plant food

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remy the cook

Aquarium Advice Activist
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Nov 10, 2012
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I have leaf zone plant food and I was wondering what else I need to fully supplement the plants
 
Plant Food

I have leaf zone plant food and I was wondering what else I need to fully supplement the plants

Hello remy...

Your plants will do well if you keep up on your water changes. If you remove and replace half the tank water every week, you maintain high levels of nitrates, phosphates and sulfates. Feeding your fish a balanced diet is helpful too. I've found that long term, nothing is better than the ferts the fish produce. You don't need to go to a lot of expense and effort to keep a nicely planted tank.

Just a couple of thoughts.

B
 
Alot depends on the type lighting your using, if your using any liquid carbon (such as Excel), and how many plants you need. When you do WC's you are removing excess nitrates and phosphates along with other dissolved organics, your not adding them. Fish waste and food will naturally add nitrates and phosphates to a tank which will be fine if you are running a low tech tank with few plants. Most liquid ferts are mainly if not totally micro nutrients, which plants need along with macro nutrients (nitrates, phosphates, potassium). If you have a low tech tank and your plants look good and are growing, then you don't need to add anything else. If you have alot of plants and higher light then you may need to change your fertilizing routine. Liquid carbon and CO2 help with plant photosynthesis and growth and also helps the plants to use available nutrients in the water column better. So what are your tank specifics? Lights, bulb color temp (6700K, 10000K, ???), how long are you running your lights, what are your water readings (nitrates, phosphates, PH, GH, KH), and how many plants do you have?
 
I supplement

Iron
Potassium
Trace minerals.

With leaf zone you are getting Iron and potassium. Iron will keep leaves from yellowing and Potassium will prevent the leaves from getting holes. Yeah. Sounds odd to me too. The trace minerals are mostly metals. I don;t know what exactly they do but each of the 10-12 minerals do something for the plants. You nitrogen and phosphate will come from the food and the biological filter. I haven't used any CO2 gas or booster. I'm looking into a gluteral solution. There are threads here about it and they've answered my questions. Just have to do it when I get in a new $200.00 order of plants.

I don;t go full strength. 1. It gets expensive. 2. I don;t have the test kits for iron and potassium. Too much Iron will block the plants ability to take in nutrients. Too much potassium will do the same thing. Just like too much nitrogen and too much phosphate.

Suggested levels of nutrients

10ppm nitrogen
.5ppm Phosphate
.1ppm Iron
35ppm Potassium
 
Florapride is basically just Iron and Potash. As for an all-in one, if the tank is a basic low tech setup, all you'll likely need is Flourish comprehensive. It has small amounts of all of the micros and even a little of the macros.
 
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