60 G Planted tank questions on ferts

[ejaramillo01]

I have a 60 G tank, fully cycled with several fish, tetras, angels, Rainbows and Cory cats mainly.
I started to add natural plants, I have anubias, some Vals, amazon swords and Anacharis.
I have 2 lights Kessil A160WE sun tan, on it with 6 hours of light per day.
No CO2.

My questions are:

What liquid fertilizer do you recommend ? How often?
What about fert tabs?

 

[myo]

Something that has both macro and micro nutrients. I think Thrive in America is recommended but we don’t get that here in Australia, so depends where you are.

What substrate are you using?

 

[ejaramillo01]

Something that has both macro and micro nutrients. I think Thrive in America is recommended but we don’t get that here in Australia, so depends where you are.

What substrate are you using?

Thanks
I’m using regular sand, nothing special. I live in the USA

 

[myo]

You might want to look into root tabs then. Personally can’t comment as I’m using Amazonia and that seems to be fine for what I need [emoji23]

 

[Barliman]

For liquid fertilizer, I use Easy Green by Aquarium Co-Op. Very economical, and it's worked great with my plants. I'd recommend getting some root tabs for those swords, too.

 

[DTWGulo]

Greenleaf Aquariums is where I get my dry ferts and mix them up myself. Great, easy - to - follow instructions and recipes for tanks.

I will second the recommendation for Fert tabs for the substrate for swords, crypts, and well-rooted stem plants. You can buy expensive ones like Flourish Tabs or make your own from gelcaps and fertilizer granules like Osmocote Plus.

If you're not keen on ordering online for fertilizers, most stores will carry Seachem products. Using Flourish, Trace, and Excel in combination can create good results. Just be -careful- with the Excel, especially if you have shrimp and scaleless fish (loaches).

Edit: As far as frequency, I'd start at 2-3 times per week, if you do infrequent water changes. if you do big changes weekly, you can go with daily fertilizing on a sort of "EI Basis". Go read up on Estimative Index and PPS-Pro fertilizer strategies. Tomm Barr's sites have more on ferts and tanks than I think most chem professors bother with. It'll blow you away.

 

[Fresh2o]

Also used GLA dry ferts with great success (PPS-Pro method). Very inexpensive and effective water column fertilizers.