Can you fertilize too much?

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30searay

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Apr 6, 2007
Messages
47
Location
Medina, Ohio
I noticed that when dosing my G Watson fert's daily that several kinds of plants in my 120 gallon started to show strange signs of stress. New leaf growth in my swords were curled and had holes in them. After a water change and laying off the ferts for some time the swords recovered, however, my red leaf stem plants have not. Is it possible to over dose even when maintaining a routine water change schedule and what does over dosing generally due to plants?
 
I suspect that you may have actually caused a nutrient deficiency in a nutrient you probably weren't dosing. From your description it sounds like a calcium deficiency. If your water is fairly soft or doesn't have a much calcium as a part of the hardness, this could easily explain it. Adding a GH booster to your dosing routine may be all you need to do to tweak your routine.
 
I suspect that you may have actually caused a nutrient deficiency in a nutrient you probably weren't dosing. From your description it sounds like a calcium deficiency. If your water is fairly soft or doesn't have a much calcium as a part of the hardness, this could easily explain it. Adding a GH booster to your dosing routine may be all you need to do to tweak your routine.

I was thinking the same as Joy. Ca++ popped in my head as I read your post.

Overdosing can cause problems, but that is pretty hard to do. I KNOW I have had some serious nutrient buildup over the years. NO3's in the 100's, PO4's in the 20's, ect.. None of the plants ever showed signs, that I could tell. Algae became a bigger problem, but not the plants.

Calcium along with Boron comes to mind from the sounds of your post.

CO2 also plays a big part in plant health. Make sure you are maintaining 30 PPM or more CO2 and adding plenty of Potassium along with the rest of the ferts and I am sure your plants will recover. It may take some time to see it though.
 
OK - so I read through the link provided on calcium deficiency. What is a good source of calcium?
 
As mentioned before a GH booster will help with your calcium levels. GH is primarily Calcium and Magnesium. Most places where you'd obtain dry ferts would have a GH booster, or you could go with a commercial brand like Seachem's.
 
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