# What is the best way for dosing plants?



## garstrom (Jan 5, 2014)

I usually fertilize my plants weekly when I do a water change, I have all the necessary fertilizers required ( nitrogen,iron,flourish etc)I am careful I don't overdose I have a new Finnex LED for plants and have pressurized CO2. My plants just seem to wither away, my Anubias have yellow on the leafs and my Val looks brown (most of that withered away.
I would appreciate your ideas for dosing- my sump is down in the fish room, so all fish & plant related projects are done there. I even set up a plant "hospitable" tank with CO2 and lighting.
Thanks for your time*H2*us flag


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

What, specifically, are you dosing? There are macro and micro nutrients, and not enough macros or too many micros can be harmful to your plants.

Also, how do you measure CO2 concentration in your water? Do you use a drop checker, or the pH/KH algorithm?

Lastly, what is your photoperiod, and how deep is your tank? Planted+ lights are great, but the red spectrum doesn't penetrate very far into deep tanks. Hence why most marine tanks use Actinic light.


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## garstrom (Jan 5, 2014)

Good Evening Guy,
Thank you for your quick reply and info.
Here's what I have - I dose with Flourish Nitrogen, Flourish Iron and regular Flourish. I dose according to bottle directions
and dose weekly when I do a 50% water change. My lighting is a 30" Finnex FugeRay Planted w/ 7000K, 660 red. My tank is 55g corner tank so my cover is 27" front 18" back and 28"long, it's depth to substrate is 18-21" 's. I was thinking of buying another Finnex to light more of the back.
My pressurized CO2 is at 2 BPS and my drop checker is reading normal. I have rigged my tubing into a 240GPH wavemaker to chop the bubbles up, I also use 2 more wavemakers to keep a circulation going. This is a freshwater tank, and my plants suck.
Thanks for your help
Gary


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## FishFlow (Sep 13, 2011)

How long has the tank been setup? ie, were the plants at one point doing well?

I use the EI Method and dose dry ferts. (Much cheaper than the liquid ferts) I dose daily, alternating between Macros/micros, with large water changes at the end of the week.

I *tune* the recommend qtys by measuring tank No3 and PO4 before WC. If to high, I taper down the amount of ferts. 

If you google "plant deficiency" you will find pictures. Yellowing of the leafs can be a handful of reasons. 

I've both Val's and anubias as well. See the google picture and see if you can narrow down which deficiency the tank has. For the browning Val, that is probably just the plant "melting". Usually only occurs in plants new to the tank. They are adjusting to your water. You can pull the melting leaf if you want, but leave the roots in the tank. Once it adjust, new healthy leafs will grow. The only other item, is you can't have the entire crown of the plant buried. The rhizome of the anubias needs to be above ground as well.

Pictures! Pictures would help alot.


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## garstrom (Jan 5, 2014)

Thanks for your reply, My tank has been set up for approx. 2 yrs now ( Freshwater) and didn't start plants till this year.
It was recommended I use an actinic light for the tank depth, so have been checking out those.

What type of dry fertilizer do you use , and where do you get it?
I'll try and get pictures,Being an ole, fart sometimes me and technology don't get along so pictures might take a while. 
I did however Google plant deficiency and found I need Boron for some of my plants and my Flourish bottle shows it contains 0.009%, doesn't sound like a lot.
Thanks again for your help *us flag


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## BBradbury (Apr 22, 2011)

Hello gar...

Anubias is a very low maintenance plant. It's naturally slow growing and requires no added fertilizer other than what the fish produce. If you have similar plants, then you're wasting money on supplements like commercial fertilizers and a CO2 system. I keep low maintenance plants like Anubias and Java fern and they do fine with just the nutrients the fish produce and large, weekly water changes to maintain good trace mineral levels. No special dosing is required.

B


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## Summer (Oct 3, 2011)

I agree dry fertilizers are prob best for your set up. Try Greenleafaquariums.com I think thats the place I got mine. I also think they now have an easy way to mix and dose with bottles included.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Gary,

Nitrogen is a macro-nutrient, but so are carbon, potassium, and sulfur. Different combinations of these four elements with hydrogen and oxygen are what most dry chemical fertilizers and most natural fertilizers are made of. You've probably already heard of one of them - nitrate (NO3). There's also sulfate (SO4), phosphate (PO4), and potassium (K) ions floating around in the tank, naturally occurring. The purpose of macro-nutrient fertilizers (KH2PO4, K2SO4, KNO3) is to boost the macros already present in the tank. The macro-nutrients come in salt form (stable, but highly reactive) and as they dissolve in water they become ions, which are more easily absorbed by plants.

My advice would be to maintain with the Flourish Nitrogen, Flourish, and Flourish Iron, but get yourself some Flourish Excel (carbon), and Flourish Potassium. Not sure if there's a Flourish Sulfur, but if they have it you should get it too.

Alternately, sell the Flourish Nitrogen or use it up, and then get a dry chemical fertilizer package from somewhere like GLA, as Summer mentioned.

Actinic is not good for freshwater plants, they prefer broad daylight spectrum or red. If you'd like to get a bulb that has better penetration power for a deep tank, look into a Finnex FugeRay or RayII. They're about the same as a Planted+, but pack much more light intensity in the full daylight spectrum.


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