Plant Food

• To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
• Subject: Plant Food
• From: crom at cris_com (Crom)
• Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 19:28:13 GMT

I'm setting up a tank using the methods described in Jim Kelly's
article "How to Grow Beautiful Aquarium Plants on a Student Budget"
(found in the archives).  My substrate is vermiculite and top soil,
covered by a layer (about 3/4") of coarse sand.  The CO2 injection
should go in today.  :)

The question I have is about plant food.  I'd like a few people's
thoughts on the plant food I chose.  I couldn't find anything else
even close to what Jim mentioned in his article.  What I'm using is
Miracle-Gro 6-12-6 plant food spikes.  Here's the breakdown:

Total Nitrogen(N):  6%
	Water Soluble Organic Nitrogen:  3.08%
	Urea Nitrogen:  0.75%
	Water Insoluble Nitrogen:  2.17%
Available Phosphoric Acid(P2O5):  12%
Soluble Potash(K2O):  6%
Magnesium(Mg), water soluble:  0.50%
Boron(B):  0.02%
Copper(Cu)(Chelated):  0.05%
Iron(Fe)(Chelated):  0.15%
Manganese(Mn), water soluble:  0.05%
Zinc(Zn)(Chelated):  0.05%

Each of the spikes is about 1g.  The aquarium is a 20H (24"x12" base).
I broke 5 of the spikes into quarters, and pushed them at somewhat
regular intervals way down into the substrate layer.  

I'm also using Tetra's FloraPride.  Can anyone recommend me dosages?
Tell me what the plant food spikes are missing?  They looked pretty
good to my inexperienced eye...

Thanks much,
Brian T. Forsythe

• Prev: Experiences so far with Flourish
• Next: Re: K2O, KCl
• Index: Aquatic-Plants Mailing List