Fertiliser dosing

[ComicClown87]

Hi all, iv had my tank going a few weeks and all is well. It's pretty heavily planted, well lit and co2 injected.
Which fertiliser would you say is a good all in one solution? I have flourish and the co2 system came with some ferropol.
I was hoping to be able to just hook something up to my auto dosing system that I used to run on my marine tank (makes it easy, stable and most importantly won't forget lol). So this can dose multiple times a day or anything upto weekly.
So what's a good all round fertiliser people?
Cheers

 

[Retired Viking]

I use Seachem Flourish Comprehensive and it seems to do the job. I have mostly ferns and sword plants and some fast growing plants like anacharis and salvinia floating. I dose once a week the day after water change.

 

[Metalhead88]

The seachem flourish comprehensive is a great liquid fertilizer.

Some plants like amazon swords will feed mostly from the roots and may need root tabs. Seachem's root tabs are also great.

 

[Retired Viking]

The seachem flourish comprehensive is a great liquid fertilizer.

Some plants like amazon swords will feed mostly from the roots and may need root tabs. Seachem's root tabs are also great.

I also use seachem's root tabs for my rooted plants.

 

[Byron]

The Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium is indeed one of the best such additives--but it is not intended for high-tech systems with brighter light and diffused CO2. For one thing, there are no where near sufficient macro nutrients. And it would require daily dosing (the instructions to use once a week with maybe a second dose if needed is again geared to natural or low-tech systems that need no more than this). And it would be very expensive, which may or may not matter but since it is not the best additive here it really is not worth the cost. Seachem also make macros in this line, and while those might benefit (never had a high-tech planted tank) they too will add up in cost.

The high-tech members (if we have any, most of us seem to be fish people with low-tech planted tanks) will likely have better advice.

 

[ComicClown87]

The Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium is indeed one of the best such additives--but it is not intended for high-tech systems with brighter light and diffused CO2. For one thing, there are no where near sufficient macro nutrients. And it would require daily dosing (the instructions to use once a week with maybe a second dose if needed is again geared to natural or low-tech systems that need no more than this). And it would be very expensive, which may or may not matter but since it is not the best additive here it really is not worth the cost. Seachem also make macros in this line, and while those might benefit (never had a high-tech planted tank) they too will add up in cost.

The high-tech members (if we have any, most of us seem to be fish people with low-tech planted tanks) will likely have better advice.

Ahh thanks for the explanation. So I need to find a suppliment that is complete and able to be dosed daily really.
If anyone does this I'd like to know their product.
I did look at the nutrients company as they are local to me.
I will add that il have a decent amount of fish though so I think nitrate and phosphate will be taken care of.
Cheers

 

[ComicClown87]

Just had a read up and decided on EI dosing so picked up a kit of powders mixes that I can put through the auto doser.

 

[utahfish]

Just had a read up and decided on EI dosing so picked up a kit of powders mixes that I can put through the auto doser.

I do EI dosing but i dont use CO2. I have a C02 tank but it ran out of CO2 and i didnt refill it and my plants are doing great, ive found CO2 is only useful when trying to grow really hard to grow plants with red in them and when one has really high light.
Tomm barr who is the founder of the EI has stated that the two nutrients the greatest effect on algae growth are ammonia and CO2. Inconsistent CO2 or too much CO2. Its nice that you have your CO2 on a automatic doser so good luck. As long as the powders you bought provide the needed macros and micros then the plants should be ok. Id be wary of an automatic doser the automatic doser isnt going to measure whats being used and how much. All tanks require different volumes of nutrients depending on plant load and what and how fast those certain plants consume nutrients. Some plants are heavy calcium feeders, other heavy nitrogen feeders. Other rooted plants like swords and crypts wont benefit as much from powders as they are heavy root feeders which would require root tabs for majority of nutrient absorption. All the CO2 in the world wont grow plants if the plants other 17 nutritional needs arent met in a way the plants eat them. Im going to assume that you understand that with EI the school of thought is over loading the plants with excess nutrients so that none are ever deficient thus ensuring the plants always have sufficient nutrients which is great for plants and debatable the effect those excess nutrients have on fish. Good luck though have fun with it!

 

[ComicClown87]

Yeah I get the idea of EI dosing but have started at just 50% of the dose and just doing it by hand to start instead of the auto doser. If this plan works il hook it up and forget about it. I have very high lighting available from a radion led which is only running at 40% and don't think the tank could take much more yet. Be interested to know if anyone else uses this type of light and what intensity you run at? I'm not really sure what type of par we should be aiming for with plants and this light is capable of very high numbers so need to be carefull.
Also another think iv noticed is my dkh was very low at 0.4-0.5 dkh. Iv since buffered it upto 3dkh with some alk powders I used on the reef tank, hopefully keeping the ph more stable.