Plant Dosing?

For all aquarium plants, we recommend dosing with Flourish, Flourish Excel & Flourish Iron at the bare minimum. This is all you need, in addition to suitable lighting, for beginner plants. Some beginner plants would be like Bacopa, Wisteria, Water Sprite, Swords, Anubias, Java Moss/Fern and most stem plants that are solid green (we explain why later). It is also important to note that if you are CO2 injecting your aquarium, it is not necessary for you to dose with Flourish Excel (this is a supplement for CO2, which we highly recommend to the novice hobbyist).

A Little Deeper Into What They Do...

Flourish is essentially plant food. It contains the basic macro and micro nutrients that plants need to maintain life in your home aquarium. For most aquariums, once a week is suitable for dosing with Flourish. Next is Flourish Excel. It is a comprehensive CO2 supplement, meaning that it allows your plants to 'breathe'. This should be dosed at least every other day to provide your plants with enough carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis. Next, is Flourish Iron. This additive should be dosed at least once a week and its primary goal is to provide your plants with the iron they need to grow and root deeper into your substrate. Without iron, your plants will disintegrate and discolor.

More Advanced Plants...

As a rule of thumb, any plant that is not solid green, is going to require some extra work and additional dosing to keep them alive. More advanced plant examples include Bruce, Rotala macarandra, Limnophila, Ammannia, Ludwigia and any other red/pink/purple plants. Some will need higher lighting, or softer/harder water. It isn't just dependent on the nutrients, so always do the research if you are trying to grow some of the more challenging plants. For the dosing, there are a lot of different brands out there for macro and micro nutrients to add to your aquarium for your plants (some will even be a cocktail of the specific nutrients I am about to explain to you, so read the labels)! The primary fertilizers required are the three macro nutrients that are essential for these plants; Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Potassium. All three of these should be used in junction with Flourish, Flourish Excel and Flourish Iron. These three fertilizers prevent the most common nutrient deficiencies in aquarium plants. You can reference the image to the right for these deficiencies and how to identify them. Always follow the directions on the back of the bottle of the product you are dosing with. Each brand has different concentrations of each chemical and will require you to dose with different quantities. Lighting was also mentioned as being an important factor when working with aquarium plants. Depending on which specific plant you are trying to grow, will depend on the lighting you should use.

This is a general overview into keeping and growing live plants in your aquarium. For more information, please come in and chat with our staff members. They will be happy to assist you in picking out plants.