fertilizers?

[majesticstorm]

I was thinking about putting some live plants in my aquarium, and I see so many different plant fertilizers (flourish excel, flourish trace, flourish nitrogen, root tabs, etc), but do I really need all of them? Could you recommend which ones I need and which ones I could do without?

My tank is a 5.5 gallon, and right now I have a 15 watt that came with the tank, but I'm thinking about switching to this bulb:http://www.petco.com/product/111943/...3-_-image_link

Plants I'm planning on putting in the tank:
-Marimo
-banana plant
-Italian Vals
-Anubis barteri nana
-possibly a floating plant (I'm welcome to suggestions)

I plan on using fine gravel as substrate.

Oh, and I plan on just putting a betta in there.

Thank you very much! :D

[LittleBettaFish]

For the vallisneria if you are just using gravel I would go with some root tabs as they will definitely appreciate it.

Otherwise all of the plants you have listed really require only a basic level of care so you should be able to get away with just dosing Seachem Flourish (the comprehensive fertiliser). Potassium, nitrogen etc. are only really useful if you start seeing deficiencies.

Floating plants however can be a little more nutrient hungry because some of them grow particularly fast. Things such as duckweed, hornwort, frogbit etc. will most likely show deficiencies before any of the other plants.

A good floating plant that would probably be better suited to your tank would be water sprite or water wisteria. They will grow quite happily floating and don't make a mess like hornwort and duckweed can.

[pittipuppylove]

^+1

And for the light, you don't really need to get the ones they have at the pet stores. Any bulb that's rated at 6500K will work - all of mine are from Menards. They're $3 or so there as opposed to the $8 at a pet store.

[majesticstorm]

Thank you for the great advice! I saw all the different fertilizers and was overwhelmed by them all, but now I feel much better. Seachem flourish complete it is!

Well, the thing about the light bulb is that the hood said to not use bulbs over 15 watts. But I do have another hood for a 5.5 that I believe can hold one of those long tube-like bulbs and I don't see anything about a watt maximum, so I'll keep your advice in mind when I use it, pittipuppylove!

[pittipuppylove]

They actually make the compact fluorescent bulbs rated at 6500K in lower wattages. All of mine are eithe 13-15W, too
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[majesticstorm]

Oh, thanks!