What kind of supplement?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

lyquidphyre

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Nov 19, 2003
Messages
3,548
Location
McKinney, Tx
Okay, I am really going to try and make my planted tank beautiful =o)

I have a 75 gal, 250 watt light with CO2 injection. I have some seachem products (comprehensive, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus) and some red sea flora stuff, but I don't have the directions for any of it, so I don't know how much to dose (the flora stuff, that is)

So I'm thinking about checking out big als for some more test kits (both plant and normal) and I might get some (suggested) supplements for my tank.

I won these plants on aquabid:
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/closed.cgi?view_closed_item&liveplants1147495053

and thus far the ludwigia, the mermaid, the najas grass and the pygmy chain are hardly hanging in there. They also gave me some freebees that are holding up okay, but not great.

I can't give you any water parameters because all my testing kits are practically out.

Any shopping suggestions are welcome and appreciated =o)
 
Liquid test kits for:
Nitrate
Phosphate
ph
kh

Then you should also have on hand:
ammonia
nitrite

That's it....
 
The only other fert that you might want to pick up to supplement the Flourish Line is some Root Tabs. I wouldn't bother messing with the Red Sea fert since you've already got everything you need with the Flourish products.

Lonewolfblue is absolutely correct about the kits that you would want to have. Only thing that I would emphasize is to make sure that you get the liquid kits and NOT the test strips.
 
Should I not worry about CO2 and Iron?

I forgot to mention I have Eco-Complete, I don't know if that would change anything.
 
lyquidphyre said:
Should I not worry about CO2 and Iron?

I'm guessing that you're refering to test kits here. You don't need a CO2 test kit, since the pH and KH test kits will allow you to calculate the CO2 levels. Hobbiest grade Iron test kits aren't accurate for our uses, so they are a waste of money. You'll just need to keep an eye on your plants for iron difficiency to determine if you need to dose more Flourish Comprehensive.

lyquidphyre said:
I forgot to mention I have Eco-Complete, I don't know if that would change anything.

Eco Complete minimizes the need for Root Tabs, but they can still be very beneficial for heavy root feeders like swords or crypts.
 
Here's an easy way to check your CO2 levels - you need to know your pH and KH levels. Plug those numbers into this calculator on Chuck Gadd's webpage. (the rest of the page is great reading too!) Look for the calculator - the white blocks - about halfway down the page.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

As far as I know, none of us test for iron levels. There is no fairly cheap, reliable test for iron. Eco-complete should contain all the iron you need, and the Seachem Comprehensive contains a little bit too. You're running fairly high light, so if you see that the new leaves are turning yellow, that could be an indication that you need to supplement more iron. Iron is a trace element in a planted tank. I use 2 drops twice a week in my 5 gallon tanks.
 
I'll second the iron suppliment. Look into something that has a good amount of iron in its mix, I have found that Flourish Comprehensive is all but useless in higher light tanks. You will be adding WAY to much of it to get even satisfactory iron levels, because it contains so little % wise. Something like CSM+B has 7% iron content (available from Greg watson), but he also sells a liquid iron additive that you can use JUST for iron. I think the latter is your best option as the Flourish comprehensive is good for the other traces, I just found it lacking in iron and my plants were suffering.

justin
 
I've now completely converted to Greg Watsons stuff, and started my new schedule of dosing. I'm using travis' schedule, in hopes to rid the algae. But in his solutions, he uses CSM+B with extra iron and extra magnesium. And if you are really serious about planted tanks, and want a great looking tank, DIY with Greg Watsons is the way to go, whether you use someones dosing schedule and mixtures, or you do the EI, it's totally worth it.
 
Well all I can say is this, don't give up one them. You haven't had them long enough to worry about them not taking of. My first try with Crypts went very bad for a month and now they are growing very well so be patient.
 
Lonewolfblue said:
I've now completely converted to Greg Watsons stuff, and started my new schedule of dosing. I'm using travis' schedule, in hopes to rid the algae. But in his solutions, he uses CSM+B with extra iron and extra magnesium. And if you are really serious about planted tanks, and want a great looking tank, DIY with Greg Watsons is the way to go, whether you use someones dosing schedule and mixtures, or you do the EI, it's totally worth it.

I looked up Greg Watson, and found his webpage, but other than that I am clueless about what you are talking about. Can you break it down for me?
 
He basically sells the ferts we use. You make your own solutions for dosing, rather than buying pre-made solutions like Flourish Nitrogen, Flourish Comp, etc. Here's the ferts I got from Greg Watson:

For my nitrates, I got Potassium Nitrate.
For my phosphates, I got Mono Potassium Phosphate.
For my potassium, I got Potassium Sulfate.
And for my trace, I got CSM+B and Iron Chelate and Magnesium Sulfate.

If you decide to go this route, which is quite a bit cheaper, as the dry ferts make quite a bit of solution, many of us in here will be more than happy to help create the solutions. I basically got some containers from Safeway that hold 2.5L, and I filled them with 1L water each, and then put in the proper amount of the dry ferts and shake til disolved. It's best to use hot water out of the tap for this, especially for the nitrate. I almost didn't get all mine disolved the first go around, and the second time, I used hot water and it all disolved just fine. Also, the only items that you will need to keep in a dry dark cool place is the Iron Chelate, as well as the trace solution you make itself, as light will cause the iron to fall out of the solution.

I hope this kind of gives you an idea of exactly what Greg Watsons is. I was in your shoes a couple months ago, but with the help of all in this forum, got a pretty good handle on it now. So if you are wanting to go this route, just take it 1 step at a time, and we will walk you through. Other products are just as good, but if you have larger planted tanks, or multiple tanks like myself, going the route of Flourish, etc, it was just getting a bit spendy for me. But if you aren't dosing much, then either way is fine.
 
I might just be lucky but all I do is use a product called leaf zone, and some lilly pad fertiliser tabs in my substrate. I fertise every two or three days in very small quantities and fertilise from under the substrate to keep the fertiliser out of the water column - I have an under gravel filter but the stem rises above the water level - I have diverted one of the holes in my spray bay to this so that it replicates ground water seepage to the substrate(Layered - gravel, Vermiculate-Soil,Sand) with highly oxygenated water.

When I set this up it worked brilliantly and I kept waiting for it all to go wrong, I was sure trace chemicals would run short, 16 months later it's still going strong and I've got an awesome glosso lawn. That being said I'm in brisbane Australia and the water here is pretty good, may have something to do with it.
 
Back
Top Bottom