# Planted without fish - fertilization



## alexsander.albani (Jul 14, 2020)

Hello everybody.

I'm trying to maintain a tank using Walstad method.
The 120l tank has an industrialized substrate (mBreda Amazonia) and gravel. The water was soo soft, so I added Seachem Equilibrium to up GH (now it's not soo soft, maybe I need a little more).
At the moment, there are no fishies in the tank, just plants (about 20 species) and just a little small snails (that came with the plants).
Even in a soft water, the plants are growing (slowly). I've increased the GH just a few days ago, so I coudn't observe the results of that.

My question is related to fertilization. Fish food is a way to "fertilizate" the plants. Do you recommend to add fish food for plant nutrition in this case, even without fishies?

Thanks

(sorry about my poor english)


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Welcome to APC! The latest word from Ms Walstad is that Equilibrium is not a good idea - it contains only sulfates of the elements we want to add, and sulfates in an el natural tank can lead to serious hydrogen sulfide problems. Seachem now has a substitute for Equiibrium that uses only chlorides - I haven't used it and I forget the name of it.


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## alexsander.albani (Jul 14, 2020)

hoppycalif said:


> Welcome to APC! The latest word from Ms Walstad is that Equilibrium is not a good idea - it contains only sulfates of the elements we want to add, and sulfates in an el natural tank can lead to serious hydrogen sulfide problems. Seachem now has a substitute for Equiibrium that uses only chlorides - I haven't used it and I forget the name of it.


Hoppy, thanks for the information.


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

Exactly how soft is it? You don't need much hardness for most things.


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## ukamikazu (Jun 4, 2010)

hoppycalif said:


> Welcome to APC! The latest word from Ms Walstad is that Equilibrium is not a good idea - it contains only sulfates of the elements we want to add, and sulfates in an el natural tank can lead to serious hydrogen sulfide problems. Seachem now has a substitute for Equiibrium that uses only chlorides - I haven't used it and I forget the name of it.


It's called Seachem Replenish. It's none too expensive, which is nice.


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## alexsander.albani (Jul 14, 2020)

Cavan Allen said:


> Exactly how soft is it? You don't need much hardness for most things.


Hi Cavan.
About 50ppm or less.
I've increased to 200ppm.


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## mysiak (Jan 17, 2018)

hoppycalif said:


> Welcome to APC! The latest word from Ms Walstad is that Equilibrium is not a good idea - it contains only sulfates of the elements we want to add, and sulfates in an el natural tank can lead to serious hydrogen sulfide problems. Seachem now has a substitute for Equiibrium that uses only chlorides - I haven't used it and I forget the name of it.


Ms Walstad also doesn't recommend using Seachem Replenish in planted tanks due to low amount of Potassium and Magnesium.

Product itself is not bad, just that one has to be aware of its limits and must dose Potassium and Magnesium separately - and in such case it doesn't make much (economical) sense to use Replenish just for Calcium..


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## CadyMai (Aug 2, 2020)

Just use EI dosing! Look into NiloCg Ferts!


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