In laymans terms, please.

All I am after is something to help my plants along a bit, and am not particularly bothered about wiping out my current crop af algae.

Ta.

Flourish is a general alround fertiliser, and floursih excell is a carbon supplement.

So can you just use Excel as a fertiliser, or is that overkill?

It's the only Seachem fertiliser that I can find locally.

So what is best for planted tank.

Of these two mentioned - I consider Flourish to be the better general choice for planted tanks. I use Flourish regularly in my planted tanks, I personally only use Flourish Excel when I want to get rid of black beard algae.

What other products are available out there for general ferts?

Some more info here would be nice, what about JBL balls as a slow release root fertiliser.

Any more prefered brands / types here?

I can't officially say 'this is best because' but I don't like the JBL balls. I used them in my planted tank when I first set it up along with DIY CO2 and (in the end) 5x4' T8 6500K fluoro. I dont like them at all because I had no control, after a thread algae outbreak I just broke down the entire tank. I removed all the JBL fert, and the build up of fish excrement.

Now I've switched to Flourish, I put in 1mL once a week with the same lighting and I've actually disconnected the CO2 at the moment, and plant growth is substaintially better than it was before hand.

Flourish looks expensive but you only use 1mL per 200L once a week. One small bottle will last you a long time and it has a little measuring tool in the bottle (very handy).

Because you have manual control, if there is an inbalance in the aquarium you can discontinue use or add more or add less rather than having to strip your entire aquarium bed.

I also tried 'Leaf Zone' but that didn't really do much. It did help a few plants with yellow leaves go green again but I didn't see any special growth. You also use more per 200L per dose, and it very slightly discolours the water (although not really that noticable).

Flourish Excel is a carbon supplement, (not a fertiliser) so the effects are similar to CO2 injection, and shouldn't be used as a general fert. Its fairly expensive to use as the dosage is quite high and a lot more regular.

You can also get Floruish Iron etc

SO, like I said, I'm not a pro, but Flourish is working very well for me and I'm very happy with the results. When I put the DIY CO2 back in, I hope to see it 'flourish' if you will :lol:

mix ur own its extremely cheap to do so.

I can't officially say 'this is best because' but I don't like the JBL balls. I used them in my planted tank when I first set it up along with DIY CO2 and (in the end) 5x4' T8 6500K fluoro. I dont like them at all because I had no control, after a thread algae outbreak I just broke down the entire tank. I removed all the JBL fert, and the build up of fish excrement.

Hmm i think that was my prob too, to many fert balls, finally removed alot of them and am starting to get my thread algae under control

you can use flora root as a substrate fert (its made by red sea). I dose with fourish and flourish iron. (Wunder also makes dosage fert which i have used in the past instead of flourish)