Dosing during Emersed stage: How & What do I do???

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jcardona1

jcardona1

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 5, 2007
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I will be starting to grow my HC emersed in my 55g as soon as it arrives, should be any day now. I was under the impression that you didnt need to add anything other than keep the substrate moist and turn the light on.

But after doing some reading yesterday, I saw that if youre using Aquasoil, then you dont need anything. I saw mention of using some sort of fertilization when using other substrates but I couldnt find some clear guidelines. I'm running Flourite mixed with gravel. So, my question is:

** What should I add to my HC while its growing emersed? This will have 216w of T5HO lighting. Also, I'll be dosing under the EI method with dry ferts once everythign is running. Ive read about using "NPK water". What is this? Could somebody please elaborate?

And this brings me to my next question:

** What is the dosing regime for newly established tanks? Should I just start following the regular dry dosing regime as soon as I fill the tank with water? The plant list will be HC and blyxa japonica.

Thx!
 
NPK is a term that stands for Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). Which are their chemical symbol. K is for potassium because of its latin name Kalium. NPK water is simply water that contails NPK.
 
for emersed you can use either water from another tank or use tap water with a few drops of seachem flourish or i have heard of people using merical grow or somthing similer and mixing .25 the amount of merical grow to the same amount of water so just super watered down. either way you do it you can put it in a mister bottle you get from the dollar stor and mist the plants daily or as needed
 
ok, thanks for the feedback.

So, can i just get some liquid fertilizer like MiracleGro that contains NPK, mix it 1 part fert to 4 parts water and mist the plants daily?

I'm a little worried about using plant fertilizers from the garden store. Is there stuff I should avoid? What should I look for? Keep in mind the HC will be grown in the tank, not a container, so will these fertizers affect anythign else when i fill the tank up with water??

thx!
 
im not sure if it will effect the tank itself but i know that people use miracle grow on there emersed plants that are out of the tank. it maybe safer to use used tank water and seing as how it is emersed the plants are going to draw the nutrients from the substrate and the air itself and you have plant substrate correct? so that should have most if not all the nutrients your plants need.

if you use used tank water just on your water change day fill up a good sized spray bottle and that whould last you a while i would think.
 
ok, i can try old tank water. i can take some out of my 210g. how about misting with a diluted Flourish product? Like regularo Flourish or Excel. any thoughts?
 
well when i did it in a tub i used flourish roughly one or two drops in a 32 oz mister and it worked plants doubled in about 2 weeks but excel would not be as helpful i would think because it is a carbon source and the plants can get alot of co2 out of the air.

if you have dry fertz for when the tank is fully set up you could always mix up a deluted solution of that as well but be sure it is deluted or it could burn the plants
 
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