
I have a 240G Tanganyikan community setup that is also planted in a low-tech fashion - no CO2, 0.75 W/G. The plants are what you can get by with in a cichlid/catfish tank - Java fern, Echinodorus. sp., Cryptocoryne sp. and so on. They are doing reasonably well, but I'd like to see a little more growth. The tank has been running for 2 years, and I gave fertilizer only ones (Jobe's plant sticks), which resulted in an algae bloom, but no appreciable improvement in plant growth. I am assuming that the plants get plenty of N and P, due to the considerable number of fish in the tank, but might be lacking in K. My amateurish thinking is now to just dose some KCl to see if that would get rid of the deficiency and improve plant growth. I am a chemist and have access to analytical quality KCl, so that's not a problem. But does my thinking make sense at all? I realize this is not exactly the traditional approach to fertilizing a planted tank, but then my setup isn't a regular planted tank either. Any comments, suggestions, or just pure speculation about the usefulness of dosing KCl in my situation would be much appreciated. Also how much I might give if I decide to do so. Details about the tank - and more pictures - can be found at www.fmueller.com.
Many thanks
Frank
