nutrients for plants

stephanieleah

Hi all

I've been googling like crazy trying to get a comprehensive list of what nutrients plants need (i could look on the flourish bottle but i think it may be missing one or two??? not sure yet)

anyway, i found a nice link Freshwater Aquatic Plant Care (scroll down to "nutrients") that lists all the micro- and macro- nutrients needed. just thought i'd post it after all that looking. i'm sure it's easier to find if you know all the shorthand and abbreviations for everything, which i most certainly do not.

Mean Harri

Good reading. I'm guessing you will get dry fertz for your new rimless. It's supposed to be cheaper when fert'ing a lot.

Angel079

Are you ref to the section that called *Nutrients*? Cause that sure does not list everything there that plants need.
Lemme finish my w/c day here and I'll come back online with a list ok?

Angel079

Here ya go nutrition list sorted from what aquatic plants need most of and then trace elements (so high to low):

Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Sulfur (S), Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Zinc (Zn), Boron (B), Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), Cobalt (co)

Some sources also suggest traces of Sodium (Na), others don't so I wanted to list it separately.

Then on top for a complete mix you'd of cause want your non mineral nutrients like water, oxygen co2.

Hope that's helpful.

stephanieleah

wow, you're right, incomplete list there. my ferts (seachem trace minerals) have sodium too so evidently they would agree with those sources that are pro-salt.

Byron

Still some missing in all lists so far, so here's the complete list in no order other than macro- and micro-nutrients.

Macro-nutrients: Calcium, Hydrogen, Carbon, Magnesium, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, Potassium and Sulphur.

Micro-nutrients: Boron, Iron, Chlorine, Nickel, Copper, Manganese, Molybdenum, Zinc.

As I have written many times and in the stickies, there are 17 nutrients, 13 of which are minerals. The above lists exactly are in Glass, Hiscock and Walstad and other sources. The deficiency info on Mongabay is not bad but it isn't as simple as that.

I am not aware of any manufactured aquarium plant fertilizer that has all of the above nutrients (thinking of the minerals). Some come from tap water, some from fish food, hydrogen is obviously just the water, some like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen naturally occur from fish and biological processes. And it may be that a couple are so minimal as to be irrelevant; I know of no fert that contains nickel, so either it must occur in tap water (?) or perhaps is not essential in the grand scheme.

Byron.

Angel079

Uhm...I actually listed all them but Chlorine (which I didn't know my bet) and Nickel...its not like I missed the whole list and didn't address the non mineral one's neither

Byron

The point of my post was to show Stephanie that the ferts don't have everything. And some perhaps occur though we don't know it.

stephanieleah

Well I remembered you saying that plants need x amount of nutrients but for some reason I thought it was 15 so I was feeling pretty complete with that list. and I agree, that website oversimplifies plant issues.