Adjusting water parameters for my planted tank

[Biglog]

My plants have been growing pretty slowly and not looking healthy and the water parameters are not ideal for my stocking so I've decided to spend some time trying to nail down my water parameters. My current parameters with the liquid test kits are GH of 30 ppm, KH 40 ppm, pH 7, and 0 for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate with my tap water being almost identical. I am trying to target a pH of 7-7.4, GH around 150 ppm, and KH around 80 ppm. To try to get a little more insight on the chemistry I ran some ion chromatography on my tap water and tank water and am getting 12 ppm Na, 1.9 ppm K, 1.4 ppm Mg, 18 ppm Ca, 0.6 ppm F, 22.4 ppm Cl, and 17.6 ppm SO4. My tap water is nearly identical plus trace amounts of NO3 and PO4 that I guess my plants are using up. The only thing I am currently adding is Tetra AquaSafe+ with water changes, Flourish Excel daily, and Flourish once a week. Any recommendations for what I should be adding to get the ideal parameters and healthy plants?

 

[Uberhoust]

Don't really know how to help but curious do you have access to a chromatograph? It would be a fun instrument to have.

 

[connorlindeman]

Finding stock that is suitable to your parameters is much better and healthier for the fish than editing your current parameters.
Just something to keep in thought.

 

[jaylach]

I would use Flourish Comprehensive instead of Excel as Excel also contains CO2. If you are looking for the iron in Excel you may want to try Flourish Iron instead.

 

[Aqua67]

If I were you I would look up ideal parameters for each type of plant I was keeping and make a chart. List the plants each on their own line and then for each parameter, list the ideal values going across. Then look down the column for each parameter to see where the overlap is, and then adjust the water accordingly. That is what I do to ensure ideal parameters for my fish in each of my tanks. Usually if the water is good for the fish you are probably within the ideal range for the low tech plants. If you are out of range on any of the parameters, let us know and I’m sure some of the smart folks on this forum can suggest how to make adjustments.

Brightwell makes two separate products for raising KH and GH. If you want to raise both GH and KH together, you could try Shrimp Mineral GH/KH+ made by GlasGarten. I have all of these products and use them as needed.

 

[Essjay]

Are there fish in this tank? Don't forget you need to match their parameters as well.

 

[Byron]

Aquarium plants are not fussy over parameters, and they will grow equally well. You may need to add comprehensive fertillzder, as liquid or as substrate tabs, or both. But the fish are impacted by especially GH, and then pH.

Your GH is 30ppm [= 1.6 dH], KH is 40[= 2.2 dKH] and the pH is 7. As the biological system establishes, I would expect the pH to lower. This is not a problem, provided you have fish suited to these values, GH especially. What fish species are intended?

Any fertilizer used when there are fish present should be one of the comprehensive supplements. You are in NA, so Seachem's Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium is one liquid, and Brightwell Aquatics' FlorinMulti is another similar product. For substrate plants, the Flourish Tabs are ideal. These contain all that is needed, combined with fish and water changes.

The nutrients in these products are in balanace with each other, and this is very important. An excess of some nutrients can cause plants to shut down assimilation of other nutrients. Not to mention the effect they can have on fish. You will not need to add iron or Excel or whatever in addition to the afore-mentioned comprehensive nutrients.