ferts in hard water?

[Bettaboiii]

So where i live i have Incredibly hard water since we get it from the lake in my city. the fish do Great in it and i'm very lucky to live in the same sewer district as my fave lfs so our water is Identical. plants are doing well too, but i'd love to give them a boost. However i really don't know how to approach fertilizing with hard water... i feel like it would mess with the water chemistry and depending on whats already in the water, it may even end up overdosing something. of course i may be over thinking this cause i haven't really seen anything either way, i just am nervous since most people talk about 

[Biotope Biologist]

Iron solubility will certainly be an issue in hard water but your nitrogen, phosphates, and potassium shouldn't have much of an issue. From what I understand people use RO water to mix their iron into their tanks.

 

I tried to find a graph of different solutes and solubility within dgH but could only find temperature and pH comparisons.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Biotope Biologist

[lefty o]

pick your fertilizer (easy green is the resident product on this site), and start dosing lightly, and sneak up on it. start at maybe half or even 1/4 the recommended dose and increase til you are happy with results.

[Mmiller2001]

Get DTPA fertilizer or a combo EDTA+DTPA

[GameCzar]

Im using easy green every other week or so in ours. If the nitrates are high I skip it.   I'm not a plant guru by any means, but ours do okay!

[Bettaboiii]

thank you all for the suggestions! @lefty o i live in Canada and thus no easy green for me 😞 amazon is all out and it says we don't know when it will be back. I have seen both Thrive+ by NilocG and seachem flourish in stores alongside other products i Never hear mentioned so figure they're bung... any opinions on which one to use instead?

[Mmiller2001]

Thrive is excellent, I use it in my low tech tanks.

[Jungle Fan]

If you can't get Easy Green in Canada then NilocG Thrive is the way to go, if you have shrimp too get the S version.

[Seattle_Aquarist]

On 7/23/2021 at 7:32 AM, Bettaboiii said:

So where i live i have Incredibly hard water since we get it from the lake in my city. the fish do Great in it and i'm very lucky to live in the same sewer district as my fave lfs so our water is Identical. plants are doing well too, but i'd love to give them a boost. However i really don't know how to approach fertilizing with hard water... i feel like it would mess with the water chemistry and depending on whats already in the water, it may even end up overdosing something. of course i may be over thinking this cause i haven't really seen anything either way, i just am nervous since most people talk about 

Hi @Bettaboiii

Hardness isn't as much an issue as pH.  The various macro and micro nutrients become less available to plants at the high and low pH levels.  This may help.