What plant food/treatments to use?

[Namar]

Hi,
Next week I will be upgrading my current planted 29g to a 55g so I would also like to get all the plant food and treatment chemicals down to the proper set up while I'm at it.

Currently I use Seachem Neutral Regulator to treat the water and the I use Seachem Equilibrium for plant food. Something about this doesn't seem right as these conditioners are suppose to eliminate metals yet they are required for plant food. My plants have grown like weeds but I can't seem to get my KH, GH and Ph all stablized. GH is usually around 180, KH around 20 - 40 and Ph keeps creeping up to 7.6 - 7.8 range. My goal is to find the best products to complement one another to make my life easier and less testing and tinkering around.

I hear Seachem has a whole new line out that doesn't contradict it self, is there a cheaper simpler way?

thank you

 

[Mebbid]

What is your pH normally at without the additives? Most of the time anything that regulates pH is both useless and pointless. Most fish can adapt quite readily to just about any pH that normal aquariums have. The pH changers don't often last long and your tank will end up right where it originally was.

The best bet for fertilizers to use is a dry fert package that you can buy from Green leaf aquariums. Personally, I use the EI method because it's easier for me to use when compared to pps - pro but they both work very well. They are also really really cheap.

 

[Namar]

My pH likes to hover around 7.6 range. I here neutral atb7 is best but I don't reallybknow for sure and fish/plants seem OK. I mainly just want to get this right the first time as I plant on heavily planting it.

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[Mebbid]

Fish will prefer a pH that matches the one that they normally reside in. This being said almost all aquarium fish adapt perfectly fine to a very wide range of pH levels. 7.6 is within that range of being okay and I really wouldn't worry about it unless your pH is above 8.4 or so.

 

[Fishfur]

The most important thing to concern yourself about, as Mebbid said, is keeping pH stable. Stabliity in water conditions is far more likely to keep fish happy than trying to artificially make water keep one value or another.

Bear in mind, the pH scale is exponential, meaning each reading is 10x higher or lower than the next one above or below. So even one point is actually a big difference. Thus, keeping it as close to one reading as you can is both easier and best for most fish.. and that's usually the one your tap water has already, unless it's extremely hard or alkaline, or extremely soft and acidic.

If you want to keep fish or plants that have very specific needs, say for very soft or acidic water, unless your tap water is already that way, the usual method is buy RO or DI water and use special additives to get it to the readings required. That has to be done to every drop of water used for water changes too. Or install an RO filter, if you can, it's cheaper in the long run and what many salt water keepers do.

But most tap water is ok for most fish, fish being pretty adaptable creatures for the most part. Do some research to learn what the fish and plants you want to have like best, and don't get any that have extreme requirements unless you can do what's needed to meet those requirements.

 

[Namar]

Thanks for the responses. I just picked up a 55g and can't wait to get it going tomorrow. He had a few large tanks and so I picked his brain a bit about plant foods and all he does is use Seachem Prime for conditioner and Seachem Flourish for plant food. He also recommends getting a CO2 injector if going with a heavily planted tank such as what I'm thinking.

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