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Re: Plant Food
> From: crom at cris_com (Crom)
>
> 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"
>
> 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. =20
For heavy feeders like Crypts or Echinodorus, I'd give each one
a stick for themselves. Wells since Crypts are often growing close
together, maybe a half stick for the large ones and a quarter for
smaller ones. It really makes em grow!
> Tell me what the plant food spikes are missing? They looked pretty
> good to my inexperienced eye...
Looks pretty good indeed. You might want to add chelated iron although
your soil substrate should supply a fair amount of Fe.
I've used Jobe's Plant Stix but yours also seems to have a lot
of micronutrients. What's your water like? Does it have calcium?
Steve