Which liquid fertilizer?

[fishiee]

Recently, I ordered live plants for my 10 gallon so I could silent cycle my tank. I got 2 ludwigia repens, 2 water wisterias, 2 brazilian pennyworts, 2 moneyworts, 2 water sprites, 2 hornworts, 2 amazon swords, 1 anubias, and 1 java fern. I was looking through forums and doing my research and saw that I needed liquid fertilizer. Which liquid fertilizer would be recommended for these plants?

 

[FallenPepper]

What size tank and what fish are in it? I find fertz are only useful for tanks that dont have many fish or high ammonia producers.

 

[FallenPepper]

Watch out for phosphates though if you have plecos and choose to use one

 

[fishiee]

What size tank and what fish are in it? I find fertz are only useful for tanks that dont have many fish or high ammonia producers.

It's a 10 gallon and has no fish in it as of right now. I'm planning on getting a dwarf gourami, 5 or 6 harlequin rasboras, a mystery snail, and maybe a shrimp.

 

[Crispii]

I usually use Tropica liquid fertilizer, but any all-in-one fertilizer would do fine.

 

[FallenPepper]

Lol your plants are going to out grow that so quick especially hornwart and water Sprite, but is a good thing for what your planning on stocking ot with though if your going all in on shrimp

 

[fishiee]

I usually use Tropica liquid fertilizer, but any all-in-one fertilizer would do fine.

Where can I buy it?

 

[Byron]

For the plants, you will likely need a liquid fertilizer because you have so many, some of which are fast growers (stem plants and floaters especially, and amazon swords) and the fish suited to a 10g will not provide anywhere near sufficient nutrients.

A comprehensive or complete supplement is what you want. Plants require 17 nutrients, some of which occur naturally in the aquarium, most come in fish food once it is through the fish and being broken down in the substrate, so you are really supplementing these to ensure everything is available. Sort of like taking multiple vitamins/minerals once a day, supplementing the vitamins/minerals in the food we eat.

Seachem's Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium is an excellent product for this situation. Another basically identical is Brightwell Aquatics' FlorinMulti. If you decide on either, make sure you get exactly what I've named, because both manufacturers produce several very different products. [There is a UK product that seems to be near identical, but I can't for the life of me remember the name, it is three letters I recall. There are probably others similar.] You use very little of these, so a small bottle will last you months.

I do have a caution or two on the intended fish. Dwarf Gourami is a risk for iridovirus unless you get them direct from a reliable breeder, and these are not likely to be sold through stores. The Honey Gourami is similar, but a 10g really is not sufficient space for these. The pygmy sparkling gourami would be better, with reservations. The Harlequin Rasbora is also a bit large for this small a tank, and being a shoaling species it must have a group. There are some beautiful dwarf rasboras in the Boraras genus. A 10g is small space, and with all these plants...but these beauties would sparkle.

That raises the question of water parameters. What is the GH (generalhardness) of your source (tap) water? And the pH? Most of the fish suited to small tanks will be wild caught and preferences for soft or hard water important.

 

[Colin_T]

I used Sera Florena, which is an iron based liquid aquarium plant fertiliser.
Get an Iron (Fe) test kit to monitor the iron levels and keep it at 1ppm.

 

[Crispii]

Where can I buy it?

Amazon

 

[Byron]

If you acquire one of the comprehensive supplements, there is more than enough iron in them. Iron is a heavy metal, and thus highly toxic to all life forms. While we all need some iron, too much is deadly. It is one of the micro-nutrients for aquatic plants.

Plants take up iron, and can store it. If you start adding iron to create 1 ppm, you are undoubtedly overdosing the iron because the test can only measure what is in the water, not in the plants. I killed off the floating plants in one tank by using more iron than needed.

The whole point of a comprehensive supplement is that the nutrients are in a proportion to each other, according to the needs of aquatic plants as determined by scientific studies. The products I mentioned previously have this proportion so you cannot overdose any one of them.

 

[utahfish]

If you acquire one of the comprehensive supplements, there is more than enough iron in them. Iron is a heavy metal, and thus highly toxic to all life forms. While we all need some iron, too much is deadly. It is one of the micro-nutrients for aquatic plants.

Plants take up iron, and can store it. If you start adding iron to create 1 ppm, you are undoubtedly overdosing the iron because the test can only measure what is in the water, not in the plants. I killed off the floating plants in one tank by using more iron than needed.

The whole point of a comprehensive supplement is that the nutrients are in a proportion to each other, according to the needs of aquatic plants as determined by scientific studies. The products I mentioned previously have this proportion so you cannot overdose any one of them.

Yup and there also different types of iron
EDTA wont be absorbed at ph above about 6.5. Where as DTPA will be ok with higher PH and then there is iron gluconate which is " easier" for plants to utilize but if they have too much like Byron says it will just accumulate in the water and cause problems. Signs ofviron deficiency are yellowing of new leaves or white leaves " chlorosis" i keep iron gluconate just in case my plants show a deficiency but like Byron says most comprehensive ferts have enough iron in them. Flourish comprehensive uses iron gluconate. Easy green from aquarium co op uses EDTA which be uselss if your PH is above 6.5.