What Plants For My 5gal And What Ferts?

[Gurglar]

So my ADA soil has arrived and i've just ordered my light which consists of 3x8watt T5 globes and am waiting on my drop checker which should be here tomorrow to monitor my DIY Co2.

Now I wanna start planning on what plants to get and have no idea but I want it to be heavily planted so all suggestions are welcome and I should be able to grow some fairly hard plants with my setup shouldn't I??

This will be my first attempt at a high tech tank aswell and would like to know what ferts I should use would I get away with just using Seachem Flourish or should I use the whole line as in Iron, potassium etc.??

 

[KittyKat]

Difficult plants can be grown with *care*, not set ups What's your water pH? hardness? What sort of plants do you like?

 

[fatheadminnow]

You can look into Flourish for ferts.

They have a good line-up!

-FHM

 

[Gurglar]

I haven't got the tank setup so don't know the PH and hardness yet.

Plants I was thinking of was some Blyxa, some HC and maybe hairgrass but not sure how well they will look together.

 

[aaronnorth]

fkourish isnt always up to the job on a high tech tank, you would be better off with tropica plant nutrition+ (TPN+) which contains higher concentrations of macro elements.

or you can use dry powders and mix up your own ferts.

as long as everything is non-limting, then you can grown any plant.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Can you give me some more info on these dry powder ferts, I kind of want too try some out!

Are they better that liquid ferts?

-FHM

 

[aaronnorth]

they arent better. Nitrate is Nitrate to a plant. it doesnt make a difference. it all gets dissolved in water.
dry powders are just cheaper.

US supplier
http/www.aquariumfertilizer.com/


Estimative Index guide
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...104737&st=0


if you dont want to go full EI, then here is the only info you need, so you can make your own dosing regime.

Potassium Nitrate - 40g to 500ml of water and adding 10ml per 100L of water would give you a value of 5ppm.
Potassium Phosphate - 15g to 500ml of water and adding 5ml per 100L of water would give you a value of 1ppm.
Trace mix - 25g to 500ml of water, dose 10ml per 50litres. this is a similar concentration to off the shelf products

maxiumum daily uptake (this is with unlimiting CO2 & 4wpg light)

5ppm NO3
1ppm PO4

if you do decide to add that amount then you are basically doing EI anyway lol.
for a low tech, you can use half of those figures as a maximum daily uptake.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Thanks, aaronnorth!

-FHM

 

[Gurglar]

After a little thinking I might just start off with a full hairgrass tank by taking some of of my other tank and trim it low in the front high in the back with some rocks in the tank aswell, then maybe add some HC into the front of the tank later on once I get the hang of it.