Hi,
I just like to plant my new tank. But I read here somehwre that the fert used can have carbon. And I think carbon really oscillates Kh/Ph. If so. then I will dump my newly bought plant fert. It is Sera Florena.

I already have enough on my hands with adjusting my Kh with baking soda and crushed coral. I dont want to kill my fish with Ph swings in the name of giving plant ferts.!

Thnx for the help.

What kinda lighting and what kind of plants do you have?
What's your pH and KH and how much airation have you got going in the tank?

Their website says it contains: iron, minerals and trace elements

Unless you have a decent amount of light and enough CO2 in the water, I don't think that adding ferts will get you much.

Yeah, I would stay away from fertilisers. They tends to be more problem than they are worth. Save you money and buy more plants!

I use fertilizers and have never noticed a change in my hardness.

But I agree, unless you are going with higher light and demanding plants, you really don't need to use them. Especially if its a goldie tank, they put out PLENTY of fertilizer!!

My KH is 6.5 PH is 7.8.
Dataguru I posted a new post regarding coral in the water chemistry section. It gives my Kh and PH values. PH goes between 7.8 and 8.0. Trouble is with my strips I get a PH of 7.2 and with the drops of 8.0. I wonder how it is possible! My strips are new. Strips show KH of 6.0 and drops show of 7.00.
I have got Dwarf Anubias, Anachris, Amazon sword and Java Fern. think I will stay away from the fert. I am anyway having a hard time. If one thing ends, the other begins. Now my fish are yawning. I will try and go to disease section and check it out.

Strips are less accurate than are liquid tests.

Based on your KH and pH, Your carbon dioxide levels in the tank are pretty low (2.8ppm). http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/CalCO2.asp

How much light do you have over the tank? If it's stock lighting, the you have low lighting as well, so ferts probably won't help. I'm with Myaj and CaptK. Goldies are fertilizer factories! *laugh*

So is the sword planted in the gravel? How's it looking?

Thnx Dataguru. I'm sorry for bringing this up here but I have been waiting desperatley for ur help in the water chemistry section regarding coral shell. Can u plz. see that post????

i have stock lighting and probably that's why my plants started having their leaves turning yellow in the edges(anachris). The sword is also looking bad with holes and brown spots. which is why I foolishly bought fert. for $15/-. I dont think i want to get into CO2 business. Lesser into the tank, beter. Sword and anubias are all in small glass votives with colored glass marbles. If they dont flourish and begin to show yellow leaves or brown holes, will it effect the water chemistry besides water pollution.? I will remove them and put in the cheaper anachris.

sorry dataguru, I just reda that post> sorry again.

Now you have me questioning things,lol! Ok, so my ph is 7.5, I do a 10ml test as the kit say's its more accurate that way. So I actually get 6 drops in and it turns. Besides the filter adding air, I have a 23" bubble bar in at present that will be upgraded to a 47" flex. So how does this affect things as far as the CO2 then? My plants seem to be doing well so far, even the bolbitus I bought a week ago that I was worried about (and still watching).... :listen: I'm all ears folks! :listen:

The big three for plants are enough light in the right spectrum, ferts/trace elements and CO2 levels.

With KH=6 and pH = 7.5, CO2 is 5.7ppm.
Here's a table that's cool for looking at CO2 levels at various levels fo KH and pH.
http://www.floridadriftwood.com/page.asp?id=16

So if you had plenty of light (3+ watts per gallon) and the right mix of ferts, adding more CO2 would result in faster plant growth.

My plants are also growing fine with similar pH and KH. I also have lots of surface agitation going on. The surface agitation gasses off CO2.

I think some plants can use bicarbonate for a carbon source. Fluorish Excel is one way to increase available carbon levels for plants without increasing CO2 levels. With plenty of light and plenty fo ferts/trace elements, Excel would probably speed up plant growth.

If you ask me, I think as long as the plants are growing fine, I wouldn't worry about CO2 levels. In the high tech tanks with high lighting and regularly dosed ferts, they keep CO2 levels up to put plants into overdrive. I think there are some plants you gotta do this with to get decent results, but for most plants, I don't think all that's necessary to have happy plants.

Oi! That Tetra Test, its the laborette set up. Most of the tests are done on 5 ml. But the kh & gh say 10 ml is more accurate, then it say's each drop = 1/2 dh.
This kit actually drives me bonkers! so that actually makes it 3 on the kh if I read that kit right?

I've sort of worried about that kh level with the koi, but with 20% water changes each week, it should be ok. The oxygen levels for the fish then may be more a worry?

I'll be running a waterfall @ 3' drop,12' across, two spitters and a fountain for the pond while I'm adding the air bubble bars to the tanks

You're right 6 drops would be 3dh. Does your pH stay stable? I'd worry about having KH that low with any kind of a bioload in the tank/pond... especially with plants cuz they cause a daily pH swing and can also use up carbonates. I was buffering my goldie tank up to 7dh so it'd stay above 4dh by the next partial water change. With the 4 goldies, I'd lose 2dh of KH per week. Now I'm using crushed oyster shell which appears to be keeping KH at 6.

I want one of those electronic pH testers. I can read KH easily, but pH it's hard to tell what color it is compared to the chart.

That sounds like plenty of surface agitation. That's where you get the most bang for your buck on gas transfer.

Surprisingly it does. I've tested the pond at anywhere from 1 am to 4 am, as well as day and evening and have never seen a variance in it!

I did get a 1/2 dh drop finally from all the rain, so I tossed out some B. soda and going to get a couple of more boxes. I added a pound. Still, the ph was 7.5. I have two ph kits, one read 7.4, one reads 7.6 so I split the difference on the two.