# Best Combo of Ferts



## relaxedcrazyman (Dec 19, 2013)

Good Morning Everyone,

I have a planted tank with carib tahitian black sand. I am curious what combination of ferts would be best. I am currently dosing Seachem Excel everyday/every other day, i have a root tab for substrate feeders.

Would you recommend using any of the other Seachem ferts?

Thanks!


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## amphirion (Jan 15, 2014)

depends on the complexity of your set up. if you have a low light tank, the photosynthetic process is not going at high speed and so the rate of nutrient uptake will be much lower. for high tech, fertilizers are essential--in most cases, you will need every single offer from the seachem line except for nitrogen. 
i use Fe, P, and K daily, and add in the trace elements every other day.


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## relaxedcrazyman (Dec 19, 2013)

i have a 10g tank with a 15watt t-8 6500k tube for lighting.

i currently dose with excel and a japanese fert that my friend had.

for moderate growth, should i dose it all, or are there a couple main ones i can stick to?

i love my plants and want them to be healthy without having to prune all the time


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## amphirion (Jan 15, 2014)

that's going to be a hard balancing act to achieve, depending on the plants you wish to grow. certain plants are slow growers and so minimum pruning happens, even under optimal conditions, such as anubias petite. general rule of thumb, most stemmed plants have fast growth rates. slower plants will include: anubias sp. and java fern, maybe Alternanthera reineckii 'mini'. if money is no problem, bucephalandras make great plants as well as cryptocorynes. 

P, K, Fe should be done routinely. trace elements such as Mg, B, and Ca can be added once a week.


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## copperarabian (Apr 27, 2011)

I use API products, liquid CO2, liquid fertilizer, and root tabs. Has worked wonderful for my aquarium.

weird, that everyone who's posted this thread is from the SF bay area LOL


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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

I use PPS-Pro ferts it is a daily fert, and use jobes fer sticks as root tabs and metricide 14, it is basically the same thing as excel but a ton cheaper


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## relaxedcrazyman (Dec 19, 2013)

just out of curiosity, if my next tank is an NPT, would i need to dose any ferts? (outside of using co2)


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## shimagoma (May 1, 2013)

My 29 is pretty heavily planted, I dont dose excel because i have co2 but seachem ferts are wonderful and I find more comprehensive than most api versions. But only by a little. If anything I would calculate out what each plant likes and switch to dry ferts because it is more efficient usually. 

As far as dosing or not? If you have co2 and High light (or even medium light) you want to dose ferts. Without ferts and weekly water changes, and especially in a nano you will end up with lots of dust algae, and lots of browning, holes or yellowing plants. The co2 makes the plants gobble up resources a lot faster.


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## relaxedcrazyman (Dec 19, 2013)

would having an NPT decrease the number/amount of ferts i would need?


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## tlatch89 (Apr 26, 2013)

I use a dirt like substrate, with root tabs, excel, and flourish comprehensive.

I do very small doses since i have a low light tank. The plants grow very fast.

You should be fine with sand since you have tabs.


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## peachii (Jan 6, 2013)

relaxedcrazyman said:


> would having an NPT decrease the number/amount of ferts i would need?



In a nutshell, with dirt, yes it would. The dirt does alot of the the feeding and then the waste from the fish/critters also feed them as well. We use Miracle Grow Organic and still dose ferts and excel but it's just because I have a ton of fast growing plants. In a low light setting, so long as your plants don't show stunted growth, yellow leaves or leaves with holes, then you won't need ferts because a lot of low light plants are slow growers.

If you check out http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html and you can see how much cheaper the dry ferts are. I'm sure if you talked with them or used the fert calculator it will tell you what you need to use. I use the PPS PRO option because, lets face it, it's just easier and I don't have to deal with the P, K, HSHFJSDHSDFJS that I would forget what to dose everyday. Since I am full low tech and med light, I do not dose everyday as called for. I dose 2 to 3 times a week. Dosing everyday was a tad to much and I started to see algae, lowering it down was just perfect.

Ferts don't have to be crazy expensive. For 1 ten gallon tank that 30.00 PPS PRO pack or the other dry ferts would pretty much last you forever, esp if you don't dose daily. With very limited funds here because I am unable to have a job because of sickness we have explored a lot of the ways to save money when it comes to maintaining the tanks. The Jobes Plant Sticks from Wal-Mart are 0.99 a pack and work just as good as expensive root tabs, crazy growth and happy plants from them, I break 1 stick into 4 or 5 pieces and then push it into the substrate under the swords, crypts and heavy bushes of plants.

Merticide 14 gallon jugs http://www.ebay.com/itm/CIDEX-METRI...474?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51b8055e0a or http://www.amazon.com/Metrex-Metricide-Gallon-14-Day/dp/B0015TDIOU save you a TON of money from Excel and works just as well, is basically the same thing. We've used it for months now in our tanks and it's great.


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## relaxedcrazyman (Dec 19, 2013)

with the PPS-Pro kit, you would still have to dose co2, or excel, yea?

as well as using fert sticks?

i just want to make sure that i buy all the things i need. the PPS-Pro kit seems like it makes it easy.


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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

The excel you dont need persay, but it helps control algae, and the fert sticks are mostly for swords and plants that re heavy root feeders what you use depends on what plants you have and the finding the balance of light, ferts and water changes


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