How to fertalize this tank?

jmm197

jmm197

Go Braves!
Feb 1, 2009
70
0
0
48
Georgia
Right now my 75 gallon tank is kind of in the middle of a make over. It hasn't' had any plants in it lately. I just switched out the old river rock gravel I had for some pool filter sand. And found some really big healthy java fern and a really nice potted Red Wendtii. I don't want to kill any plants this time around. I can't do co2 on this tank. I just don't have the money, so I've been using excel to combat BBA. It holds it down but doesn't get rid of it.

Anyway, I want to grow the pants I mentioned and maybe a couple of amazon swords, and more crypts or java ferns.

Can I get by with just dosing flourish comprehensive?
Should I dose flourish trace too?
Or should I use dry ferts? If so what kind of dosing?

75 gallon tank
1.5 WPG of 40watt t-5
no co2
excel by directions
pool filter sand substrate
PH - 7.6
Nitrates -25ppm

Thanks so much!
 
I am planting a tank too. I would assume you would use all in order to achieve the best results but I would think that you could do without some.
 
Just use the flourish no need for trace, a few root tabs may not be a bad idea. Try a shorter photo period to help with the algae.
No need to go 12 hours like a lot of people recommend.
 
Personally I would dry dose since it's so much cheaper, but if it's a low tech tank you may have more chems than you could possibly use. XD Trade/share the excess with a friend perhaps? Does your tank stay at about 20 ppm Nitrates? (If yes no KNO3 would be required.) Hard water? (Magnesium/Calcium is prob. covered) That potentially leaves potassium, traces, and maybe phosphates depending on how much you feed/stocking level.

Somewhat ironically, the most probable cause of your BBA is doing what we all do to keep our tanks clean...waterchanges! I'm not saying that you shouldn't do them, but BBA outbreaks are often triggered by fluctuating levels of CO2, and since the water in our tap system generally has a higher CO2 concentration than tank water it can be an easy trigger for that nasty ugly stuff. You can try leaving your tap water out for a while, giving it a chance to "gass off" the CO2, but obviously that's difficult to do with such large volumes of water.

If you really want to kill BBA with Excel, you really have to overdose it (2-3x the recommend amount daily) for about 2 weeks. This is at your own risk however, since some people have had fish/invert deaths...other people report regularly using 3x the dosage with no ill effect. You can also try spot dosing it (using a syringe to target the BBA), or making a diluted spray (pull the plants out of the water, spritz, and wait a few moments before submerging again).

In terms of your lighting...are they T5 HO bulbs with gullwing individual reflectors, or more standard stock T5's? The former may require CO2, while the latter would put you in the "low-tech" category. If you're in the low-tech category and you can plant the tank heavily enough, quit dosing excel, and have a light stocking, you can actually reduce the waterchanges to a few times a year. This makes a lot of people nervous, but you could always run carbon in the filters on occasion to help remove any build up of household chemicals and organics, and supplement the GH levels overtime. Definitely do your research first if you go this route. Personally I think there are valid arguments both for and against the "natural" method, but I personally haven't formed an opinion either way.
 
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trace, comprehensive and root tabs and you should be fine.

daily doses should not be tremendously necessary with those specs except maybe small doses of excel.
 
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