Wanting more than moderate growt-Are ferts the problem?

[Waterlife]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to the site and fairly new to the hobby. I have over the last year or so achieved a healthy tank with many fish and more recently some fast growing plants. I have a picture in the link below. My concern is that something is limiting the growth of the fast growing stem plants and the sword. My first thought it not fertilizing but what do you think?

Plants:
-Elodea: doing well. Grows about 12 inches a week.
-Hornwort: not growing too much.
-Amazon Sword: just recently started growing out of the water. Has yellow and clear leaf's along with some very nice green leaf's
-Microsword: clean and bright. Growing very slowly.
-Miniswords: growing very well and bright green. New leaf's every week.
-Sagittaria: not sure what kind but it loves the additional CO2. The color is amazing now.
-Java Fern: growing on a log and has always done well.
-Jungle Vall: just got it, has not done anything yet.
water Sprite- grows right after a water change
-Wisteria: floating on the surface. Was growing well when it was planted but now so many plants are on the surface it seems to have stopped growing

Fish:
-Platty pair
-A million babes
-Dozen Endlers
-Sword pair
-two snails
-6 neons
-3 ottos
-little pleco: bristle nose

Fertlizer:
-Sewchem flourish
-Once a week

lighting:
_2 Compacts 13 watts each
-32 watt cmpact

Filtration:
-Really big external filter

PH: 6.8

CO2: Started a 7 lb tank about two months ago. I have ordered a glass drop checker to what level of CO2 I have.
-I saw huge changes and all of them good after the CO2. I keep it on all the time and have almost no algae at all.

I want to be able to keep Camboda. I had one before the CO2 and it died. Very slowly. I am not confident that it would be happy now.

What am I missing? Nothing is going wrong but I want more!

https://picasaweb.google.com/1105462748 ... 06-MvMLrWw

[150EH]

I don't know what size your tank is but the lighting seems low, high light equals fast growth but you need to feed fast growth daily with macro and micro nutrients. It looks like most of the plants you have are easy to grow and fast growers, the swords are also heavy root feeders so a high nutrient substrate would be helpful but it looks as if your plants are probably lacking nutrients with weekly dosing but that might be okay if you have low light, but we need more info on lighting, substrate, feeding, and tank size and dimensions.

Some folks here like to use premixed fertilizers like Seachem's Flourish line and some like mixing their own dry ferts and I fall into that category. I get my from Greenleaf Aquariums dot com. Here's of thing you may need in the near future.

Potassium Nitrate (KNO3)
Mono Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4)
Plantex CSM+B
Magnesium Sulfate (MgSO4)
Iron Chelate 11% DPTA

Here's a link to their fert page and that's about $30 or so with shipping but it will last a long time, http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html

Most of us that mix our own use the 'EI' method or Estimative Index, I know we have a break down of fert mixtures and scheduling somewhere here so take a look around under Planted tank Chemistryhttp://gwapa.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=7

I'm sure you'll get more replies with different options but we all use some modified version of EI when you have a tank with high light and CO2, also no to scare you but after I added CO2 and started dosing ferts some of the fast growers didn't like it and died off but no worries if your local we have tons of plants for sale cheap at our monthly club auctions, good luck and welcome.

[Waterlife]

Hi Tim,

The tank is a 15 gallon low so that is roughly 5 watts per gallon. I have just typical black gravel and black sand. There is a heavy load of fish and I am nervious to use special substrate because I like to keep the tank very clean with siphoning ever week. I currently do 50% water changes each weekend. Both the fish and plants seem to really like it when I make water changes.

Thank you for the fert website. I have read up on EI and it like the best option. I could always use a DIY auto doser but if both methods produce good results then I think EI is the best option for me. Should I buy a pound each of those fertlizer or more?

Hey, thank you Tim!

[150EH]

Normally on a planted tank you wouldn't vacuum the substrate as in sticking the siphon into the substrate, after waste has entered the substrate it's allowed to breakdown and become plant food, the substrate also holds some of your beneficial bacteria that promotes this process plus you have plants that will rapidly use any available resources in the substrate. If my tank is looking dirty, dead plant material, etc. I will vacuum lightly over top without disturbing the substrate.

I think you might want to give that a try and see how it works, you may only need to dose lightly with your high fish load as they are providing the ferts naturally, your next step would be to try a nutrient rich substrate and you may not need to dose at all and it will allow you to try some different plants as well.

[150EH]

Kno3 will get used the fastest but with only a 15 gallon it will last a long time, so you could buy the smallest amounts available and a pound of kno3 if you like. Just make sure to get everything you need the first time around, I hate having to go back and buy something I forgot and pay $5 for the item and $8 to ship it.

Are you planing on any more planted tanks?

[Waterlife]

Hey Tim,

I have been basically trying to perfect growing the plants with this tank. I want to get to the point where I can grow almost every plant. Once I can do that I want to try a real aquascape. Most likely a mountain scape with moss, rocks, shrimp, and a group of tetras. This might be kind of odd but I am also thinking of having a small saltwater reef tank as a bed side light. But that is about two years out. I am going to buy the ferts from the link you provided in a day or two. I am going to make the move to not vacumming the substrate but not until I get rid of all the crazy amounts of fish. I am going to come to the next meeting and get some cherry red shrimp as well.

Kyle

[jweis]

You should try iron tablets placed in the substrate for the swords.

[Waterlife]

Thanks Julie! I will try that when I come across some.

[tug]

To really bump up the growth of your plants when using CO2, EI is extremely easy. For a 15 gallon tank you might want to pre-mix your dry fertilizers into two or more containers. One bottle for your micro trace nutrients found in Plantex CSM+B and another bottle or two for your KNO3 and KH2PO4. If you use these two salts (KNO3 and KH2PO4) for fertilizer it is extremely unlikely your plants will need any K from K2SO4. Somewhere around here it explains why.

I doubt you will need to add additional Ca and/or Mg with weekly water changes depending on your water source. Tap water often has plenty as long as you maintain weekly water changes. If you find you need more, the heptahydrate sulfate mineral epsomite (MgSO4·7H2O), commonly called Epsom salt can be found at your local bodega. If you need calcium, Greenleaf Aquariums does offer calcium sulphate (CaSO4) but I have been told that Gypsum plaster (CaSO4.1/2H2O) is the same thing. Your water quality report should let you know if your tap water already has enough Ca/Mg.

Which Iron supplement you use depends on how hard your water is and how chelators/ligands begin to degrade. I prefer a shotgun approach and add three types of chelated iron. Plantex CSM+B uses EDTA as the chelator. EDTA is most stable at KH levels below 4.5 Grain per gallon (gpg) and arguably a little more stable then when Gluconates/citrates/amnio acids are the chelator. Having said that, I also add Fe Gluconate (easily degraded at pH5 or higher) and Iron Chelate 11% DPTA (DTPA is more stable at KH levels below 15 gpg). So, something to think about before placing that order.

Measurement of water hardness
According to the Water Quality Association...
soft: 0-3.5 grains per gallon (gpg),
moderate: 3.5-7.0 gpg,
hard: 7.0-10.5 gpg, and
very hard: over 10.5 gpg

1 milligram/liter (ppm) = 0.058417831 grain/gallon (US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grains_per_gallon

For help mixing your fertilizer solutions or dosing amounts I found this calculator - http://rota.la
At the top of the calc page you will also find a link to mixing drop checker solutions.

For the substrate Ozmocote plus can be used and will last for about 6 months in the substrate. I just push it under the substrate with a chopstick but some people freeze the Ozmocote Plus in thin sheets of ice, placing it under the substrate that way.

Make sure not to add too much though, some folks have added 3cm worth on the bottom.

Do not be that guy.