Dosing the Planted Aquarium With Dry Fertilizers

If you are new to the planted aquarium hobby, most likely you have come across or have purchased an array of commercial liquid plant fertilizers. Although these products may provide your plants with the nutrients and minerals they need to grow, you will soon find that this will become an expensive endeavor. Due to the ease of use and growth results of using these commercial liquid fertilizers, there are some enthusiasts, who don’t take the costs of these products into consideration. On the other hand, an enthusiast like me will strive to find cheaper alternatives that keep costs down and at the same time provide aquarium plants a source of nutrients they need to properly grow. After realizing that using these commercial products started becoming expensive, I found a cheaper alternative and that was to start dosing with dry fertilizers. Continue reading

Common Signs of Plant Deficiencies

It is no fun to have a planted aquarium where the plants are not growing healthy and happy. Therefore, it is important that we maintain good quality water and fertilize our aquarium to give the plants the proper nutrients they need to grow. However, there may be some instances where even though we fertilize and give our plants the food they need, we can run into plants showing deficiencies due to over dosing or under dosing. Below is a simple diagram that lists some of the common signs of plant deficiencies that you may see in your own planted aquarium. Please note that this diagram does not cover all signs of plant deficiencies, but rather the more common ones.