Epsom Salt for snails and plants

[Laki]

Can I add epsom salt to my tank randomly? I know it's fine for the bettas but I have some live plants and snails. Is epsom generally a good for plants? Most of the websites I found mentioned using epsom in place of fertilizers. I am using Seachem Flourish. I just don't want Milly's and Brutus' shells to get soft.. And any potential pond snail babies.

[Oldfishlady]

IMO/E-Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) is safe to use long term and with plants and snails/inverts. One of the regular uses of Epsom salt is a plant fertilizer for the magnesium.

[Laki]

Perfect! Thanks. Now, my seachem flourish has magnesium AND sulfate.. so if I mixed epsoms and added that, would there be too much magnesium?

I just did a water change and dosed with seachem so I won't try the epsom today.

[starrlamia]

try using this calculator :)
http://calc.petalphile.com/ my guess is that you will need to add more magnesium because there are only trace amounts in comprehensive.
In the dropdown I would pick estimative index/low light

[Laki]

oooh oooh oooh!! Thanks for the link! Wow. I have been giving only half the nutrients to my tank per week.
*goes to get more Seachem*

[starrlamia]

seachem comprehensive isnt meant for macro nutrients, getting more dry fertilizers like the epsom salts and dosing is really cheap and works well.

[Laki]

Okay. Thanks! Would it be okay to mix epsom in pop bottles of aged water for the weekly touch-ups?
And someone said baking soda works too? Sodium Bicarbonate?? Really?

[starrlamia]

im not sure about baking soda, it will definately raise the kh or gh of your water (cant remember which)
I premix all my dry ferts into solutions so that definately works.

If you google estimative index dosing you will get all sorts of helpful info

[Laki]

Thanks. I didn't know about this before. Hopefully I can set this up and my plants will out-compete the algae!

If you don't mind me asking, as a total noob, what exactly do you add to your mixtures?

[starrlamia]

i use
kh2po4
k2so4 (instead of the kno3 in EI dosing because i dont need the nitrogen)
espom salts
iron
seachem flourish

I just use the calculator to mix the required amount of dry ferts with water and dose from there, I have months worth of mixture done up lol, just add it in during water changes (except for iron that gets added on a different day)