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re: hard water plants
Mr. Miller,
I checked again for NO3, results are 0ppm.
My test kit isn't great though, I am ordering a better NO3 kit along with a
phosphorus kit, something is better than no kit at all I guess.
I assumed having phosphates because I have increased fish load over the
last weeks to a moderate level and tried not to underfeed flake food, which
is a habit of mine. Not sure what the deal is with as much food as the fish
can eat in 3 or 5 minutes, if mine do not eat the food in 30 seconds or less
I believe I am overfeeding, you think?
I do have a couple Jobe's in, couple under chain sword, amazon and Nymphaea
Stellata. These plants are doing ok, but not healthy and pearling the way
they should. The Jobe's are only 13-4-3 though, or something like, may not
be able to get their fill on anything but N with those.
BTW, I can get some Flora Care Plant Gro, is that Hagen?
Thanks,
Chris
Mr. Miller wrote:
With very hard water it may not be reasonable to assume that you haveP.
Phosphate can very quickly fall out of solution in hard water. As
Tompointed
out there aren't any commonly diagnostic symptoms for a shortageof
phosphorus;
it just acts like a generic "nutrient problem". Aphosphate shortage
is especially likely if you're already fertilizingwith other
macronutrients.To
make problems worse, inexpensive phosphate test kits (and evenexpensive
ones)
can misbehave badly. All-in-all, the best way to testfor a phosphate
shortage
might be to add some and see what happens. When I first fertilized with
phosphate the difference was evident inhours.The only aquarium fertilizer I
know
of that provides phosphate isHagen's PlantGro, which is widely available but
not
cheap. You can alsouse phosphate buffers, but they are concentrated enough
that
smallslip-ups can become big overdoses. Jobes plant spikes also provide
phosphate, and you can use those to treat specific plants. The reactionfrom
plant spikes isn't usually immediate.Roger Miller