The Parts of Fertilizer

Fertilizer is an important part of a planted tank. Many people do it but not many people know what the various chemicals and minerals inside fertilizer actually do. So I did a little research and this is what I came up with.

Groups of Nutrients
There are three groups of nutrients. Macro, Micro and trace elements. These nutrients are used in varying amounts in different places of the plant.

Macro Nutrients
These are your standard NPK fertilizers that you would find in most fertilizers. They are Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potash, Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfur, Chlorine, Iron and Sodium. These nutrients are used in large quantities and are essential to plant growth. These nutrients are used in different amounts so they should be dosed separate from a broad range fertilizer.

Micro Nutrients
These nutrients are a wide range of slowly used nutrients that include trace elements. These include things such as Boron, Cobalt, Copper, Magnesium, Molybdenum and Zinc. They are less essential then Macro Nutrients and because of there shorter life span they are harder to overdose and will not usually cause algae blooms.

I will be posting some short post on the use and how to detect deficiency of each nutrient.