PMDD AND NEWBY PLANTED TANK OWNERS

[SAFFABOY]

Hey guys,

I've been reading all these threads about pmdd and the great results achieved.However as a fishkeeper who has never worried about plants,i'm now taking an interest.

I'm keen on having some real lush plants and am intersted in a cheap,diy answer to all these off the shelf plant fertilizers.

HOWEVER,I'm finding this whole pmdd recipe quite daunting.

Now dont shoot me if i'm totally mislead.Could you not buy a big liquid fertlizer for terestrial plants from a garden centre for use in the tank?

If the chemical elements are similar to that required for aquaria and pmdd,then shouldn't they work?

Would they harm the fish?

Surely chemicals are chemicals ,and if the pmdd requires a certain element and the terrestrial liquid fertilizer has it too -It wouldnt do any harm?

Ideas?

[Shilo]

Yes some of the commerical garden ferts work BUT: They have all got a large percentage of Nitrates and Phosphates added to them. These are already ambly supplied by the breakdown of fish poo. Once your plants have taken off then the "natural" Nitrates and Phosphates will be completely removed by the plants and adding more can only help. But until that stage you have to be very carefull of the natural levels before adding more with commercial ferts.

Copper is another element that could be overdosed. Some fish are'nt too happy with a large copper count.

When choosing commerical ferts, get one with the lowest Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Copper % listed on the back. Make sure the trace elements are in chelated form. Yates Lush Houseplant Food is the best I have found in the local stores - but we're pretty restricted with range.

Everything is a question of balance and how much you add will depend on the amount of plant life, light, C02, PH and existing "natural" levels. Experimenting is the name of the game - starting with the smallest amounts (5ml per week?).

WARNING Don't use a fert that doesn't have a analysis on the back! I decided to turn my low maintenance tank back into a lush one a month ago but didn't have the normal fertiliser handy so used general Tui brand one (no analysis on the back). Only added 2 teaspoons in the 180ltr tank but it was enough to kill 26 of my fish despite numerous emergency 75% waterchanges as soon as they started to look stressed. Nitrogen, Phosphates, PH, Hardness etc were all within acceptable limits so can only assume there was some chemical in the ferts that poisoned them.

Removing the fish into another container without the tank water didn't help. With only 4 Krib's left I have decided to turn the tank into a NZ Biotope so all is not lost, but knowing you have poisoned your fish is not the greatest of feelings