wes wrote:
Hi,
I have seachem's "flourish", but I've been reluctant to use it very
much. Will it increase the hardness of my water significantly? I'm
preparing to add discus to this tank... after my R/O unit arrives. I'm
going to need good suggestions for a mineral balance which will work
for the discus and for the plants, I guess.... walking a fine line,
especially if I want the Discus to breed.

-Wes

According to http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm leaf
curling is a sign of calcium or possibly boron deficiency. Remember,
you must have adequate nutrients in the water column to grow plants and
Ca++ and Mg++ are essential minerals. If you are certain there is
adequate Ca++ from your tap water, consider Flourish or Kent trace
elements, iron, and potash (K) rather than the plain Flourish shotgun
approach. There are inexpensive ingredients for rolling your own
fertilizers at http://www.gregwatson.com if you want fine control.

Here's Tom Barr's article on setting KH and GH in planted tanks
http://www.sfbaaps.com/reference/barr_02_01.shtml and an excellent
article by George and Karla Booth on planted discus tanks
http://aquaticconcepts.thekrib.com/A...PAM_Discus.htm. Both agree
that 2dGH and 3-4dKH is the lowest acceptable hardness for planted
tanks. Tom likes Seachem Equilibrium to set hardness for RO water, but
it does have some unnecessary Cl- and Na+ that you could partly avoid by
using CaC03 and epsom salts (MgS04) to set the GH.

The Booths also make a lot of points about temperature, choice of
plants, and maintenance. I used their article to alter my own planted
tank when I was given a discus for my birthday. The discus and most of
the plants are doing fine - I lost some Sagittaria to the high temps,
but that was the only casualty. (knock wood)

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com