Who's fertilizing?

[Red Firefish]

Hi everyone. I've found that to keep my plant tank growing, I've had to fertilize my entire system. Nitrates and Phosphates both read at undetectible levels (tested with Salifert kits) when I test, so I've been adding Potassium Phosphate and Potassium Nitrate to my system to accomodate the algal growth.

How does everyone else supplement nutrients to encourage plant growth in their plant tanks?

 

[graveyardworm]

I dont dose phosphates, I figure they get that from fish feeding which is pretty heavy in my case. For nitrates I dose with a solution of KNO3, and try to maintain about 5 ppm.

 

[cabin]

I don't dose anything but iron and get slow growth of macros.

 

[Red Firefish]

So do you guys test for nitrate and phosphate regularly? Are these limiting factors for you? Also, do you keep any corals in with your plants?

Cabin- are you also testing for iron?

My setup does serve as a refugium to my coral reef tank, but it's visible too. So I want to encourage as much macro growth as possible to be aesthetically interesting. This is why I try to walk the line between low NO3 and PO4 content and absolute nutrient limitation.

 

[cabin]

I do test for nitrate and phosphate. I use phosphate remover to keep that under control. Lack of nitrate may be limiting my macro growth, as I never can detect any with my test kit. I'm intrigued by supplementing nitrate, but have never tried it. I don't test for iron.