Guys, today we are going to have a deep dive into the nutrients that the plants require in our nature aquarium or planted aquarium and we are also going to look at a new brand of fertilizer which has come to the Indian market, its master line from Romania.
For any advanced hobbyist, what I am going to discuss in next probably 4 to 5 minutes may not be new information but for those who are new into this hobby or at intermediary level , this article is going to help a long way.
What are the broad categories for fertilizers? #
Basically, we can divide the kind of nutrients or the elements that the plants require into 2. First one is macro elements and the next category is microelements. Macro is nothing but a few sets of elements that we require in larger quantities. Micro, on the other hand, comprises a lot of elements, each one required in smaller quantities. This is macro and micro.
What are Macro Elements? #
Everybody talks about macro elements and popularly they say that we need N P and K which is nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. We also need many other elements which come under macro elements, which are those things that we need in larger quantities. To give an example, inside macro elements we also need to consider things like carbon and magnesium, sulphur and calcium. So to sum up, under macro elements we need to dose nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and sulphur, and then carbon. So how are we making sure carbon is available inside our planted aquarium for our plants? It’s nothing new. We all know that we are injecting carbon dioxide inside the tank. So, that is going to take care of the carbon requirement. And then comes the popular one, NPK. We all know every fertilizer brand has this NPK. But there are few brands which have recognized the importance of magnesium also into these macro elements inside that Sulphur deficiency is really rare.
What are Micro Elements? #
Then talking about micro elements– like I said, micro elements are nothing but a lot of elements but each one of them is required in a smaller quantity. It’s also called trace elements. We are talking about iron, boron, zinc, manganese, nickel, copper, strontium and boron.
Do remember a limitation of one nutrient will affect the absorption of others by the plants.
The immediate question is what amount of these macro elements we should be keeping inside our tank. You know, to make sure that our plants grow very well::
- carbon first, we have to maintain a carbon measure of 10 to 20 PPM.
- Then nitrogen should be 5 to 10 PPM,
- Phosphorus 0.1 to 1 PPM
- Potassium. We have to make sure it’s 5 to 20 PPM,
- magnesium 2 to 5 PPM,
- calcium 20 to 30.
- And like I said, sulphur deficiency is very rare.
We do have many brands of fertilizers available in the market also, many advanced hobbyists will go for their own mix of fertilizers. Both the methods are equally good if you’re an advanced user, and if you know how to mix up your salts. I mean, I would encourage you to do that, but however, many times we all fail at that, and I personally think that it’s better to go for some experts or some company who has made sure that all these components are available in the liquid and we can go for that. And especially if you are a hobbyist who is just starting up, make sure that you select the best available fertilizer in the market.
