In rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants Reel McKoi wrote:
:
: I'm starting to think it's the nitrates and phosphates that come right from
: my tap! And the rain water I'm using is catching dust and providing more
: algae nutrients........ a losing battle unless I go for some expensive pads
: to remove these nutrients.

As a rule to conserve money, I try to avoid all things that have expensive
replacement pads, cartridges and other such items. I don't believe in most
of them as to actually working as advertised.

One exception is a good Reverse Osmosis unit. It needs replacement cartridges
about once a year. The RO water is pretty pure and I add back the desired
hardness with baking soda and something called GH Booster that I get really
cheap from aquariumfertilizer.com. The waste water comes after the carbon
block filter, so I use this for hard water tanks (i.e. goldfish and most
live bearers). So the money I would have spent on de-chlor chemicals instead
goes into replacement RO system filter cartridges.

Another exception is a CO2 tank with regulator. This really helps and once
you have the system, it only costs around $20.00 for a refill that lasts more
than 6 months. I wouldn't even try growing plants in a high light setup without
adding CO2.

Then you need to follow a fertilizer dosing schedule. I use something called
the "Estimative Index". Do a google search on "Tom Barr" "Estimative Index"
to get the details. I get raw chemicals for nutrients at aquariumfertilizer.com
and follow the plan with the 50 percent weekly water change. There are other
plans out there, but EI works well for me.

Most of my hight light tank problems went away when I started doing the above
three things. There are other ways to do this, but it works for me and is
relatively inexpensive (long-term) compared to other ways.

For medium light tanks with fish, you don' need to do much of this. I have
good success by using hard or RO softened water and just adding trace elements
once a week or so. The fish poop provides enough macro nutrients for a
medium light tank. It's much simpler, so that's why I suggest people start
out with something easier before doing the high light, high maintenance tank.

Hope this is helpful. There are many ways to do this. I think this is one
of the easiest and least expensive ways.