Seachem products

[jerzeepunk79]

Background info: 10 gallon tank with flourite substrate and two 20 watt mini compact fluorescent bulbs. I'm not 100% sure on what plants/fish I will be putting in the tank (it hasn't cycled yet). I plan on using Flourish excel.

Will I need to use any additional Seachem products:
-Flourish
-Flourish Iron
-Flourish Nitrogen
-Flourish Phosphorous
-Flourish Potassium
-Flourish Trace

Thanks!

 

[jerzeepunk79]

I guess this was already answered in another thread: http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/aquatic-plants/55309-planted-tank-walkthrough-v-1-0-a.html

I wasn't sure if all are necessary.

 

[ishar]

to start I am glad to see you looking at stickies .

Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium are equally if not more important than Excel. I have never experienced a great increase in growth with excel and I have not heard of many success stories (no great failures either) but your plants will need the macronutrients (the three mentioned earlier) as long as they are getting the right light. Your wattage is very high, but it might be useless if the wavelength produced is not tuned to a plants needs.

Sorry. I have a lot of homework to do, so hopefully someone else can come here and pick up where I am leaving off or say how wrong I am

 

[jerzeepunk79]

I'm planning on using the Excel in place of CO2 injection (I don't want to experiment with that right now).

Just to clarify: I'm using two 20 watt Coralife Colormax [http://www.aquariumguys.com/minicompact2.html].

I appreciate your input!

 

[Matt Nace]

You may not need all of the products at first, maybe if you plant lighter, may not need all of them.

The Flourish is ok to start with.It contains an assortment of macro and micro nutrients. Types of plants and how many you place will work into what you need. Some require more of one nutrient then others.If you go heavy planted in the 10, you will need to add trace and other elements back in. That is if your carbon source is enough. IME, higher lighting and not enough carbon leads to plants not growing properly.

Your lighting seems ok.

Let us know how the excel works, as I am debating testing it on a 10 gallon setup myself.

Here is a chart to refer to for plant needs..there are others around and some sights/books have actual pics of the problem and which nutrient you need to add more of.


http://www.seachem.com/support/FlourishConstituents_Deficency.pdf

Dont forget your algae crew if you have not looked into that. I will probebly go with ottos and Shrimp in my 10.

Hope that was helpful.

 

[jerzeepunk79]

I'm not really looking to go heavy on the planting, so I will definitely start with the Flourish. I'll use the deficiency chart as a guide.... and I'll add the others if necessary.

As for the algae crew... I'll go with some cherry or ghost shrimp. Will 1 or 2 be ok? I know 10 gallons is small, so I also need to consider the fish/bioload.

Thanks!

 

[jerzeepunk79]

Let us know how the excel works, as I am debating testing it on a 10 gallon setup myself.

I've had my plants for about a week now, and I've been using:
Flourish
Iron
Excel
Nitrogen
Phosphorous
Potassium
Trace

I've been following Seachem's dosing schedule for a 10g. The plants are starting to look really good, so I guess the excel is doing the trick.

 

[ishar]

Glad to hear it . Hope they keep doing so. Let us know if you ever have anything else to figure out .

On a side note, I would start looking into dry ferts if I were you. You will save yourself a TON of money over dosing Seachem. Seachem is GREAT for starting out getting a fert routine, but I would recommended looking into dry ferts for sure.