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Ok, I finally have the pressurized CO2, the lights the plants and all the tests I could ever want or not want to use, but alas I am a little baffled by the ferts. They are rare in this town even with 4 fish merchants. What is the best ferts and how often should they be dosed. I tested my tank for Iron and it registered as 0 and the test when tested against something with iron in it registered. I have been doesing with Flourish a comprehensive supplement. But I don't know if its a Macro or Micro. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Hi mrwizerd,

Welcome to the high tech world.

How about if you tell us a little more about your setup? Like how much light, tank size, plant species and number of them (picture would be really cool), substrate, and whatever comes to mind that you seem important.

Flourish is mostly a micro fertilizer, although it contains some macro elements (but not enough) as well. Why don't you go and read the descriptions of the products in The Flourish Line, it would give you some idea of what is in there and what they are good for.

In general, macros are elements that you need more off than micros. Macros are Nitrate (N), Potassium (K), and Phosphate (P), the rest are micros.

Do you happen to know anything about Tom Barr's Estimative Index, EI? If not, maybe you would like to read about it Here.

I order my macros from Greg Watson and my micros are provided via Tropica Master Grow, which you can purchase from Big Al's and the like.

Hope this will get you started,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

The comprehensive stuff you speak of, I believe, are micros.

Ok, I have two 90 gallon aquarium's. I bought one brand new cylinder and was told by Praxair that they would fill it but they meant they would exchange it. So I ended up having them swap me for another rather new cylinder and have them returning my new one to me. So I will be ordering another regulator for my other 90. Story over.

The tank's both have one of these so 260w 12000k bulbs.

I have not decided what filter to use for these tanks, I am thinking of doing a wet dry sump for the both of them or getting an Ehiem Canister filter.

I have a 300w heater in both and will have half eco-complete and half sand with laterite in it. One tank will have giant hairgrass, Vals, Banana Plants and a few other things. In the other tank it will be a mix of amazonian plants.

I just got thru moving so every thing is kind of in disarray but I am painting the back of one that will receiving the other tanks so that they can be painted. Then I will sit down and solidify the stock list. The one with the amazonian plants will be mostly Apistogrammas, true rummy nose hatchet fish and cory.

Thank you for the fertilizer recommendations.

Sounds like you are off to a pretty good start. One thing that I do see an issue with is the bulbs that are in your fixtures. They are 12,000K and for live plants 6,700K is best.

With the amount of light you are running plus the CO2 I would really look into the EI. There are a number of us using it here and I beleive that it works really well.

Once you get everything set, start adding as many plants as possible that are fast growers. This will get the ball rolling. As your tanks start to settle in a bit you can start changing out your plants.

BTW welcome to the wonderful planted world!



55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Whats an EI?

The EI, or Estimative Index, is a method to achieve great growth in your tank, if you manange to find the right balance. Here is the Method, the product of Tom Barr, aka plantbrain in our and other forums.

About your light, you read what Wings had to say about the 12,000K, right? He is right, that is not the plant-most friendly K range. In addition, I followed your link and it says that 2 of the 4 65W PCs are Actinic . I hope you replaced them with something better as these are totally useless in a planted tank, or in any freshwater tank for that matter.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I have since replaced the 12000's with 6500k ones.