What fertilizer to use?

[eddyq]

Hi,

Q1 What excatly is a basic fertilizer one needs to dose for a planted tank?
Let say he has base fert, CO2, strong lights what else is needed for the water column (most needed for leaves).

Q2 What are traces/Macros/Micros?

Thanks alots.

[Plantbrain]

Generally:

KNO3
KH2PO4
Traces: Tropica Master grow

GH:

CaCl2 or CaSO4
MgSO4

That's it.

For KH: baking soda.

This is cheap and effective.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[valice]

To answer more to that,
NO3, PO4 and K are macro nutrients, meaning they are needed in relatively larger amounts by the plants as it is the building blocks of plants in addition to carbon from your CO2...

Traces are micro nutrients like Iron, Manganese, Boron, blah blah blah... Which abit is enough... Don't have, also okay as the fish food sometimes will contain these stuff and hence fish droppings will contain them too...

[eddyq]

Thanks, Tom & Vincent for the clarity.

So macros are most needed and traces secondary.

Here one need to know what is useful for the plants and what not.