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Re: Comparing Fertilizers



Hi Greg,

Thanks for explaining that to me, I've used all of those products in the
past and I'm trying to establish a fixed routine for adding fertilizers to
my tank, in the past 15 years I have always had low light tanks which other
than a little fertilizer in the substrate and perhaps a little liquid here
and there on rare occasions it was never necessary for me to understand
their requirements as much as I need to now with stronger lighting and
faster growth. Although I'm still trying to find the ideal doses for my
tanks my first obstacle was understanding the importance of controlling
algae by adding N and K (I have to thank Tom Barr for both his replies and
past posts he has made which were a huge help in understanding this). I'll
do as you suggest and try to look for any differences in growth both with
and without the extra trace elements.

I have another question perhaps you might be able to help with, can all of
these products be mixed together without any concerns? I plan on using a
liquid doser for daily doses (I'm not always home so daily dosing is
difficult manually) and would like to be able to use the one unit for all my
fertilizer needs.

Thanks again

Giancarlo Podio

--- Original Message ---

  a.. To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
  b.. Subject: Re: Comparing Fertilizers
  c.. From: Greg Morin <greg at seachem_com>
  d.. Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 09:31:41 -0500
  e.. In-reply-to: <200302221100.h1MB0UKv006194 at otter_actwin.com>
  f.. References: <200302221100.h1MB0UKv006194 at otter_actwin.com>

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>
>I know both TMG and PMDD have a good reputation so the first thing that
>comes to mind is what are all those other elements contained in Flourish
>for? Are they not required for plant growth or readily available in our tap
>waters and therefore not included in the other products? The values in the
>PMDD colum are not percentages of the total contents so I know they can't
>really be used to compare the products correctly but it looks like TMG and
>PMDD are quite similar except for Nitrogen, or at least they contain pretty
>much the same elements. Flourish on the other other hand has a little of
>everything.


The presence of these "extra" components in Flourish are based in
part on their common use in plant tissue culture media (sold for
research purposes) as well as a variety of research papers in the
plant tissue arena. This usage demonstrates that these components are
important on some level.

>
>My second question regarding Flourish and Flourish Trace, doesn't look like
>Trace has anything that Flourish doesn't, just a little extra CU and Zn. If
>someone is using Flourish would it be safe to say they do not need to use
>Flourish Trace as well?

Maybe. ;-) The components in Flourish Trace are just the trace
minerals which are commonly lost due to precipitation/oxidation and
utilization. This can sometimes occur more rapidly than the rate at
which the other (organic) components in Flourish are utilized, so in
some situations it may be beneficial to restore just those trace
minerals outside of the normal Flourish dosing routine. The best way
to find out is to use just Flourish for awhile, then start using
Flourish Trace with it for awhile. If you see an improvement continue
using both. If you see no change then you can likely safely
discontinue Flourish Trace usage. There are two many variables to
every system to accurately predict if usage is absolutely
essential... so a little experimentation here is the best test.

-Greg Morin
--

Gregory Morin, Ph.D.  ~~~~~~~Research Director~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seachem Laboratories, Inc.      www.seachem.com     888-SEACHEM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~