Fertilizing high-light 10 gal

[imtheriot]

My 10 gal has 3wpg and a very low bioload. I only have 1 fish and I am really doing this for shrimp.

My pogostemon is pale - it started with the new leaves first. It is the most noticeable but also my marsilea crenata has stopped growing as fast and is semi-pale.

Thing is - the first week and a half I had my new plants they were growing amazing! bright green and new shoots. Since my nitrates dropped to 5ppm the growth has slowed.


What fertilizers should I consider? I am using Seachem Flourish for micronutrients, but I am also considering some macros.

Last question - will dosing hurt my shrimps?

 

[DragonFish71]

In our 10g shrimp tank, the only things I use are Seachem Excel and root pellets. It's a RCS tank, so I'm careful about anything that goes in for copper content. I have 2 of the spiral CF bulbs that are 6500k and the equivalent of 40 watts. My tank is obviously not a high tech tank, and the plants are run of the mill: swords, crypts, java moss and fern, some other kind of moss that came in the bag with the shrimp, ludwigia repens, rotala indica and some vals. But, I still have to trim every two weeks or it turns into a jungle. Maybe the plants you have would benefit from root pellets or even the Excel? I quit using the Flourish because it caused major algae issues.

 

[imtheriot]

I am wondering if the Seachem Nitrogen and Seachem Potassium would be good for my tank?

 

[Purrbox]

Most report that 3wpg over a 10 gallon aquarium is not high light. You probably won't need to do much dosing. I'd recommend starting with Potassium and going from there. Testing your current Nitrate and Phosphate levels would be helpful to see whether those are bottoming out.

 

[imtheriot]

Nitrate is ~5ppm and I do not have a phosphate test. I will get the potassium. It was the deficiency that matched to closest to the descriptions I read.

 

[Purrbox]

What test kit are you using to test the Nitrate? Most aren't accurate enough under 20ppm to be trusted unless you have calibrated the test kit.

 

[imtheriot]

API.

 

[Purrbox]

With that kit, don't trust the results under 20ppm unless you take the time to calibrate the test kit. To calibrate the test kit you have to test against several reference solutions and record the differences. This allows you to account for any variance. The actual results could be anywhere from 0ppm to 20ppm.

When looking to buy a Phosphate Test Kit, I'd recommend purchasing the Red Sea kit. It is nearly as accurate as professional grade kits and comes with a reference solution.