Water changes and fertilizer

[zpayne10]

Do most people add fertilizer after a water change? I'm specifically curious for those with new tanks, if you're doing water changes a few times a week to try and prevent excess nutrients, do you add a few pumps of fertilizer afterwards?

The 'right' answer is probably to test you nitrates after each water change and determine if you're within a desired range or not, but maybe there is a faster/better answer.

[Scapexghost]

Basically the water your removing has the wrong ratio of neutrients, while the ferts have the right ratio of neutrients.

People could probably get away with change water less and dosing ferts less, but its easier to just change water and dose ferts every couple weeks for most ppl.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I change water and dose ferts immediately after every week. Works for me. 

[Ninjoma]

I change water and dose immediately after in established tanks. In tanks that are still cycling so I am changing water every day I would either, test a lot so I can dose the right amount, or just stick to the normal schedule and accept that I am probably underdosing.

[nabokovfan87]

I started waiting 24 hours to avoid any weird interactions with dechlorinators.  I'm dosing 2x dose on dechlor (prime) and don't want it to do anything wonky with the minerals being dosed in, iron and so forth.

[Tanked]

I also test the water and add ferts the day after the water change  This insures that all of the old and new water has blended in the substrate as well as the water column.

[knee]

I change water every Sunday and would dose ferts on that same day but when the lights turn off. I have always done this and it's worked out well for me.

[Lennie]

I have always been dosing ferts right after changing water. Equilibrium (cause 0 gh tap water) + ferts I am using. I am currently using tropica's premium nutrition, which has trace elements and K. So no N or P.

I personally don't understand why we need to dose N and P if we have live creatures and we constantly feed commercial food to the tank, as long as we don't have a high tech setup where we have huge growth with co2, super good substrate and lights.

I feel like extra N and P dosage works on the side of the algae team. I really don't know. 

I would love to hear about opinions on this one.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Lennie

[procyg]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:34 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I started waiting 24 hours to avoid any weird interactions with dechlorinators.  I'm dosing 2x dose on dechlor (prime) and don't want it to do anything wonky with the minerals being dosed in, iron and so forth.

I had always read to wait 24 hours especially with iron supplements after dosing prime or other dechlorinators to ensure maximum effectiveness.  Although i have never really noticed a difference.  

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/7/2023 at 12:46 PM, procyg said:

I had always read to wait 24 hours especially with iron supplements after dosing prime or other dechlorinators to ensure maximum effectiveness.  Although i have never really noticed a difference.  

Yeah, exactly. Same here. Doing a little bit of research on the topic it's difficult to say whether it'll help or do anything. I changed the method just for the sake of it won't hurt, why not take the extra effort.

[Lennie]

On 3/7/2023 at 11:51 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Yeah, exactly. Same here. Doing a little bit of research on the topic it's difficult to say whether it'll help or do anything. I changed the method just for the sake of it won't hurt, why not take the extra effort.

But you kinda leave the tank without nutrition for a whole day by taking out majority of nutrition with a water change, so resulting in an imbalance compared to tanks normal schedule. If the lights are on, then isn't it an open door for imbalance = algae?

Most ferts are adviced to be dosed with water changes. I don't think it would cause any harm in this way tbh. I have never faced any problems myself

Meanwhile I believe dosing in smaller amounts on seperate days is a better choice personally

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/7/2023 at 2:59 PM, Lennie said:

But you kinda leave the tank without nutrition for a whole day by taking out majority of nutrition with a water change, so resulting in an imbalance compared to tanks normal schedule. If the lights are on, then isn't it an open door for imbalance = algae?

Not sure. My other method previously was to dose things a few hours after WC. Do my work, then wait a few hours.

Most research I found said that prime is 24 hours effective (sometimes longer) but that should be a decent enough window to wait to add in stuff like iron, magnesium, etc.

I don't know enough to know if it matters.... If that makes sense. I'm definitely not concerned about that gap in time. There's going to be stuff in the water, just not 100% capacity so to speak.