Fertz

[Fishfinder1973]

They are not necessary.
All living things from mice to elephants,humans to dogs,they all need macronutrients and trace elements.Where do they come from? Food.Fish food,like our food contain the macronutrients and trace elements needed for healthy living,meaning fish food IS fertilisation.
The correct feeding routine,water change routine and filtration system is enough to keep both the fish and plants healthy.

 

[StevenF]

Yes fish food ideally has all the nutrients plants need to grow.But fish waist often has too much nitrogen and sometimes not enough iron and calcium and magnesium. It is possible to to grow healthy plants with just fish you are probably going to need a lot of fish to do it. possibly making it hard to maintain good ammonia , nitrite and nitrate level. For smaller tanks it is more difficult.

Also what fish can't get from food they can get from the water. in places with very soft water or in tanks filled with RO water it can be very hard to get any growth even with well regarded aquarium fertilizers. When I set up my small aquarium i initially thought fish waist was enough. And since my tap water tests terrible I used RO water. Plants just died. I switch to fertilizers which did help but plant growth was a still not good. I eventually learned that fertilizers assume your water is going to supply some of the nutrients plants need. I wasn't able to get good growth until I made a fertilizer with the assumption that my water had no nutrients in it. That worked.

 

[Sunnyspots]

Yes fish food ideally has all the nutrients plants need to grow.But fish waist often has too much nitrogen and sometimes not enough iron and calcium and magnesium. It is possible to to grow healthy plants with just fish you are probably going to need a lot of fish to do it. possibly making it hard to maintain good ammonia , nitrite and nitrate level. For smaller tanks it is more difficult.

Also what fish can't get from food they can get from the water. in places with very soft water or in tanks filled with RO water it can be very hard to get any growth even with well regarded aquarium fertilizers. When I set up my small aquarium i initially thought fish waist was enough. And since my tap water tests terrible I used RO water. Plants just died. I switch to fertilizers which did help but plant growth was a still not good. I eventually learned that fertilizers assume your water is going to supply some of the nutrients plants need. I wasn't able to get good growth until I made a fertilizer with the assumption that my water had no nutrients in it. That worked.

Would you share your recipe?

 

[StevenF]

well it is not one recipe. but for starters plants need macro nutrients and micronutrients.

The macros are Nitrogen (N), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Pnosphorous (P), Sulfur (S), Chlorine )Cl)

Many people today mix potassium nitrate KNO3 and potassium phosphate KH2PO4 to supply the NPK nutrients. Seachem sell individual bottles for N,P, K which you can buy and then you can buy a GH booster to supply the Ca and magnesium needed. So for the macro nutrients you can by premixed bottles. i initially did that but then later made my own. You does the GH booster to match the needs of your fish. I typically aim for 1ppm nitrate and 1 PPM phosphate. Key thing ithat you want just enough so that the plant will never run out of . So you don't want zero nitrate, potassium, phosphate, calcium, or magnesium,

Next you need a micro nutrients:
Themicro nutrients are Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Boron (B), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), Nickel (Ni).

for my first micro recipe I used:
Fe DTPA at a dose of 0.1ppm
MnSO4 (manganese sulfate) dose of 0.05ppm
H3BO3 (boric acid) dose of 0.02ppm
ZnSO4 (zinc sulfate) dose of 0.02ppm
CuSO4 (copper sulfate) dose of 0.01ppm
Na2MoO4 (sodium molybdate dose of 0.005ppm
NiSO4 (nickel sulate) dose of 0.005ppm

Note 1ppm is one milligram per litter. So the weight of each needs to be calculated based on how many liters of water is in your tank. I don't like doing math so I used Rotalabutterfly.com a aquarium fertilizer calculator and a cheep milligram scale I purchased on Amazon.ocm.. I entered the tank size, and then selected the DIY, and then selected the compound. I then selected liquid solution and entered the volume of water for example 100ml. with a dose size of 1ml. I then selected Dose to reach a target and entered the dose listed above.

Aftercalculating for each nutrient I measured out each nutrient and filled a bottle of with distilled water and 2ml of distilled Vinegar. The vinegar helps everything to dissolve and prevents the iron nutrient of oxidizing. And added all the nutrients and mixed. It might take an hour or two fore everything to dissolve. The resulting fertilizer should have an amber color.

For my 5 gallon shrimp tank one 1ml dose once a week was enough. I also do a 50% water change once a week. So after my water change I dose the needed amount of GH booster, add my macro nutrients, and then add the micro nutrients. the micro fertilizer has enoughsulfure and my CH booster has calcium chloride This worked well for over a year before I started having a problem.

I eventually found that the Sodium Molybdate was reacting with my other micros which apparently made Molybdenum unavalble to the plants. I solved that by mixing the sodium molybdate with my nitrate, phosphate bottle and removing the Molybdenum from the micro recipe. I would like to mix everything in one bottle but the calcium in the GH booster just doesn't dissolve when mixed with potassium or phosphate. I also don't want to mix the nitrate with the micro because that would make mold problem. by keeping the macros separate from the micros I Prevent mold.

Youcan find many of the ingredient on amazon.com. I purchased Fe DTPA and sodium molybdate from amazon but the smallest size I could get for each was one pound. So I have a life time supply of Mo and Fe. For all of the others I purchased them from Loudwolf.com. Everything they sell is available in 4 ounce bottles. For the micros 4 ounces will last a long time.

The above works well for plants but my shrimp did not reproduce. I have been experimenting with adding lithium, iodine, sodium, bromine, vanadium, cobalt and selenium to the above plant fertilizers. My shrimp population went from 5 to about 30. Plants don't need these but animals do.

As I mentioned in my earlier post I use RO water which basically has no nutrients in it. If you are using tap water you might want to adjust the dose to avoid adding too much of some nutrients. But you might have to do a ICPOES lab test to figure out how much of the above nutrients are in your tap water.

 

[Sunnyspots]

well it is not one recipe. but for starters plants need macro nutrients and micronutrients.

The macros are Nitrogen (N), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Pnosphorous (P), Sulfur (S), Chlorine )Cl)

Many people today mix potassium nitrate KNO3 and potassium phosphate KH2PO4 to supply the NPK nutrients. Seachem sell individual bottles for N,P, K which you can buy and then you can buy a GH booster to supply the Ca and magnesium needed. So for the macro nutrients you can by premixed bottles. i initially did that but then later made my own. You does the GH booster to match the needs of your fish. I typically aim for 1ppm nitrate and 1 PPM phosphate. Key thing ithat you want just enough so that the plant will never run out of . So you don't want zero nitrate, potassium, phosphate, calcium, or magnesium,

Next you need a micro nutrients:
Themicro nutrients are Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Boron (B), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), Nickel (Ni).

for my first micro recipe I used:
Fe DTPA at a dose of 0.1ppm
MnSO4 (manganese sulfate) dose of 0.05ppm
H3BO3 (boric acid) dose of 0.02ppm
ZnSO4 (zinc sulfate) dose of 0.02ppm
CuSO4 (copper sulfate) dose of 0.01ppm
Na2MoO4 (sodium molybdate dose of 0.005ppm
NiSO4 (nickel sulate) dose of 0.005ppm

Note 1ppm is one milligram per litter. So the weight of each needs to be calculated based on how many liters of water is in your tank. I don't like doing math so I used Rotalabutterfly.com a aquarium fertilizer calculator and a cheep milligram scale I purchased on Amazon.ocm.. I entered the tank size, and then selected the DIY, and then selected the compound. I then selected liquid solution and entered the volume of water for example 100ml. with a dose size of 1ml. I then selected Dose to reach a target and entered the dose listed above.

Aftercalculating for each nutrient I measured out each nutrient and filled a bottle of with distilled water and 2ml of distilled Vinegar. The vinegar helps everything to dissolve and prevents the iron nutrient of oxidizing. And added all the nutrients and mixed. It might take an hour or two fore everything to dissolve. The resulting fertilizer should have an amber color.

For my 5 gallon shrimp tank one 1ml dose once a week was enough. I also do a 50% water change once a week. So after my water change I dose the needed amount of GH booster, add my macro nutrients, and then add the micro nutrients. the micro fertilizer has enoughsulfure and my CH booster has calcium chloride This worked well for over a year before I started having a problem.

I eventually found that the Sodium Molybdate was reacting with my other micros which apparently made Molybdenum unavalble to the plants. I solved that by mixing the sodium molybdate with my nitrate, phosphate bottle and removing the Molybdenum from the micro recipe. I would like to mix everything in one bottle but the calcium in the GH booster just doesn't dissolve when mixed with potassium or phosphate. I also don't want to mix the nitrate with the micro because that would make mold problem. by keeping the macros separate from the micros I Prevent mold.

Youcan find many of the ingredient on amazon.com. I purchased Fe DTPA and sodium molybdate from amazon but the smallest size I could get for each was one pound. So I have a life time supply of Mo and Fe. For all of the others I purchased them from Loudwolf.com. Everything they sell is available in 4 ounce bottles. For the micros 4 ounces will last a long time.

The above works well for plants but my shrimp did not reproduce. I have been experimenting with adding lithium, iodine, sodium, bromine, vanadium, cobalt and selenium to the above plant fertilizers. My shrimp population went from 5 to about 30. Plants don't need these but animals do.

As I mentioned in my earlier post I use RO water which basically has no nutrients in it. If you are using tap water you might want to adjust the dose to avoid adding too much of some nutrients. But you might have to do a ICPOES lab test to figure out how much of the above nutrients are in your tap water.

Wow! Thank you for that. I'm not sure how available some of those compounds might be over here but I'll have a look. My tap water varies in nitrates and is probably high in phosphates as phosphorous is added at source. I've toyed with using RO and sometimes think it would be simpler, quite apart from opening up more fish opportunities. Your recipe gives me that option. Plants are an essential part of all my tanks, almost more so than the fish.

Thank you again for what clearly took a while to write. I shall bookmark it for future reference

 

[Fishfinder1973]

Yes fish food ideally has all the nutrients plants need to grow.But fish waist often has too much nitrogen and sometimes not enough iron and calcium and magnesium. It is possible to to grow healthy plants with just fish you are probably going to need a lot of fish to do it. possibly making it hard to maintain good ammonia , nitrite and nitrate level. For smaller tanks it is more difficult.

Also what fish can't get from food they can get from the water. in places with very soft water or in tanks filled with RO water it can be very hard to get any growth even with well regarded aquarium fertilizers. When I set up my small aquarium i initially thought fish waist was enough. And since my tap water tests terrible I used RO water. Plants just died. I switch to fertilizers which did help but plant growth was a still not good. I eventually learned that fertilizers assume your water is going to supply some of the nutrients plants need. I wasn't able to get good growth until I made a fertilizer with the assumption that my water had no nutrients in it. That worked.

I have a low tech,densely stocked tank,mostly small fish.I have two external filters running,keeping the parameters sound.The fast growing sessiliflora is healthy looking,as is the siamensis.The hygrophila is showing signs of a magnesium,and possibly calcium deficiency,and with it being a fast growing plant too……..
So far the plants are doing ok,but I might need to change something in order to get some algae growth,which might mean having to add fertz haha,the irony,if that’s the way to describe it.

 

[StevenF]

So far the plants are doing ok,but I might need to change something in order to get some algae growth,which might mean having to add fertz haha,the irony,if that’s the way to describe it.

In many planted aquarium elevated fertilizer levels don't neccarily mean more algae. For some reason when plants are doing well algae tends to struggle. In my aquiaurm I only have a small amount of hair algae. No cyanobacteria, no black beard algae or green spot algae The plants tend to grow slightly faster than the hair algae. Occasional manual removal helps keep it under control. I want to slow it down further but so far I haven't been able to do that.

 

[Colin_T]

In many planted aquarium elevated fertilizer levels don't neccarily mean more algae. For some reason when plants are doing well algae tends to struggle.

Healthy aquatic plants produce a natural algicide that inhibits algae from growing on them.

 

[Fishfinder1973]

In many planted aquarium elevated fertilizer levels don't neccarily mean more algae. For some reason when plants are doing well algae tends to struggle. In my aquiaurm I only have a small amount of hair algae. No cyanobacteria, no black beard algae or green spot algae The plants tend to grow slightly faster than the hair algae. Occasional manual removal helps keep it under control. I want to slow it down further but so far I haven't been able to do that.

When I added another 4 bunches of sessiliflora,the Algae disappeared,obviously that plant is scoffing most of the nutrients.
I can add tnc complete which will help algae growth,but plecos don’t pay much attention to green spot algae.