Good all-round plant fertilizer???

[bairwin]

Hello. What is a good all-round plant fertilizer. I have been using "Tropica Plant Nutrition" but was thinking of switching to Seachems "Flourish Excel" because of the cheaper price. Any advice on these or other good fertilizers? Thank you.

[Oscarwild]

A few details of your set up are needed here before any rock solid reccommendations can be made. What are your tank dimensions? How much light do you have? Does it have a co2 rig? What sort of plants do you wish to grow?

I regard Seachem as the best an the market but there are many good brands out there. Give the above details & I can be more specific about the ferts & what the advantages/disadvantages of each one are.

[Jacko]

I've always liked the seachem line but like Oscarwild says, it depends on what plants you're going for and what your set up is...

sometimes it's just cheaper to find a hydroponics store to buy bulk ferts for larger planted tanks...

[bairwin]

Hi. My tank is a 90 gallon (48"l x 18"w x 24"h). I have 2 x 48" double fixture Hagen GLO T5 lamps (2 x (2x 54watts)). I have amazon swords, Ludwigia Broad & Narrow Leaf, Wisteria, Cabomba Purple, Rotala Magenta, Rotala Indica, Wendtii, Green, java fern, lily, and a number of smaller plants. I have CO2 regulator injection and have a Hagen FX5 canister filter. The plants seem to be doing well with the Tropica fertilizer. I'm just wondering if I should stay with this, go with a Seachem product or is something else better out there? Thank you for your reply.

[Lady Hobbs]

Excel is not a fertilizer but a substitute for CO2. Flourish makes good fertilizes. I use Leaf Zone and root tabs.

[Oscarwild]

Seeing as you have co2 already Excel will likely do more harm than good. I use the seachem range myself & get excellent result & it works out cheaper than anything else available to me. You would be better of with Seachem Flourish Comprehensive than Excel. I use the Comprehensive in combination with Seachem Trace & I am very happy with the results I get. My tank is slightly smaller (18inch deep) with 156w light & diy co2. Very heavily planted.
I would imagine you would do well with the Flourish range as well. They also have the individual elements in the range to deal with any deficiencies you may encounter but just the Comprehensive by itself will work ok. The trace is just the nutrients that get used up faster so that you can top them up without getting deficiencies.

[Lady Hobbs]

Good post Oscar.

[Algenco]

Tropica Aquacare, formerly marketed as Tropica "Master Grow"

[MonkeyPox]

You may want to consider dry ferts, as they are much cheaper and you can create your own dosing schedule.

[Anomaly]

You may want to consider dry ferts, as they are much cheaper and you can create your own dosing schedule.

Agreed . . . for that size of tank, dry ferts will be the most cost effective way of properly dosing your tank. However, if you don't want to go the dry ferts route, then I recommend the Seachem line of products also. I would dose at least Flourish, Flourish Potassium, and Flourish Nitrogen.

[rich311k]

No sense using Florish products if you get dry ferts. They will be replaced by the more cost effective dry stuff.

[Anomaly]

Don't think anybody recommended using Seachem products in conjunction with dry ferts.

[rich311k]

You are corect I misread your post. My apologies.

[Anomaly]

That's alright - I was just a bit confused by your post. LOL :22:

[Oscarwild]

Agreed . . . for that size of tank, dry ferts will be the most cost effective way of properly dosing your tank. However, if you don't want to go the dry ferts route, then I recommend the Seachem line of products also. I would dose at least Flourish, Flourish Potassium, and Flourish Nitrogen.


I would generally disagree with adding any other source of nitrogen to a tank. It does benefit some but there should already be plenty of available nitrogen in the form of nitrates in your tank. You only need levels of nitrates at about 2ppm to give plants all the nitrogen they will ever need. There are some high demand plants that require higher nitrogen levels but having a test kit so that you know if you are suffering from a nitrogen deficiency would be mandatory or you may well end up with an algae problem if you were to dose nitrogen when it isn't needed.
Having pottasium lying about is always a good thing because it is one of the most common deficencies that aquarists experience.
If you were to use Flourish Comprehensive in conjunction with Flourish Trace, you should avoid 99% of deficency problems. I always keep flourish potassium & iron on hand as they are the two things that are not in trace & that you may suffer deficiencies in.

That is not to say that Anomaly is incorrect to recommend Flourish Nitrogen. It just depends on your individual set up & plant requirements & great care should be taken to make sure you do not overdose it or you will very likely get an algae problem.

Using substrate tablets could be considered as well for rooted plants, even in conjunction with liquid ferts for plants that are not rooted in the substrate. This can ensure an adequate supply of nutrients to rooted plants without increasing the likely hood of an algae outbreak.

[Anomaly]

Good post! Granted, everyone must experiment with their own dosing regimes. I found dosing Phosphate gave us green fuzz algae, so I stopped dosing and that has disappeared. However, I still continue to dose Nitorogen, Potassium, and Iron, in addition to regular Flourish - don't dose Trace. Considering the OP is injecting CO2, I would think the plants would use up nutrients, including nitrates, quite efficiently. You are correct though, the OP will need to decide what works best.

[Oscarwild]

Good post! Granted, everyone must experiment with their own dosing regimes. I found dosing Phosphate gave us green fuzz algae, so I stopped dosing and that has disappeared. However, I still continue to dose Nitorogen, Potassium, and Iron, in addition to regular Flourish - don't dose Trace. Considering the OP is injecting CO2, I would think the plants would use up nutrients, including nitrates, quite efficiently. You are correct though, the OP will need to decide what works best.


Usually fish food & decaying plant matter will provide more than enough phosphates for any planted tank. To be honest I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to use a phosphate additive. From what I understand there are no test kits that can test for organic phosphate levels from decaying matter so there will always be more phosphate in any tank than the test kits say there are. Nitrogen & phosphate are the only two nutrients that algae need to grow & thrive & excesses of either will give algae blooms every time. Especially under strong lighting. The phosphate is definitley what coused your algae problem. Yes with co2 the plants will use up the nutrients quite rapidly, assuming there is adequate light for the plants to make use of the co2 & nutriens.

Experimentation is is always the key & it is how we all learn & make advances, (and mistakes!). I don't think anyone could disagree with you there Anomaly. Glad you didn't get upset about my post.:ssmile: I find many people very touchy when it comes to nutrients, co2 & lighting.

[Anomaly]

Usually fish food & decaying plant matter will provide more than enough phosphates for any planted tank. To be honest I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to use a phosphate additive. From what I understand there are no test kits that can test for organic phosphate levels from decaying matter so there will always be more phosphate in any tank than the test kits say there are. Nitrogen & phosphate are the only two nutrients that algae need to grow & thrive & excesses of either will give algae blooms every time. Especially under strong lighting. The phosphate is definitley what coused your algae problem. Yes with co2 the plants will use up the nutrients quite rapidly, assuming there is adequate light for the plants to make use of the co2 & nutriens.

Experimentation is is always the key & it is how we all learn & make advances, (and mistakes!). I don't think anyone could disagree with you there Anomaly. Glad you didn't get upset about my post.:ssmile: I find many people very touchy when it comes to nutrients, co2 & lighting.

Couldn't agree more! Yep, I found out that the fish food added quite enough phosphates without me needing to add anymore. I do however find that in my planted tank, nitrogen is needed . . . but that''s the great thing about planted tanks. It takes experimentation to find out exactly what's needed to get your plants thriving. :22:

[rich311k]

I am sorry but I think you need all 3. i have on more than one occasion been plagued by green spot, add phosphourous and it will go away.

You have cyano just about garantee your nitrtaes are 0.

Holes and browning leaves you need potassium and or nitrates.

They all work together.

[Oscarwild]

I am sorry but I think you need all 3. i have on more than one occasion been plagued by green spot, add phosphourous and it will go away.

You have cyano just about garantee your nitrtaes are 0.

Holes and browning leaves you need potassium and or nitrates.

They all work together.


Sounds like a perfect example of different set ups having different requirments. It is pure speculation on my behalf as I don't know the details of the set up you are refering to but I would be thinking that there is something causing phosphate deficiency if you have to add it youself. I also have to say that I have never heard of phosphorus being added to help rid a tank of algae. I'm not saying that you are wrong by any stretch of the imagination. Clearly this is working for you & if it is I would not try to convince you to do anything different to what you are.

As I said, a perfect example of different systems having different requirements.

I do disagree about the bacteria meaning you have no nitrates though. Bacteria convert ammonia into nitrites & then into nitrates. There are always going to be nitrates present in a tank that contains fish. If you have 0 nitrates then theoretically you have no need to do water changes other than to replenish the minerals that your plants require. If you register 0 nitrates all the time in your tank, share the secret, I'd love to know how you have done it.

[Anomaly]

Our 36g never registers nitrates on a test because of the algae that I've let remain in there. It's a non-planted tank, so I don't mind having a bit of algae in there. It gives the true SAE, Rubberlip Pleco, and Dwarf Gourami something to nibble on during the day.

I gaurantee that if I didn't dose nitrogen in our planted 20g long, then all the nitrates would be used up quite efficiently with the DIY CO2 and the speed at which the plants grow in that tank. Being a heavily planted tank with 11 Neons, 1 GBR and some Ottos, it's probably a relatively light bio-load given the amount of plants that are present, which is of course something else to consider. A lightly planted tank with a high bioload will obviously increase the nitrate load and perhaps negate the need for dosing nitrogen.

From the OP's description of his tank, it sounds like it could be quite heavily planted with some fast growing plants, so I would probably still recommend dosing nitrogen in that tank. The key is, as Rich pointed out, to keep an eye out for deificiencies.

Regardless, the OP said his plants seem to be doing well, so there may be no reason at all for him to change what he's doing besides wanting to save costs. LOL

[Oscarwild]

Good post Anomaly. :ssmile: I suspected you might have lots of plants & a light bio-load. If it works for you I certainly won't tell you your wrong to do it in your tank.
I think we have all gotten success, (& failure), through experimenting with different things. As each tank is different experimenting is the key. I would suggest that a diary to keep track of what the OP tries, what works & what doesn't would be a very useful tool indeed. Actually I would suggest a tank diary for every aquarist, even those without a planted tank. Even if it provides no benefit towards improving the health of the tank it is a good way to remember all the fun you have had along the way.