# Help dosing plants with seachem products



## anshuman (Nov 17, 2009)

I am going to setup 46 gallon tall Planted fishtank, I have 2 goldfish waiting to move into this tank but i want to get everything i need beforehand So i dont mess it up when moving.

YouTube - Update vid Goldfish planted tank Feb 17 2010 

Thats my tank 29 gallon. Everything in there will be moved to tall 46 G.

Plants are Water wistera, Cabomba carolina, some dwarf-sag (testing) and marimo balls, Javamoss is tied to decoration, I want to carpet my 46 G with riccia too (will be tied up to mesh, dont worry) 

My goldies are used to blanched greens and they use plants to dash on Only during spawning and laying eggs.
*
Now i want your guide on dosing Seachem products here, What should i order? NPK ? and Flourish?* 

I already dose this 29 G tank with Excel and going to add DiyCo2 too to 46 G.

kindly guide.

Thanks for reading this.


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## N8thanExpl0sion (Feb 2, 2010)

Seachem has a Planted Aquarium Dosing Chart.
www.seachem.com/support/PlantDoseChart.pdf 

There are a lot of listed chemicals here so I am not sure how crazy you want to go with this. I follow it and it has been working out fine for me


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## bradac56 (Feb 18, 2008)

Yes you'll need Flourish, Flourish Nitrogen, Flourish Potassium, Flourish Phosphorus, and Flourish Excel for starters possibly Flourish Iron as well depending on your plants if you see Fe deficiency in a few months.

Left_C has a very nice spreadsheet that will help you set up your dosing regiments with here or on APC.

- Brad


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## anshuman (Nov 17, 2009)

Thanks N8thanExpl0sion , Awesome link, going to check.

Thanks bradac56 , I did get that link in google search, will check again, I just wanted some sage advice from someone who has crossed this road .


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## flyboy320 (Feb 5, 2010)

Here is a link to Left_C's excel program

"*This is for the people using Seachem's Flourish line of products. It's a Microsoft Office Excel based Seachem Dosing Calculator/Chart that is based on the following dosing schedule. It calculates the formula out to 4 decimal places and then rounds them to one decimal place. It uses US gallons for it's calculations.*"

The only thing I don't get with seachem is that it seems most people think you should dose around 0.2 - 2.0 Phosphate. If you use Seachem's dosing chart, you only get about 1/10th of that, around 0.15ppm


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## bradac56 (Feb 18, 2008)

Yep Seachem doses very lean unlike the EI or PPS system of diy ferts.

- Brad


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## flyboy320 (Feb 5, 2010)

bradac56 said:


> Yep Seachem doses very lean unlike the EI or PPS system of diy ferts.
> 
> - Brad


Ya it seems the phosphorus is out by a factor of 10, but the nitrogen and potassium is about right though......

phosphate recommended amount : 0.2 - 2.0 (seachems dosing gives 0.15)
nitrogen recommended amount : 5 - 30 (seachems dosing gives 2.5)
potassium recommended amount : 10 - 30 (seachems dosing gives 4)


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## anshuman (Nov 17, 2009)

Thanks for direct link there flyboy320 , downloaded that sheet. Looks totally neat .



bradac56 said:


> Yep Seachem doses very lean unlike the EI or PPS system of diy ferts.
> 
> - Brad


Thanks for bringing that point out Brad, someone has suggested me earlier to go Dry-Fert path, EI method, what is different and difficult or easy about this method as compared to Seachem Excel.

I am not that concerned about cost of seachem because its just 46 G tank and I raised this goldies for past 3 years and I dont mind seeing them enjoy the awesomest planted tank  (i dont mind them trying to destroy too but they rarely do it, just nudge plants around if they are in their path etc.)


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## anshuman (Nov 17, 2009)

BTW i just went through this too > http://www.ukaps.org/EI.htm


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## bradac56 (Feb 18, 2008)

It's really a cost factor diy dry powders is just as easy if not more so than dosing liquides but saves a ton of money long term. You will buy three or four bottles of each in a year while I use less than one bag a year on the same tank. I have allot of tanks so for me diy dry is a better option but for one tank Seachem or pfertz.com (I like pfertz better) gives the same results.

The nice thing with EI is that it becomes just another part of your feeding habits you don't check water parameters since your doing a 50% water change weekly and you never have to worry about having just enough ferts, you always have a little bit to much (which is a good thing).

- Brad


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## Left C (Nov 15, 2003)

flyboy320 said:


> ... The only thing I don't get with seachem is that it seems most people think you should dose around 0.2 - 2.0 Phosphate. If you use Seachem's dosing chart, you only get about 1/10th of that, around 0.15ppm


Seachem came out with their line and their dosing recommendations back in the day when dosing phosphate was claimed to cause algae. Hence the lean dosing on this product especially.


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## comatoast (Mar 11, 2009)

Don't want to hijack here, but I just started using Flourish Iron- I suspected a deficiency because my pinks and reds were pale or even green. I'm seeing improvement in coloring, so that's good, but now I apparently need to start testing for iron because there is no standard dose, just standard "concentrations." IME, testing is a real PITA I would like to avoid- is there a big problem if I overdo the Flourish Iron a bit?


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## bradac56 (Feb 18, 2008)

Nope you'll be fine as long as you don't dump the whole bottle in at once. I don't test for Fe and I know I overdose a bit, just stay in the ballpark.

- Brad


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## flyboy320 (Feb 5, 2010)

comatoast said:


> Don't want to hijack here, but I just started using Flourish Iron- I suspected a deficiency because my pinks and reds were pale or even green. I'm seeing improvement in coloring, so that's good, but now I apparently need to start testing for iron because there is no standard dose, just standard "concentrations." IME, testing is a real PITA I would like to avoid- is there a big problem if I overdo the Flourish Iron a bit?


I asked a similar question at Seachem's web site about dosing iron;


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## anshuman (Nov 17, 2009)

@flyboy320 , I just read that post on seachem , which lead me to this following links.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Flourish.html

http://www.seachem.com/Library/Articles/How_to_Make_Plants_Flourish.pdf

http://www.seachem.com/Library/Articles/General_Chemistry_of_the_Planted_Aquarium.pdf

lolz, so in all, everything i wanted to ask is on Seachem in pdf's hah. reading them now.


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