for them and can then decide if it even needs them. If not then I won't get them.

If it does come to ordering them online I will be contacting the seller to establish how they are being kept, if they have been allowed to gorge themselves on arrival, how long they have had them, etc. so that should give me the best chance of getting them in reasonable shape.

I'll be interested in your buce plants. I ahve tried several times with them and failed- I'm trying again in my river tank, where I keep the lights at 10% and still having a lot of problems. Christmas moss also never did what I wanted it to do.

Why are you keeping the lights at 10%? Buce don't need low light? Many species do better in higher light. The main thing with Buce is not having algae growing on thier leaves. So long as you don't have algae issues you should be fine. If you have algae issues then you need to address those.

Moss would be the same, I've never had an issue growing moss other than if algae was growing. Algae growing in your moss will kill that off as well. Again if there is algae you need to address that. Other than that moss is incredibly easy to grow.

I used the EI method on my 75 gallon tank, but getting balance was just about impossible- my plants grow like crazy, but I have backed way off on fertilizer. Mostly I put the micros in there and even those only about once a week. I use the NilocG powders.

I think that folks who have those amazing aquascapes that look so pristine where you can tell they thought ahead for the placement of each plant and rock must be using RO water and adding everything the environment needs rather than trying to work with tap water to find a balance. Either that or they're just WAY better at it than I am- well, that's a given with a lot of them, but anyway...

EI Fertilisation is a huge, complicated, subject and one that I have only recently gotten to grips with. It takes a lot to figure out. You can use it with tap water, you just have to allow for the nutrients that are already in your tap water. I suspect a lot of people try EI Fertilisation without really understanding it, which is going to lead to problems. There is no simple follow this recipe type way of doing EI Fertilisation. You have to understand the science behind it and then be abe to work out your own recipe that will work for your tank, which is not easy to do.

[edit] - oh, one other thing- I tend to overstock my tanks and offset with frequent water changes. I'm sure that makes the balance more difficult because it's easy for me to have a higher quantity of nitrate and phosphate in the tank- not crazy, but I think my 75 is regularly around 40ppm for nitrate and 1 - 2 on the phosphate (although I just started testing the phosphate so not sure).

As you can see, I also overstock compared to most people today and I also feed heavily. I offset that with very heavy planting, having enough fast growing plants, having all the nutrients that those plants need to grow well (including CO2) and doing 50% weekly water changes. Without all of those things I couldn't do it successfully.

Your high nitrates and phosphates suggest your plants are either not getting what they need to grow well or you don't have enough fast growing plants (stems, floating plants) or both. If you change that then the nitrates and phosphates should come down.

Anyway- I'm excited for you and admittedly a bit envious- you already have quite the pile of really nice stuff to work with. Have fun!!!

I'm super excited and am itching to get started on the aquascape. I can't wait for the tank to come so I can get started!

 

[Aquatopia]

I'm currently considering switching out the Bristlenose Plecos for Reticulated Hillstream Loaches. They are smaller, less likely to disturb the plants, arguably just as interesting, if not more so, and arguably better at algae removal. Not much against them really.

 

[Aquatopia]

After consideration I have decided to switch them. It will be the Reticulated Hillstream Loaches instead of the Bristlenose Plecos.

 

[MuddyWaters]

I would much rather have hillstream loaches than plecos....just personal preference.

Back to the EI discussion: Here are some somewhat random thoughts I've been having about it. You seem like someone who's pretty tuned in with it, so I'd love your input.

I did a lot of reading prior to starting it, and I really still only felt like I got the jist, not a real understanding. I ultimately relied primarily on 2 sources: this article, and these instructions on the NilocG site.

The article was way too do-it-yourself for me, so I ultimately went with the NilocG instructions.

What sticks out is that the idea is that you have enough nutrients in the water to prevent running out. And then at the end of the week, do big water change to lower the nutrient load, and then start over. Ok- to me that means overload, balance out, and overload again. In my mind that is very straightforward.

However, then you get into concentration levels- which honestly, I ignored and have only recently begun to think that's probably my issue- but if you need to hit certain concentration levels, that defeats the whole idea of making sure there's enough so that "plant growth is never limited by the fertilizer level," doesn't it?

I tried to find a tidy explanation from Tom Barr, and searched his site (The Barr Report) but the EI section is all a bunch of posts and I got frustrated trying to find something prescriptive.

I did see an article saying that the EI index makes it so testing is not necessary. Well, if that's the case, then, in my mind, it means we're just throwing tons of it in there and then backing off once a week to keep it from getting way out of hand (that's a little simplified, but you get the idea).

That hasn't worked for me. I mean- it DOES, but the algae goes nuts right along with the plant growth.

Then on the NilocG site you see a whole thing about concentration levels. If there are to be certain levels of concentration for these nutrients, then I should need to test for them, yes? And, if I need to test for them, where the heck are the tests (other than Nitrate and Phosphate)?

...wait- while finding these links, I started reading one of the articles and found this:

For many years this has been the assumption but it is incorrect. Ammonium (NH4+) at low levels have been the primary causative agent for algae blooms in terms of an "excess" nutrient. This is why a planted tank using CO2 with moderate to high lighting cannot have enough nitrogen supplied by adding progressively more and more fish to the tank without getting algae blooms. It does not take much ammonium to cause the bloom. If you add NO3 from KNO3 you will not get any algae bloom, if you add even 1/20th of the ammonium you will get a very intense algae bloom. This test can be repeated many times and ran again and again with the same result. Adding NO3 will not induce the bloom. See if you can prove this to yourself.

What this says to me is that my love of overstocking is what causes my algae bloom (maybe overfeeding too, but let's not complicate things). If that's the case, then I'm out of luck, and will just have to live with it.

One other tidbit that's interesting above is that he seems to suggest that dosing nitrate in the form of KNO3 does not cause a bloom, while a very small amount of NH4+ will. Well, I just now went and watched a video that shows that there's a balance between NH3 (the bad one) and NH4+ (the not-toxic-to-fish one) and, as luck (or bad luck) would have it, as the PH goes down, the balance tips far in favor of NH4+. I have good filtration on my tank, and my ammonia levels always read 0, so am I getting this NH4+ floating around and causing algae? Are my bio-bacteria not picking up enough?

Ugh! Anyway- I've gone way off the rails on this LOL- looks like I have more to look into. What I would LOVE is some easy way to test for all this stuff so that I could really see what's going on.

What's your experience? Have you had algae blooms with heavy fish load? What do you do about it? What's your approach to EI? (btw- I have pretty much abandoned it, thinking I have plenty of N & P already in my tank- no need to add more via fertilizer- I just add the micros once a week)


if you read this far, thank you!

You did mention you like heavily stocking your tanks as well- have you had luck

 

[Aquatopia]

I would much rather have hillstream loaches than plecos....just personal preference.

I've never kept them, so it'll be something different for me. They seem much less shy than plecos. I'm looking forward to seeing how they are now.

Back to the EI discussion: Here are some somewhat random thoughts I've been having about it. You seem like someone who's pretty tuned in with it, so I'd love your input.

I have known about the EI Index system for many years but have never done it simply because I don't like to mess with things that I don't understand and I didn't have the inclination to spend the time needed to learn. Previously I would use commercial fertilisers and the high majority of my tanks have been low tech. In fact I think this will be only the fourth tank I've used CO2 injection on. My last two tanks, that you see in my introduction thread, are both low tech/low light tanks. I dosed commercial fertiliser for those. With smaller tanks it's perfectly doable and is what I would recommend.

This time around I decided to go high tech and, with having such a large water volume, the cost of using commercial fertiliser becomes restrictive. This is why I decided it was time for me to study up on the EI Index and get to grips with it, which I did. I'm now confident in what I'm doing with it.

I don't know the sources you linked. There are many sources of information on the EI Index system as it has been around for many years and a lot of people have written about it. I found that a lot of the information is confusing because they do not agree with one another. I now know that many of them are correct despite varying. The variances are down to two things, 1 - there are many ways to achieve the same result and 2 - everyones tank is different and has different requirements. Because of these two things it is impossible to have any kind of 'recipe' that you can follow successfully. Many sources try to do just that though and people try to follow these 'recipes' with varying results. This is because, as I said earlier, their tanks are not all the same so whilst that 'recipe' may work for some it won't work for others. I see people go from one 'recipe' to another trying to find a method that will work. What people need to understand is no preset method can work for everyone. In order to use the EI Index method succesfully you are best learning to understand the science behind it and then working out your own 'recipe' that is tailor made for your tank.

What sticks out is that the idea is that you have enough nutrients in the water to prevent running out. And then at the end of the week, do big water change to lower the nutrient load, and then start over. Ok- to me that means overload, balance out, and overload again. In my mind that is very straightforward.

Not quite. Yes you aim to provide enough nutrients for the plants but not a deliberate massive over abundance of them. Sure you may go slightly over but you wouldn't want to be massively overdoing it. The amounts are pretty accurate. The 50% weekly water changes do counter any slight overdose but they are mainly to bring the tank back to the same 'balanced' starting point every week.

However, then you get into concentration levels- which honestly, I ignored and have only recently begun to think that's probably my issue- but if you need to hit certain concentration levels, that defeats the whole idea of making sure there's enough so that "plant growth is never limited by the fertilizer level," doesn't it?

I did see an article saying that the EI index makes it so testing is not necessary. Well, if that's the case, then, in my mind, it means we're just throwing tons of it in there and then backing off once a week to keep it from getting way out of hand (that's a little simplified, but you get the idea).

Then on the NilocG site you see a whole thing about concentration levels. If there are to be certain levels of concentration for these nutrients, then I should need to test for them, yes? And, if I need to test for them, where the heck are the tests (other than Nitrate and Phosphate)?

The concentrations are important. We have the known values of each nutrient that are required for plants to grow well. These have been proven and developed over the years. Because we know the required values we just need to be able to work out how much of the dry nutrient powders we need to add to a volume of water in order to achieve that concenration for each nutrient. That's the basics of the EI Index system.

There is no need to test for the nutrients after you have worked out the dose needed. As long as your calculations are correct you know what the concentrations will be before hand. 2+2 is always going to equal 4.

...wait- while finding these links, I started reading one of the articles and found this:

Tom Barr is a great resource for this stuff but a lot of his content is now very old. That article in particular is 20 years old and things have changed quite a bit since then. Unfortunately navigating the information about this subject on the internet is not easy, there is a lot of old information, that has changed, as well as misinformation.

What this says to me is that my love of overstocking is what causes my algae bloom (maybe overfeeding too, but let's not complicate things). If that's the case, then I'm out of luck, and will just have to live with it.

No, that information is saying that excess Ammonia from adding too many fish (that the filtration was unable to cope with) was thought to be responsible for algae growth rather than Phosphate and/or Nitrate, which were previously thought to cause algae growth. Since then it has also been established that excess Ammonia is not directly responsible for algae growth either. It is lack of nutrients and/or not having the correct amount of light and/or not having enough fast growing plants which causes algae growth.

When I say lack of nutrients - it can be various nutrients. I don't mean a lack of all of them, it could just be one or two.

For example, you said your tank regularly shows high Nitrates and Phospates - both of these should be consumed by plant growth so either you don't have enough plants growing fast enough to consume it all or (and much more likely) you are missing some of the other nutrients, which is stopping the plants from growing and consuming the Nitrate and Phosphate. The plants need the right concentration of ALL the nutrients in order to grow well. If any one nutrient is low then the plants growth slows down. This is when algae can take hold. Algae does not need all of the nutrients to grow, just one of them is enough. So when your plants stop using all the Nitrate or Phosphate the algae is more than happy to start using it to grow. What you want is for the plants to continue growing until all the nutrients are used up, which then starves the algae of any food source. In order for the plants to be able to do that they need the correct concentration of all of the nutrients.

What's your experience? Have you had algae blooms with heavy fish load? What do you do about it? What's your approach to EI? (btw- I have pretty much abandoned it, thinking I have plenty of N & P already in my tank- no need to add more via fertilizer- I just add the micros once a week)

if you read this far, thank you!

You did mention you like heavily stocking your tanks as well- have you had luck

In my experience you can have algae growth with or without over stocking with fish. I don't think over stocking with fish is the determining factor. I have had success in tanks with over stocking and I've had failures. The failures were not down to the over stocking though.

The 'trick' to not having algae is having healthy, fast growing plants and enough of them in your tank. It really is as simple as that. The hard part is being able to keep enough fast growing plants healthy and growing. To do this you need enough of all the nutrients (including CO2) and enough light for the plants to grow well. If you do have these right then the plants will grow and out compete the algae, so algae cannot take hold. Don't get me wrong, you will always have some background level of algae but it shouldn't be able to take a hold and become really noticeable or a nuisance.

My approach to EI is quite complex so I think I'll leave that for another thread. I'll put one together when I have time.