[SweetNightmare]

My tank is currently entirely planted. No fake plants at all. Now that I have my lighting sorted out, all my plants I had already are thriving and I even had to snip back my moneywort and anacharis, making a new bunch of plants to fill my tank. Today, I brought home some clippings of chain swords and amazon swords, just babies our ones at work had grown. I took home some of the substrate tabs we had at work, AquariumPlants.com brand. I put it in the substrate near the swords, and I'm dosing with API LeafZone. When I run out, I'm going to try Tetra FloraPride. For my stem feeding plants.

My question is what do y'all think of this set up? Should I do anything else for the swords? I can't afford a CO2 diffuser, will they be okay without it? Whatever tablets I end up buying, I want to be as cost effective as possible. Any you would recommend?

 

[ao]

I think if you have enough livestock in the tank, and good lighting you will never need to fertilize. You don't seem to have any picky plants in there anyway

 

[ZergyMonster]

I pretty much stopped using fertalizers because I am constantly dealing with brown hair algae. I switched to lower wattage bulbs and still have the issue.

Having 6500k bulbs and livestock in the tank is enough food for any plant to thrive.

 

[SweetNightmare]

Oh? I'd heard that swords are really picky about having ferts. Thanks for the help. I'll let everyone know how the new plants do. I hope they grow fast, the unevenness of my tank is bugging me, haha.

 

[Bombalurina]

I tried TetraFloraPride and it didn't do much for me - I had better luck with Seachem Flourish. They do root tabs, too. That's if you want ferts, anyway.

 

[SweetNightmare]

Doesn't flourish melt certain plants though?

 

[ZergyMonster]

I've used flourish and never had an issue. I have Amazon swords, anacharis,java ferns, anubias, red ludwigia, flame moss, duckweed, crypts, water primrose and dwarf hair grass.

 

[teeneythebetta]

I tried TetraFloraPride and it didn't do much for me - I had better luck with Seachem Flourish. They do root tabs, too. That's if you want ferts, anyway.

Ooh great to hear! I bought flourish today at petsmart- I had no idea how well it would work so hearing this makes me feel confident! I just fully planted my aquarium.

 

[Bombalurina]

Flourish Excel (the liquid carbon supplement) can melt some plants - anacharis being a notable example - but Flourish itself is fine.