Fert question

[Gillie]

I am starting a planted tank and was wondering what brand of fertilizer has the best and most balanced mix

 

[Jchillin]

That's mostly an open ended question Gillie, what kind/types of ferts are you looking for...Macros, Micros, etc?

 

[Gillie]

I am looking for the right kind of fertilizer for a tank with a sand substrate without laterite or any other substrate additives. Sorry if the question is open ended this is my first attempt at anything besides Java Fern or Moss. If it helps I would like to grow the following: Amazon sword, Horemanii swords, Star grass, Alternanthera, Cabomba, and a couple Compacta swords, Dwarf Sag.

 

[Purrbox]

For a smaller tank you might want to go with the Flourish line of ferts:
Flourish (Comprehensive) - Micro Ferts
Flourish Nitrogen - Nitrate
Flourish Phosphorus - Phosphate
Flourish Potassium - Potassium

For a larger tank your best bet is to go with dry ferts:
CSM+B - Micro Ferts
KNO3 - Nitrate and some Potassium
KH2PO4 - Phosphate
K2SO4 or KCl - Potassium

Another good micro fert is Tropica Plant Nutrition.

For lower light tanks with a good sized fish population, you may not need anything more than a micro fert and Potassium. If you don't have many fish and/or are getting into the higher light levels then you need to look at Nitrate and Phosphate as well.

 

[Gillie]

I will definately look into these choices this week, Thank you.

 

[Gillie]

Okay I did some poking around and found thishttp://www.aquariumplants.com/product_p/fe834.htm

 

[Hoovercat]

This is more of what we meant http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/store/aquaticplantfood.php

 

[Gillie]

Were you referring to the PMDD pre-mix? There was an awful lot of products on that link.

 

[Purrbox]

Not the pre mix. You'll want the four ferts I listed earlier.

 

[Gillie]

The lighting is lower about 1 wpg and the tank is 55 gal with an established fish population, so I presume I will only need the micro fert and potassium. Am I correct, or have I misunderstood you?

 

[Purrbox]

As long as you have a heavy enough fish population to keep up with the plant demands for nutrients, that would be correct.

You may want to pick the other two up to have on hand just in case you decide to start a high light tank later or find that your fish population isn't sufficient for the plant needs. Reason being that the bulk of the cost for dry ferts is the shipping, so it's more economical to get everything you might need all at once.

 

[Gillie]

Okay thanks for the advice, I will most likely be changing over to high light soon, so I will pick up the four. What is a normal wpg for a high light tank?

 

[Purrbox]

On a tank your size, most people would consider 3-4 WPG to be high light. A bit less if you're using more efficient lights like Compact Fluorescents or T5's.

 

[PrettyFishies]

When using dry ferts, do you need to dechlorinate the water first?

What about the fact that my tap water is PH 8 and KH 3?

 

[Purrbox]

All depends on how you dose the ferts.

Since I have a small tank, I mix up a solution for each fert and dose it that way. I've never bothered to dechlorinate the solution. I figure that there's such a small amount of chloramine in each dose and I overdose my dechlor during water changes, so I figure I'm covered. Some use distilled or RO water instead of tap water so that they don't have to worry about dechlor and know exactly what is in the solution.

Some people dose the dry ferts directly in the tank without predisolving them in anything, while others scoop out some tank water to predisolve them. In both of these situation you don't need to worry about the contents of your tap water.