questions for plant experts

[m8r8j]

hello my names mike, i have a 14g biocube planted.

i have swapped the atinic light for a second 10,000k.. so its ~3.5 wpg of 10,000k compact flourescent lighting...

i have 10 serpae tetras, 2 oto cats, a few ghost shrimp and mystery snails...

i feed omega 1 tropical flake

for plants: 2 anubas, 1 argintine sword, 2 banana plants, 1 water primrose, 1 wisteria, some baby tears on a lava rock, and some dwarf sagitaria...

my substrate is planted substrate from petco, similar to flourite (came in a bag with water inside it).....

my light timers are set for 10 hours a day, 12pm-10pm

id say about 3% of my leaves have a few holes in them, and another 3% are slightly yellowing, so i read up extensively on ferts today, and came up with a chart after i ordered some stuff from bigalsonline.com:

seachem flourish
seachem flourish excel
seachem flourish iron
seachem flourish nitrogen
seachem flourish phosphate
seachem flourish potasium

also ive read extensively about flourish excel... i dont have the patience for diy co2, or the wallet for a pressurized system... will excel work out for me in the long run for the primary carbon intake for the plants???

also, apparently my flourish plant supplement has all of the essentials for my plants in terms trace elements correct?? so i dont have to buy seachem trace?

just trying to make my plants good enough for the long term....

i will be using seachems line of products, and turned this list:

into this: (just needed some opinions on everything)

MONDAY
1.5ml flourish
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron
1.0ml phosphorus
1.0ml nitrogen

TUESDAY
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron

WEDNESDAY
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron
2.5ml potassium

THURSDAY
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron
1.0ml phosphorus
1.0ml nitrogen

FRIDAY
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron
2.5ml potassium

SATURDAY
1.5ml flourish
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron

SUNDAY
30% water change
1.5ml excel
1.5ml iron

 

[m8r8j]

bump

 

[m8r8j]

bump

 

[jcardona1]

you'd get better answers in the planted tank section

but it looks like you have the basic macro/micro nutrients covered, along with Excel. since your tank is fairly small, Excel should give you good results. i would add it everyday, and even add a little more than recommended. your plants should show improvements pretty soon with all that stuff.

 

[m8r8j]

bump

 

[Quesenek]

You can do the same ferts with dry ferts and all of them together will cost you less than 2 bottles of seachem ferts and will last a lot longer.

Read up on the EI method here http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fertilizers-water-parameters/21944-_dosing-regimes_.html

Here is the place to buy the ferts http://www.greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html you will need kno3, k2so4, kh2po4 and plantex csm+b.

Over all this will save you a lot of money that you can use to buy a lot of excel.

For a tank that size you can get away with excel since you will be dosing in such small quantity's.

 

[Sab_Fan]

Excel should work just fine on a bio-cube, I use it in my tanks w/o trouble, including a 12G nano-cube . . . the pinholes and yellowing leaves sound like a potassium deficiency, but you'll know better after you implement your dosing regimen

as suggested above, I am also considering switching to dry ferts, once I've used up my current supply of Seachem products . . . no knock on Seachem, but I want to find a more cost-effective method

I'll still use the Excel, tho'

 

[m8r8j]

bigalsonline.com they are like 5.69 a bottle for 250 ml...

if i dose 1.5ml/day thats about 166 days of dosing...

and thats for excel, the other ferts i dont do daily, so even if its every other day then thats 333 days, almost a year. thats like ~.0155 cents a day lol.

for that price id rather just dose the tank instead of having to mix dry ferts with water every time before dosimg

anyways, thats off topic... how does my fert schedule look?

 

[m8r8j]

bump

 

[WyldFya]

Not sure why you are still bumping, J already answered your questions, but to reiterate, Excel is fine for your co2 in a tank that small, and using Flourish will be fine alone, but using trace will help, as will having a good supply of flourish K.