New Plants And Fertilizer

[shortymet55]

I have two questions.

1.) Are there any small plants that would look good in the front part of the tank, but arent just like carpet. Maybe something that grows only a few inches and can be pruned easily to keep it that size and still look good (I imagine most plants pruned this short would be just stem)

2.) Whats a good brand fertilizer. Right now, I only have Amazon Swords. However, what would be good for those and for suggestions to 1.).

Thanks

 

[Colin_T]

1) pygmy chain swords

2) Sera Florena is a good iron based liquid plant food.

 

[shortymet55]

Is there a fertilizer I can get at a store around me (Maryland, USA)? I googled that stuff and every single site was out of the USA, and most where not in US Dollars too. I would prefer to buy not online. Thanks

 

[Colin_T]

you should be able to buy Sera products anywhere in the world. Maybe ask your LFS if they can get it for you. You might have to contact a couple fo shops but someone should carry it. Otherwise most of the other plant foods are ok to use and you can just try whatever is available. Just try to get an iron based plant food.

 

[KraKen]

You could proboly find Seachem Flourish in Maryland, it's the best fertalizer that I can find where I live in New York.

Another good foreground plant would be Anubias barteri petite.

 

[SuperColey1]

Cryptocoryne Parva is a low light plant and stays around the 2 inch height.

Under low light Glosso will grow taller than the carpets you see in most pictures but it will still stay under 2 inches so that is another option.

Most of the carpeting plants that you see in the high light tanks aren't actually high light plants. They require high light to stay low. With low light they grow taller to try and get more light but they are still short plants.

Don't be fooled by 'low light' and 'high light' descriptions as they are often labels for how the majority of users want them to grow.

There are however some plants that require high CO2 and higher dosing of ferts.

I would second Seachems products for a US person as they are very cheap over there and generally regarded as one of the best alongside Tropica PN+ which in europe is regarded as the best but is quite hard to get hold of in the US.

Check out the Seachem website as they have a dosing schedule on there. Their products (including Flourish) are supposed to be used in conjunction but it is all detailed within this schedule.

Other than that you could try and source the raw powders and make your own, much cheaper in the long run and they are easier to get than you would think. I think Greg Watson's site sells them

Andy

 

[shortymet55]

Would I be able to get away with just using Flourish? It seems all the other products are basically focusing on one element, which is also in Flourish...

Thanks

 

[SuperColey1]

Flourish is not an all round fertiliser. It is 1 part of their dosing system. It only has trace elements plus minimal N&P. This is why they have all the other seperates such as a Nitrogen product and a Phosphate product.

It is similar to Tropica PN which is just traces wheras PN+ has NPK as well.

These are mainly for aquariums that have lots of fish but not too many plants as the fish waste/food etc will supply enough NPK not to warrant adding any more.

In a planted tank it is different so we add NPK as well as traces. We either go for the full range of Seachem or as we do in the UK go for TPN+.

Some people use dry powders for NPK and use TPN or Flourish for traces. The rest of us use dry powders for everything and mix our own solutions.

Andy