Good Plant Supplements

[Chaos553]

So I don't want my tank to end up the way it did before, aka all my plants dying and turning gross. I kind of don't want to use a CO2 cycle as well only because I really don't have the room for it. What's the best type of fertilizer/supplement/plant food would you guys recommend? I'm looking for something that's convenient in terms of a small amount of pollution but great results. Thanks in advance!

[Blue Cray]

Well do you have good lighting? You could use flourish excel to help the plants grow.

[Chaos553]

I have a 120 volt, 20 watt, 60 hz fluorescent bulb in there at the moment. Is that too low of light to be growing amazons, anubias, crypts, and java ferns?

[Blue Cray]

You should get atleast a 40 watt light fixture for that size of tank. 1 watt per gallon rule works best.

[Chaos553]

Alright, next time i drop in I'll pick one up. Other than the light fixture, what should I do about supplements? However I will look into Flourish Excel when I go to get the bulb. How much does that usually go for?

[Blue Cray]

If you have good lighting suppliments arent usually neccessary. As for the price I have no clue my lights were about $85 (for a 24'' T-5 double linear stip lighting)

[Chaos553]

I'll probably get some sort of a discount anyway when I go in tomorrow, so it really shouldn't be TOO expensive....let's hope not =/

[Chaos553]

bump

ive already gotten some decent info from blue cray, but hopefully someone like JustOneMore20 could possibly help me out since shes amazing with planted tanks ;D

[JustOneMore20]

What tank are we talking about?

If you have 20 watts over the 38g, then thats your issue. Fertilizers won't help the plants survive. If its the 20g, then fertilizers could possibly help, but the lighting is still low and could be the issue if you aren't choosing low light plants.

20 watts over the 20g is fine for Anubias, Crypts, and Java fern, but Swords need more light. 20 watts over the 38g and you'll be lucky to grow Java fern.

Originally Posted by Blue Cray

If you have good lighting suppliments arent usually neccessary.

Not true. All plants need nutrients. The more lighting you have, the more you need to supplement nutrients because they use them up faster.

[Chaos553]

Yeah it's the 38g, the 20g is just a tank full of guppies so I'm not really worried about the lighting situation. I think I'll pick up either a 40 watt or 60 watt at my buddy's pet store since I can get a discount and it really isn't too expensive, maybe 22 bucks at the most. But other than that, what do you recommend as a fertilizer, and how can a properly plant it?

[JustOneMore20]

I suggest the 60w if you want to have more than just Java fern. 40w is low for that size tank.

Then, you could pick up some regular Flourish to use 1 or 2 times a week. You really don't need more than that with that lighting.

[Chaos553]

alright cool, thanks a bunch! btw, do you have any updated pics of your tanks? i was really interested in your betta setup and one of your planted tanks a while back and i just wanted to see what it looks like now.

[JustOneMore20]

I'll get some pics posted of my 29g and 40g this weekend. I'll try to clean up the betta tank and take a pic of that as well. It looks the same though, plus some algae.

[Chaos553]

haha...that darn algae ;D