# Flourish Comprehensive Dosing



## christinamac910 (Jan 15, 2016)

I have found that in order to get the desired ppm concentrations and healthy response from my plants, I have had to increase the recommended doses on the Flourish line of products by 5 to 10 times (or greater) what is recommended, depending on the specific product.

For example, if I followed the recommended dose on the bottle of Flourish Nitrogen I would only be dosing 0.5 - 1 ppm of nitrogen per week. I have a low light setup without supplemental CO2. Even so, I am currently dosing Flourish Nitrogen so that it yields about 10-20 ppm of nitrogen per week (so, 10-20 times the recommended dose).

I assume that the recommended dose in the instructions for Flourish (the liquid comprehensive fertilizer) is also very low. *Should I increase the amount of Flourish I use in order to keep the nutrients balanced (since I've had to increase everything else)? By how much?*

The instructions on the bottle say I should dose 2 to 4 drops of Flourish per week for my 2 gallon aquarium. I don't want to dose too much because it does contain a small amount of copper, which could harm my Nerite snail.


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

I would be more cautious about a trace mineral fertilizer. Trace minerals (also called micros) are used in such small amounts and may be toxic if dosed in larger amounts. 
You might look into Flourish Iron, this is the one element that is grouped with the micros that plants use quite a bit of. That way you could dose more iron without worrying about the copper or other minerals in the blend. 
Since you are using more of everything else (I assume N, P, K) then you might use the highest labeled dose of Flourish Comprehensive, then add a little bit more Fe if the plants still seem to need it.


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