Fertiliser/carbon - Dangers For Fish?

[schmee]

Hi

I'm considering using plant fertiliser of some sort or flourish excel as i don't feed my plants at all and i don't think they're growing as well as they should. Some of the leaves are also curling which i think is a sign of deficiency.

The plants in question are admittedly low maintenance (java ferns, java moss, anubias bateri, nana, golden & congensis) but with my low light they are all i really can grow. i'm also hoping to grow some vallisneria spiralis in my new tank, providing i can get the bulb out to change it. So, my question is: what is reccommended? Fertiliser or carbon? i'm not sure about adding chemicals to my tank. i have African Dwarf Frogs, amano shrimp, pygmy corys, a pond snail and at the mo a betta. Can they be harmful to any of these? i noticed the flourish has copper sulphate, forgive me for my chemistry not being up to scratch but i remember copper being a no-no for ADFs, does this apply for copper sulphate?

The other question is, my new tank i want to plant heavily. i'm hoping to change the bulb as i said so that i can grow a wider variety of plants, ones which actually require planting in substrate. For this, what substrate is best? i was going to use gravel but would a sort of soil/compost under the gravel help? i need something fairly fool proof, i was looking at soil substrates before and it seems very complex. Any chance of explaining it to me?

 

[SuperColey1]

You need to remove the fear of fertilisers and their contents. Anything in life is good for you at certain levels yet bad for you at high levels even if it is just gaining weight due to the wrong foods etc.

Asme for plants and fish.

Copper is toxic at a certain level, same deal for all elements, however without the element then life dies anyway. Fish food will contain copper too. Its a trace element and vital in certain quantities for all life.

The amount in any reputable fertiliser made for a fish tank will be safe for the life within the tank no matter what form it is in.

So don't worry about copper toxicity. about .46ppm is the LD50 for shrimp (LD50 = Lethal dose where 50% deaths occur)

Most off the shelf trace fertilisers will add in the region of .01ppm or less to the water column. Most dry trace users will be adding 0.1ppm or so. Some will even double dose their trace and therefore add 0.2ppm or so.

Forget the % stated in the ingredients. Once you take that 8%, then work out how much of that provides the ppm in the fertiliser, then dilute that to the tank volume of water and then allow for uptake by plants and life. You get my drift:

Amount of Copper in fertilisers

What wattage light and type of tube is it, what tank volume is it? These can answer a few questions, however with your setup with a few plants and that amount of livestock you shouldn't need any fertilisers. For the plants to be curling up suggests something other than ferts.

As for a method detailing substrates:
http/www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/2817-Non-CO2-methods

AC