Water conditioners

[brettedwin]

Hey so new to this forum as other ones I've been with I did not enjoy as too opinionated even for other people's general enquiries.

My question for debate is this;
I run three aquariums all differ in size & stock (all freshwater, cold to be specific) all running on gravel. I am going to be adding plants to two of these aquariums at the start of next week when they are delivered from aquarium gardens website.

I currently use sachems prime as my dechlorinator. This isn't going to be perfect for a planted tank as it detoxifies things that the plants will thrive off of.

There's a few products I could obtain like API & Tetra products... Anyone with a planted aquarium wish to chime in on this?

[BBradbury]

Hello bre...

I use Seachem's "Safe" to detox the tap water and my tank plants are thriving. I never use commercial ferts, too many additives for my liking. Don't know how the fish will react to the packaged stuff. I just feed the fish a balanced diet and they feed the plants.

B

[ZxC]

When doing water changes just skip fertilizers for that day, by the next day the prime should be of no concern to binding up nutrients. Many planted tank owners dose all macro and micro nutrients, so even if prime does bind up some, we dose them repeatedly so plants have access.

I use prime with no ill effects on plant growth.

[agrasyuk]

I have plants in all tanks I run, I mainly use Prime without an issue.
tried other brand conditioners when those were given to me, didn't notice any difference. I will use any conditioner that I can get my hands on, when low and need to replenish the only one I will actually spend money on is Prime.

IMO you are good to go

[coralbandit]

Prime [ and other conditioners ] only converts nutrients to safer/less toxic form for 2 days maximum then if filter has not handled it is back like it never left plus whatever the tank generates...

[flitabout]

Same Prime is the best one on the market! I dose my tanks with ferts everyday with pps-pro. Really the only thing I would suggest especially when just using gravel is check what the plants needs are. A lot are root feeders and will need root tabs to get them growing at their best. That said I have also grown plants successfully with gravel and yes an undergravel filter and stock lighting and no fertilizers.
There are really so many ways you can go with plants from high tech to low. And you can be great at it. Your dechlorinator isn't going to have much if any affect on that. Just remember prime detoxifies but does not eliminate ammo nitrite or nitrate.

[brettedwin]

Thanks guys few replies & some info already thought out and some I didn't thinks about. It's low tech tank but plant selection is varied also. Some are getting rooted with root tabs, some are getting tied to ornaments/rocks. I will continue with prime but have also got another side bottle of seachems safe just to test some more theories. I think the fancy goldfish tank could have success of distract them enough & the other tank it at the end of a river tank for my minnows & Borneo's.

[coralbandit]

I use safe on all my tap water tanks.. On my fourth kilo !
It is good stuff. Most add it dry ,but I use it fast enough that I mix up 500ml of water to a concentration that yields 1/2ml to gallon. I have tested safe with a chlorine liquid test kit and it is effective at less then half strength on my chlorine level ..Good stuff !