Boston Aquarium Society Message Board

I have 4 planted tanks, some more so than others. Only the 55 gallon has co2 and it's just the diy type and not much at that. I can be on the paranoid side as to safety of my fish with additives and had an old bottle of Seachem Flourish, added it to a few tanks and had adverse reactions from some fish. I also used Excel before and lost blue rams in two different tanks after. Any suggestions on other types of ferts, dry that I can mix myself? I am mixing our hard alkaline well water with our softened so it's half and half, I tested iron and that seems to be ok...

I've researched online to the point my head spins and I can't even remember what dry fert works with what and well.... you get the point.

I'd love to hear if you use any... my new plants are getting yellow... that can mean diff. things but I'd like to get them on track soon.

Also, do you just add the concentration, mixture, liquid right into the tank or do you super dilute it... avoid the fish etc? Seems impossible when they rush over to see what goodies I'm putting in the tank!

Thanks!

-Tracey

I love the Seachem line... I use tap water from here in JP with Prime, no buffers or the like, and I consistently get 6.8-7.2 pH, GH of about 120, and KH of around 20 or less and my plants are growing like crazy!

I add the recc. dose of Flourish and Excel once a week or so, with about 4-6 mL of Iron, and about 3mL of Phosphorus recently, though I haven't seen much change with the new addition of Phosphorus. I also have 4x96W T5 bulbs (two 6700 and two 10K) on a 12 hr day. I also use Fresh Trace about once a week, and Stability whenever I do a water change.

Hope that helps... I'm so sorry to hear that you lost some fishies!

The water here in Brighton is very soft except for something in it that leaves white deposits (I'm not sure what it is, but my test kit says the water is very soft)

I use a splash of liquid ferts (hagen plant gro) and I put in some equilibrium.\

I use an incandescent hood with 50/50 power compacts (half 10,000k daylight, and half actinic). The tank also gets sunlight in the morning hours. The sun's angle through the window gives it light around sunrise but will have moved on by 9 AM. The plants love it and the sunlight doesn't shine long enough for algae to grow. (and partially because the plants use up the nutrients in the water)

why buy pricey fertilizers from companies like ADA, hagen and seachem when you can buy the dry form for a fraction of the price!?! a one pound bag of dry ferts can last you a year even with daily dosing (depending on the tank and its setup) while if you dose the recommended amount of the seachem fertilizers you'r easily spending over $50 a month on fertilizers alone, seems silly to me! thats precious beer money Id recommend using the estimative index dosing method (EI the the best for a beginner because it requires no test kits) and buying only: Plantex CSM+B, Potassium Nitrate KN03, and Monopotassium Phosphate KH2P04 do your wallet a favor and go to:
http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/Store.php

and then read up on dry dosing EI here:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/foru ... guide.html