# Balancing plant load and fish load



## Frogmanx82 (Dec 8, 2009)

You should look at the sticky. Some plants are not low light tolerant. If you buy the plants on the list you should do OK.

So you basically have cryptocoryne, anubias, java fern, java moss, hygrophila, rotala, and vallisnaria. There are a few others, but these are the mainstays.

I'm doing a medium tech tank and adding some flourish excel. That opens up a few more plants.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

Balance is so complex that no matter how much research you do you will still end up looking at the plants and fish to know how you stand. 

Here is how I would approach it:
Substrate can provide some nutrients. Look into soil substrates, mineralized soils, and similar, and look into fertilizer tablets or other nutrient additives. Avoid sands, gravels and similar coarse materials. 
If there are too few plants they will not balance the fish load. Plant enough plants that you cannot see the back of the tank. Use plants from the lists that relate to how much light you can provide. 
Add CO2 if you want faster growing plants, or can provide more light. Fish cannot provide all the CO2 needed by fast growing plants. Somewhere between 1-2 watts per gallon the plants will need additional CO2. 
Additional fertilizers (Macros, micros) if the substrate, tap water and fish food are not supplying enough. Fish food can provide lots of N, a fair amount of P, quite a long list of traces, but is often lacking in K and Fe. Substrate can provide Fe. Many plants prefer leaf uptake of K. 

Fish load: The old 1" of fish per gallon of water is still not too bad a baseline. Remember, this only applies to small fish (< 2"), and relates to biological needs: oxygen, and waste handling. Research the fish for temperature, water chemistry and social needs.


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## alang (Nov 25, 2007)

Diana said:


> Balance is so complex that no matter how much research you do *you will still end up looking at the plants and fish to know how you stand.*


Ok, this is what I am asking about (see bold above). Where can I find out _What to look for_? 

I understand about the relationship between nutrients , substrates, CO2, etc.

I am planning MTS, just under 2w per gallon, injected CO2 (maybe. I have the equipment from my high tech tank, seems a waste not to use it). 

From my research, with this setup, I won't need to dose right away, but eventually a little K (especially with CO2 accelerating the usage of nutrients). 

Problem is how do I know when to start dosing? Everyone says "the plants will tell you", but how? Do they turn brown, melt, stop growing...? Plants will react differently to deficiencies and/or overabundance of the various nutrients they need. My real question is *how* do they react?

I am seeking a list of symptoms and what they mean...

i.e. - Leaves are melting - there is to much/little _something_
Holes in leaves - need to add _something_

Thanks for the info you all provided it is great, and supports the hours of research I have been doing. People here are so good and sharing what they know. But the above responses don't really provide an answer to the original question.

I know the Tom Barrs of this world can simply glance at a tank and say "This needs more _blah_ or you've got too much _blah_. That is the kind of info I am woefully lacking.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

Fish gasping at the surface = too little O2 in the water. This can be especially bad if you run pressurized CO2 all night. 

Plants that show deficiencies will look poor, grow slow, have yellow or pale green growth instead of rich greens and reds. Each deficiency looks a little different, but deficiencies can be complex to diagnose for several reasons. An overabundance of some nutrients will cause the plant to not be able to make use of some other nutrient, so it looks like a deficiency. This is where starting with something close to a balance will probably be the best; unless there is something you have not tested, there will likely not be such an overabundance that it causes something like this. 

Look at pictures of plants with deficiencies. 
Are the deficiencies in the new growth or the old? 
Are the deficiencies showing up on just part of a leaf? Discolored edge, or spots in the middle? Green veins, but yellow in between? 
Are the leave misshapen? Distorted? Puckered? 
Each of these questions are guides to figuring out what might be going on with the nutrients the plants need. 
Potassium deficiency mostly shows up as dark spots on the leaves that rot and fall out. 

Each planted aquarium site has links to plant deficiency pictures and descriptions. I do not know where they all are. Do a search with the word deficiency pictures and see what comes up.

Here is one. 
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/browseimages.php?c=12&userid=&t=


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