Fertilizer Questions

[shadowhywind]

Hay all, I just finished replanting my tank, and I am thinking that I need to add more fertilizer then the API stuff that I'm adding now. I read Jamesc's Estimated Index and have a few questions.

According to our LFS, our water is lower in iron, so I have been adding Flourish Iron about every 2 weeks. If I switched to the EI version, would I only need to add the Potassium Nitrate,Potassium Phosphate (monobasic), and Trace mix? If needed when would I add the iron to tank.
Also would those three cover everything, or is there something else that I would have to add as well?

Reason why I was thinking about switching to the Estimated Index was I'm worried about my corkscrew vals melting and dying.. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[RadaR]

Hay all, I just finished replanting my tank, and I am thinking that I need to add more fertilizer then the API stuff that I'm adding now. I read Jamesc's Estimated Index and have a few questions.

According to our LFS, our water is lower in iron, so I have been adding Flourish Iron about every 2 weeks. If I switched to the EI version, would I only need to add the Potassium Nitrate,Potassium Phosphate (monobasic), and Trace mix?

Yes. That's it. If you lived in a very soft water area then you might have to add a little GH booster (still in powde form) but that's only if the reading is very, very low.
Iron is a trace element (a micro nutrient) and isnt needed anywhere near as much as macro nutrients (NPK).

 

[shadowhywind]

Thanks for the reply, and yah our water is not 'soft' at all.. As for the iron, would I stop adding the liquid iron since it would be in the trace mix? or would I continue to add the iron with the tracemix?

 

[RadaR]

Well you wouldnt need to dose it. You could try flogging it.
If you want to get your moneys worth than you can still use it in conjunction with the trace mix. Excess amounts DO NOT cause hair algae, unlike what the various myths say.

 

[pauld]

Well you wouldnt need to dose it. You could try flogging it.
If you want to get your moneys worth than you can still use it in conjunction with the trace mix. Excess amounts DO NOT cause hair algae, unlike what the various myths say.

just add the macros and trace it will be fine if your worrying about iron by a high iron trace mix they are available .