# Do I need to add Fertiliser & CO2 Question



## PeteA (20 Jun 2011)

Hi All,

I've been suggested to come here and ask this question from the PFK forum - hope I've put it in the correct forum!  I've a AquaStart 320T (37 litre) which has a collection of Amazon Sword, Indian Fern and Vallis Corkscrew. I've also got some Java Fern on a bamboo stick and a Moss Ball. Although the plants are doing OK they don't look particularly healthy and the Indian Fern is the only one that seems to be actively growing. The new shoots are nice and healthy, but the rest are browning. The Amazon Sword also has a number of very pale, almost transparent leaves now and the Java Fern looks like the ends of it is starting to brown. A couple of weeks ago I added in a diy CO2 setup which seems to have helped a little, but not much. It did however, have the positive effect of bringing my pH level down to 7.4 from 8.2.

Now having done a bit of reading it does sound like I should be adding some iron in the form of fertilisers into my tank for my plants and have just read the fluff that accompanies the Flourish Excel and am confused if I should continue with my diy CO2 setup and use Flourish Excel, or just use Flourish Excel on it's own or if there is a better way of doing this. I don't want to mess up my pH level now that I've got it nice and stable - despite the fact it's a baby tank, I'm using RO water as my tap water is naff, buffered to KH 6. All of the levels are pretty good (Ammonia & Nitrite is 0 and Nitrate is < 10). I do have some shrimp in the tank so am also consious that I don't want to add anything in that will affect them.

Thanks in advance

pete


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## niru (20 Jun 2011)

Hi Pete

welcome! You have come to the right place; I have myself learned quite a bit here..

Guess you could give complete specifications of your tank, lights, etc etc.. perhaps with a picture or so. That would help everyone around.

I understand from your post that your plants need fertilizers. CO2 would also help. Excel adds mostly liquid form of Carbon, but not other plant "macro" ferts (N, P, K) as such. You need to add them, there are many ways of doing so: buy them (expensive) or do a DIY type mixture (Estimative Index (EI), PMDD, etc etc are names of differing methods to do so). Plus you need to add Iron (Fe) and other "micro" fertilizers as well. Macro & Micro refer to the amounts used/needed by plants to grow well. The Indian fern is a weed and will grow in depleted fert waters.. so no wonder its doing well in your tank  

There is a UKAPS guru (well, there are many  ), but only this guy is called CEG4048 (his avatar), also Clive. He has an excellent tutorial about the need of ferts, CO2, lighting etc. Plus read the other articles. They all mention an increased (or sufficient?) water flow circulation, good fertilization regime, good CO2 and appropriate lighting. Most people here have managed to grow good healthy plants in all sorts of reasonable pH, hardness, kH waters and also fair amount of fish, shrimp populations. 

Good luck and feel free to post specific questions!

cheers
niru


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## Bobtastic (20 Jun 2011)

Hi PeteA! 

Welcome to UKAPS! You're definitely in the right place for all things Aquascaping and Planted tanks! As a general rule light drives plants demands for other nutrients. So if you have a high amount of light (in relation to your volume of water) your plants will have a high demand for Co2 and ferts (macro/micro). Also the same can kind of be said for adding Co2, u will have to add some ferts so that your plants have enough to meet their needs. 

As Niru says there are a few ways you can introduce ferts. There are the off the shelf mixes that are on the market and there are dry salts or mixes made from different recipes of dry salts. 

Tho, all of the above being said, if your lighting is relatively low you'll probably be better off stopping all added forms of carbon and just adding in some low levels of ferts to meet the low demands of the plants. 

I'm sure one of our techy members will be along soon to expand on the above further.


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## George Farmer (20 Jun 2011)

Hi Pete and welcome to UKAPS!

It does sound like your plants need more nutrients.  I believe the Aquastart 320 comes supplied with an 11w PC T5 which is regarded as low lighting for a 28 litre aquarium, but it should be fine to grow your chosen species.

For a small aquarium then dosing an off-the-shelf comprehensive liquid fertiliser will do the job nicely without too much expense. Tropica Plant Nutrition+ and TMC nutraFeed are two good examples.  

To save lots of cash you can but the dry chemicals and mix your own, or even buy a "just add water" dry mix from one of our sponsors i.e. Aquarium Plant Food UK or The Nutrient Company.

DIY CO2 can be very effective if you can obtain a reliable and stable source of CO2.  However, due to the nature of yeast-based systems, this becomes a challenge in most circumstances.  If a pressurised system is too expensive then do consider using a liquid carbon exclusively, instead of the DIY CO2 (unless you can guarantee stable CO2 levels).

Don't overdose liquid carbon as it can be harmful.  On the otherhand, slightly overdosing the other fertilisers is fine and provides less risk of algae than underdosing.

As suggested, take a look at the various UKAPS articles to give you a deeper and broader understanding of how to grow aquarium plants effectively.

All the best,
George


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## PeteA (20 Jun 2011)

Hi,

Firstly, many thanks for the exceptionally warm welcome!

Setup wise, my current tank is a AquaStart 320T - basically it's 12" x 12" x 16" tall (max 37 litres).  It's got a 350 l/h filter with heater that's suitable for tanks up to 50l and (as correctly spotted by George) an 11w PC T5 light.  Couple of pieces of bogwood in it and gravel as a substrate.  I've currently got 7 male guppies, 2 neon tetra's and 2 white cloud mountain minnow, along with 4 cherry shrimps (one pregnant) and 2 amano shrimps.  Tank has been running happily for a couple of months with fish in (and the necessary beforehand to kick the cycle off).

Water wise my levels are relatively good - 0ppm Ammonia, 0ppm Nitrite and around 5ppm Nitrate.  GH is 10 and KH is 6 with a pH that sits at 7.4 - this is after I added the CO2 setup (before it was 8.2).

If I can drop the yeast CO2 system that would be great because it looks flipping awful next to what's other wise a slim line tank - providing it doesn't increase my pH level 

Sounds like I need to investigate the articles here and then work out what to get in order to make my plants healthy again!  With luck I can get them happy again without too many problems.

thanks!

pete
(thinks he's found another forum to frequent


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## foxfish (20 Jun 2011)

Hi Pete, welcome to the forum.
Have a good look at the tutorials you may be very surprised about the water parameters we favour!
Nitrate - I love it LOL


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## PeteA (21 Jun 2011)

Blimey, I'd read that keeping plants was more difficult than fish and whoever wrote that wasn't joking 

Really, really impressed with the quality of information here and once I got over the knee-jerk horror of adding chemicals to the water it doesn't seem too complicated.  I suppose the fact that I'm using RO water simplifies things in that my new water contains pretty much no nutrients at all so I can kick off with a "standard" EI recipe, monitor my levels and adjust if needed.  Currently looking at putting a "Ei Starter Pack" from Aquarium Plant Food UK onto the credit card as it seems to contain the necessary dry elements and bottles to start off.  I'm going to look at getting some liquid carbon too although I'm tempted to stick with the current CO2 yeast bottle until I'm happy with adding in the necessary for the plants (baby steps and all that), I am tempted though to get a CO2 drop checker as it does seem like a pretty essential piece of kit (any suggestions on the most reasonable place to buy?).

I think the only thing that really concerns me is most of the articles seem to mention starting off with a 50% water change before starting to add anything - I presume this is to ensure that the various levels are relativly low.  With only a 10 gallon tank, I've been advised and read in numerous places to keep the water changes to 20% at most in order to ensure the water level stays stable for the fish in there - my current routine is two 10~15% changes per week.

pete.


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