Do Plants Need Fertilisers

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Aquatic plants in the aquarium need nutrients, but this may or may not mean specific fertilizers. The fish load, plant species and numbers, GH of the source water and the light intensity all factor in.

Fish obviously do not need the plant fertilizer (if they are used), and they can be impacted. It is best to use them minimally, i.e., no more than what is absolutely needed for the plants.
 
Aquatic plants in the aquarium need nutrients, but this may or may not mean specific fertilizers. The fish load, plant species and numbers, GH of the source water and the light intensity all factor in.

Fish obviously do not need the plant fertilizer (if they are used), and they can be impacted. It is best to use them minimally, i.e., no more than what is absolutely needed for the plants.
i forget to put fertilisers every week... i frogot this week...
they dont need fertilisers unless bioload or chemichals are lacking
 
see im maybe going down the organic route but not keen when fish are involved in same tank
now to find plants that are easy to grow and dont need fertilisers
 
see im maybe going down the organic route but not keen when fish are involved in same tank
now to find plants that are easy to grow and dont need fertilisers
anubias, elodea, duckweed, water lettuce, red root floater,(all floaters)
i've heard java fern was easy to grow but i never succeeded i have a pup of it though
all common mosses(some may require special stuff like flow)

bacopa, ludwigia, hornwort, cabomba, all types of sword plant (echinodorus) bulb plants.

basically almost any plant ... only if you want super good growth or bright colors will you need a special fertiliser and CO2
other than that i feel a good light and fishpooop is good
 
Other than CO2 water and light, All plants need the following nutrients to grow:
Nitrogen, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, phosphate, sulfur, chlorine (very smount in the form of a safe chloride salt), iron, Manganese, Boron, Zinc, Copper, molybdenum, and Nickel.

If just one of any of thos eis missing plants will not grow and eventually will die. Even easy plants light duckweed and mosses can be killed by alack of nutrients. Also Animals also need these same nutrients. But they get them mainly from their food. So if you have enough fish the waist from the fish may be enough to fertilize your plants. Other than fish waist plants can also extract nutrients in the water or in the substrate.

So if you use RO water with an inert substrate with no nutrient in it with few or no fish plants will not grow in the tank. In that case you have to use a fertilizer.
 
As someone who makes their own plant ferts an uses CO2 injection.... I agree with the rest. Mostly not needed if you want to keep it simple.

Pick some easy growing plants and assuming you don't have weird tap water that is missing a trace element then just the fish waste and weekly water change will work great a lot of the time. If something is missing you will be able to tell and can address it then.

I would say that some decent quality root tabs in the substrate around plants that are heavy root feeders are almost always worth it though. They generally wont leech anything into the water column and will help a lot of plants.
 
Was thinking of the tablets alright any particular ones
I almost always use an active substrate so don't have any personal experience. TNC plugs are supposed to be pretty good though and I think the Seachem ones are also recommended a lot.
 

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