Seachem Flourish SUCKS! Don't Waste Your Money - Master Aquatic Horticulturalist Rant
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- čas přidán 1. 10. 2021
- Oh Seachem, why do you make such a terrible product? Seachem Flourish has long been a mainstay for we planted aquarium enthusiasts, but it is designed to waste your money - I'll rant... I mean explain why you should never use Flourish ever again.
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Omgosh I’ve been looking forward to this much-needed butt-whooping of the Flourish line ever since you first hinted at it! I literally just RAGE QUIT Seachem Flourish line stuff (except Equilibrium….I do like using it and it works for my extremely soft water) because the Iron ended up causing me horrendous algae and I was under-dosing it!! Absolutely ridiculous and so beyond expensive. Stupid expensive for everything. Nope nope nope. Easy Green, FlorinMulti and Easy Root Tabs. Done.
Trying to fine the easy green what do it look like ?
I've heard of root tabs. Do they work in sand? I'm sure I can Google it. Lol
@@NinjaSushi2 yes, they work in sand. Aquarium Co-Op’s or Seachem’s Flourish Tabs work well for me. I’ve switched to planted substrate now, though.
I use Epsom salt for magnesium and Equilibrium and 2 different brands of micro nutrients and some little tiny survivers of all the plants I bought are starting to spread little tiny leaves and the stems are growing. I never thought about these plants from the equator are are so hot that they grow so fast they need tremendous amounts of fertilizer.
I’m assuming you’re not looking at any sponsorship opportunities from Seachem. 🤣
THANK YOU, for your unbiased review, for which you are known. Your contributions, for those of us in the hobby, are always greatly appreciated! 😊👍
I had an aquarium in the 60s, 1 teaspoon of plant food a month. My plants grew like crazy. I never did a water change. I couldn't believe all the fertilizer requirements for aquarium plants now. It was less complicated figuring out which fertilizer to use for 30 acres of corn.
What was the plant food that you used??
lmao it really does seem like growing 30 acres of corn would be easier than growing two aquarium plants.
Corn was easy. I took a few soil samples, sent them off, got a report back and knew exactly which fertlizer to buy. The corn grew so big the place we bought the seed from wanted some for samples.
Great video! I appreciate hearing what products you don't like and why. Then reading comments to see if anyone loves them and why. Gives me more info to base my decisions on. I've used Easy Green and Thrive and like them both. I am going to try Brightwell next though as my nitrates and phosphates always test higher than I want anyway.
I ditched the thing and shifted to an all in one fert. To be fair, when you follow the dosing, the plant growth is amazing, but it's so time consuming, they've designed it for those who have nothing else to do with their day but to aquascape.
Load and clear. I was considering Florish for my live plants. I’m using the Florish tabs in the substrate for now, until I run out. Glad that I watched this video first. I’m new, I hear the passion and I value your opinion. Thank you, Michael
I was going to buy some of this in a few days, I'm very glad I saw this first and have now been introduced to the entire complicated line.
Thanks heaps for sharing this, I will be looking into alternatives for sure!!!
I'm very keen to try the Aquarium Co-Op one, hopefully they are able to offer shipping to Australia soon
A few years back I had a planted tank and I bought all of the seachem products and followed their dosing schedule. I had to post a number of messages on their forums to make sure I got the dosages right as it was difficult to figure out. The plants did really well but it was a major pain in the butt. when I set up my most recent tanks I decided to go with the aquarium co-op "Easy" products. They're so much easier and my plants seem to do just as well as with the seachem products. I still use seachem root tabs, and do have a bottle of potassium I dose in one tank because the Staurogyne Repens really seem to like it. I don't see myself ever going back to Seachem's full line tho.
Great breakdown of a HUGE problem with a popular product... keep educating the hobby 🥰
Great video thank you bro, I just finished watching your 3 part series on the Fluval 3.0 light and that was great too, I went and bought one. Really loving your videos awesome content you’ve earned yourself a new subscriber.
Bentley your expression at the beginning of the video was priceless 😁 like you were really ready to just let us have it on what we need to know 🙌👍
I am a seriously poor aspiring fish keeper, I have to be very careful about not buying products that will just essentially be left in my cabinet, not worth the money or that just don't work.
I have a list of CZcamsrs I can trust on the information they bring us and you are definitely in one of them!
Thank you always for your honest reviews and topics you speak about!! I don't get to comment every time but I'm usually somewhere lurking 🤣 I hope you're having a blessed day my friend, thank you for sharing 🌿🐟🌿💚
Thank you Mary!
Amazing review! Really brought light to this widely used brand. Could you also try reviewing the fluval fertilizer line?
I do still use the SeaChem root tabs, but am going to try some different brands when my current supply runs out.
On liquids, I've moved on to the Aquarium Coop "Easy" products and I kind of like the NiLocG Macro/Micro combo. Still need to try Thrive on the liquid side.
Good video.
Great video on seachem i purachased some myself and was bit of a head scratcher with all the different dosages. With the easy green Do you recomend using it by itself? Or is their other ferts that work well with easy green?.
THANK YOU! I ran out of Easy Green and since I was ordering something from Amazon anyway, I got some Seachem products. I was dosing with Flourish, Trace and Advance. Then I noticed my poor plants DYING. Now I know why...disposed of the Seachem stuff and ordered more Easy Green. There are only a couple of strands of pogostemon left and some time back I couldn't even see the rocks in my tank because they were so thick. My anubias are hanging in there but have some yellowing leaves and holes in the leaves. Even my 2 crypts have nearly disappeared...hope I can save them. I've learned SO MUCH from you the last several days, Bentley! You're awesome!
Omg I'm so happy you made this video..I was ready to give up p my new love hobby because I have well but I can't use tap it goes through a softner first..do I decided maybe it would be better to use my R.O water and remineralize..but I'm so confused.i do want to put live plants in..will easy green put minerals in n my r.o water to help fish as well ?
Thanks for the education! I had purchased Flourish, had no idea I needed 7 other products along with it. Fortunately, I also have Aquarium Co-op’s Easy Green, which is what I’ll be using from now on. Have an awesome day!
Thank you. I’m an avid Gardner, but new to the planted tank world. Everyone recommends seachem products , but i have thought there must be a better way, and you just explained it. Excellent video.
Thank you for posting this! When i got into planted tanks, I went down the Seachem rabbit hole. What a pain in the rear end.
We need more honest video like this to aid in those that are just getting into the hobby. I wish more on here would be this honest. It seems like too many people are worried about stepping on the toes of potential sponsors and that does not help those of us who are trying to figure this hobby out. Products like this (yes I bought advance) don't help keep people in the hobby.
Bentley, thank you for this video, and all the others I have and will watch, so much knowledge. I'm new to the hobby, my local national fish store advised that flourish was what I needed. SO I used it for several months, until I saw this video. Bought Aquarium co-op easy green, in the first week I can see the new growth. Please keep up the great work and education for all
Love this video! 100% agree. How is this product line still around? Not user friendly, not price competitive… Great video! Actually I bought Thrive last week for our store lineup.
So my wife and I have been watching Cory from ACO for a while, buy your the 1 that actually turned me onto easy green. You and Cory are the ones that turned me off of the Flourish line of crap. We were only using the Flourish, excel and iron. We didn't even know we should've been using others. So when our plants were dying every couple of weeks, we couldn't figure it out. We used their substrate and their fertilizers and our plants looked absolutely terrible after the first 6 months. We couldn't keep plants alive. Now after using easy green liquid and tabs, they are looking great! Our plants get huge very fast, to the point where we are setting up a 60 gallon, 30 gallon and a 90 gallon and won't have to buy a single plant for any of those tanks. The easy green line of plant fertilizers are fantastic! Thank you both so much!
God bless
LOL - the seachem line was so confusing and was the first type of fertilizer I used. It was supposed to be “easier than EI dosing” so that’s why I did it. And I definitely remember the HUGE (to me) COST, and then the math and calendar required to get it right. And I failed so hard. Had SO much gross algae and just… ugh.
So far, my favorite is the NilocG. It’s the one that has the least weird side effects in my tanks. But also I haven’t dosed anything in quite a while since I haven’t had a “complicated tank” set up in a very long time.
:)
Also, gotta love a well informed Mr. Pascoe rant. Earn my upvote, sir! (The three thumbs downs I see must be SeaChem reps lmao)
What I like about you is your honesty. You aren't Mr. Downer bashing on things all the time. You will however speak your mind, and I appreciate that.
Great video. I only buy excel for some algae control. It works when I pull out wood with hair algae and put drops on the algae and wait 15 minutes. I put it back in and it's dead in a couple days. Sometimes I'll use hydrogen peroxide, but my anubias are sensative.
Good rant Bentley! Yeah, why do you want to make things more complicated? Just to make more money from people who doesnt know better? As a beginner I tried to figure out what this Seachem line was about and what I needed, but I kinda gave up. Seachem isn't easily available here in Denmark (no loss LOL), so I just use a local all in one brand that is more concentrated than Tropica Specialized. Works perfectly! 😄
Love the rant Mr.Pascoe BUT...
Flourish by itself has worked well for me in correcting deficiencies in the past so I still use it. Like you say, the aggressive sell-up is ridiculous, buyer beware!
With my single 20gal well planted tank with a sub gavel filter and HOB the conversion is pretty straight forward. I decided on a dose of 1.6ml which I administer into the HOB outfall with an oral/topical syringe from the local drug store. The one I got for $4.00 is meant for use with infants. I dose twice per week. Very simple.
I know managing an entire fish room is very different. glad for just the one tank to dial in and maintain for sure but I imagine that with even a half dozen tanks it would be simple enough to dose this way and I think Flourish alone is a help.No need for the whole 8 bottle regimine at all.
nice chanel btw!
Took me a few days, but I'm glad I got time to watch this. LOL I tried to follow the seachem dosing schedule before finding your channel. It's dry only for me now, and mostly potassium and csm+b. And the cost to follow that dosing regimen on the tank behind you... Seachem trippin.
Ha! I thought something was wrong as well a year ago. I had my mathematician father help me calculate each element so that I could do twice per week EI dosage. After 2 years, I switched from Seachem to Tropica all in ones and now I just dose additional iron from a random iron fertilizer from my local fish store. Suddenly the plants are doing what I want them to do. Suddenly no algae, no brown slime, no plant hormones from Seachem Advance, and so on.
Hi Bently, I use Seachem and despite me liking the product, I agree with what you've said. It's complicated AF and ends up being very expensive. What do you recommend instead? Is it true that Easy Green by AC is too diluted and not concentrated enough to produce results? If so, what is your fertilizer of choice? thanks
Way to go Bentley! It’s been Easy Green for me for sometime now.
I’ve been having staghorn and bba issues and I was hoping to email you until I saw this video 👀
I have a 40g medium planted tank. And I am always having algae issues no matter what I try. What I change. Or how I adjust my lights
Thank you for this info! Just starting a planted aquarium and I couldn't figure out why some of my anubias are melting... well just flourish and excel isn't enough I see. These were recommended by another youtuber. I should have done more research. They don't say anywhere on the bottle about getting all these other elements and bottles! I now I have a bottle of thrive S (I have shrimp). I will be doing this or aquarium coop from now on.
Keep them video coming...I love the facts that you keep it real
Thank you so much for the advice.
Can confirm, I used the recommended dose of flourish in a tank at work and had red algae two days later 😂 Glad to have guessed the topic haha!
WOW ! Thanks for this! 1 month old tank. Only 2 bottles in. Chucking the Seachem and, looking into Easy Green!
Lovely to see this video just after I purchased a bottle of seachem flourish... 😂 Assumed it was a all-round fertilizer so was also confused when looking at the instructions. Might as well toss it now.
I like Seachem's root tabs... I have a bottle of Easy Green. However, my plants seen to grow pretty well without fertilizer. Maybe it's my water - 7.8 pH, 150-200 TDS. In any case, my water + fish waste seems to work pretty well.
BTW, what would you recommend to help promote root growth in the aquarium. I have been using a Seachem product and what was curious about alternatives.
Just making sure your micros are good is all you need.
Feeding the algorithm. Good work as always, keep it up.
Well said. Much awaited video
Flourish excel is good for black beard algae. When I do a water change I have the filter off and put it directly on the BBA and it works. Didn’t notice much difference with flourish on the plants when I had it. 🤔
I'm so glad you exist this information has been so helpful 😸
Great content, as always. Quick question: How do you feel about Flourish Excel? I use it daily for algae.
I like using it for spot treatments, but if you need it daily, there is some imbalance you can work on to not need it
@Will B it should not. If you dose it as instructed
I bought 4 bottles of seachem flourish "comprehensive" fertilizer 😅. F!
What route do you recommend i take? I was thinking of getting NiloCG dry fertilizer, since it's suppose to be cheap.
Do i need KNO3 if my tank has nitrates 20-40 ppm?
I have a 55 & 29 with eco complete (also 20, &10). Which is why I'm thinking of the dry ferts. Descent lighting in my 55, low light on the 29. Mostly low tech plants. They're not doing to well.
I need some advice, thank you.
Dry ferts are a good route, you just may want to mix them before adding to the aquarium
Brilliant take down. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to know Seachem could easily dilute or strengthen a product to at least equalize the dosing amount across their product line....better yet, combine them into one.
Agree. I was wondering the same thing.
Thank you so much for this video. I was about to spend all my money on the seachem flourish collection. Definitely getting that easy green. Ive done my research and its honestly the best option for me.
Haha! No doubt. The only two products I use are Prime and the root tabs. I’m fully satisfied with Flourish root tabs.
That's craziness the way it's recommended! It does indeed sound like ei in liquid form, however I think most people don't need ALL those things depending on their water. Personally I've never used flourish, but I have used easy green as an all in one. My particular water is super high in minerals, and I found easy green at the recommended 1 pump per ten gallons was causing too much algae, especially elevated phosphates. I do still use it occasionally as a boost, but at half the recommended dose or less. I do like seachem trace quite a bit, because that coupled with potassium is all I really need, and since I switched to that I get great plant growth and less algae. I do need *a lot* of potassium, though.
Your list mentioned Equilibrium., too. What a lot of crap. I mean.... stuff! I did purchase potassium for my tank because my java fern was getting holes in it... that fixed it up. Otherwise, i use Easy Green and root tabs. Thank you for this video!
oops! I see you mentioned Equalibrium later in the video. I jumped the gun. I bought that a long time ago for no particular reason (believe it or not). By the way, you're very entertaining. Before you said "Hello" in this video, i said, "Uh oh...." heehee
Agreed. Thanks f0r sharing! - Little Bobby
Ten years ago there was a fashion to dose flourish trace with dry NPKs instead of using dry CSM +B. It wasn’t terribly expensive, but I never noticed a difference. The macros from seachem are a joke, though. I use either dry ferts or easy green.
Haha great video.
What would you recommend as a 'proper' all in one fert? Something I can buy on Australia.
I'm not sure what all is available down there, just look for something that contains all your macros and micros and you should be ok.
@@BentleyPascoe ok yes cool will do
@@BentleyPascoe do you have a list of the macro and micro nutrients
So would u say tropica is better ? As I live in UK Thanks Bentley for some great advice 👍
Yes, but make sure you lay attention to which one you use and what it contains
Yaasssss!! I would never fertilize if I had to use Flourish. Great to see you speaking out about crazy expensive and crazy complicated it is.
👍❤👍
This was incredibly helpful!
Does the brown bottle you showed that’s just literally drops because I only have nano tanks act as a deer corn eater as well? You had really good advice regarding Cart letter even though my previous correspondence with you was kind of “snippy”. Once again I sure hope I get a response. I was born in Seattle and spent time there but basically raised in California.
I will definitely follow your channel regularly. How do you feel about dirted tanks? And Australia it cost $80 for a 9 litre bag of compact awkward soil but I really want to do a father Fisher method data tank so I’m really confused which one I should do because I’m only going to have nano fish. I want to say all my tax at the same. I have 3 seven gallon tanks plus one
13 gallon tank plus a little 3 gallon tank. Then finally I have a little 1 gallon tank and like I said I really want to set them up all the same way. The problem too with Compact Aqua soil or a send On top of Organic soil is it all gets finished so I think it’s the fish poop that feeds the live plants. I’ll take any advice I can get my fellow Seattle friend.
I'm not sure what you mean by deer corn eater to be honest. The pump head on easy green and similar fertilizers pushes out a specific dose - in the case of easy green I believe it's 1mL, and the dosing is 1mL (or one pump) per 10 gallons. If you have a low light tank they suggest dosing once per week, and twice per week for medium or higher light level tanks.
In regards to dirted tanks, they can be wonderful IF you follow the right instructions. The most common slip up is people use too much dirt and not enough cap material (sand, fine gravel, etc). This can often lead to water changes breaking through the cap and causing the dirt to get up into the water column, which is a nightmare. It can be a very good budget option, but if your goal is to do something like Father Fish's style, then I would spend LOTS of time researching what he does before you get going. My main issue with most deep sand beds is the high amount of silicates that often end up in the water which can make things like blue green algae (cyanobacteria) very common. He has done this system for a long time so he has a ton of experience to get through some of the pitfalls.
Patience and research are your friend here.
So sorry. Stupid auto correct stuffed up my text.
@@BentleyPascoe Thank you very much for the advice.
Thanks for this rant. I find most people are over fertilizing and then they can't figure out why they have algae. That all said, I have good results with the NILOC-G Thrive line.
Thanks to you i wondered over to aquarium coop from seachem…i just hate that all these bottles and bottles ugggg ..keep up these videos i learn so much from you ….
Hi, I enjoyed your video. I have a brand new aquarium and would like to know what products that you found or more cost-effective and work. Ty
This depends on where you live, but examples for the US would be something like easy green or NilocG thrive. Basically, what you're looking for is an easy to dose all in one that includes nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and all of your micronutrients. You can also get something that is a split macro fertilizer and micro fertilizer. Those cost a little bit more because you're buying two products, but it's not as egregious as the flourish line.
@@BentleyPascoe I live in the USA
@@BentleyPascoe if I’m moving, and I have a neon tetras what is the best way to move them?
@@christyquinn4814 there's a couple different ways you can do this. The first thing no matter which way you do it, is fast your fish for 2 days before you start the move. If this move is only expected to take one day, what you can do is get the water level of the tank relatively low, but keep an air stone in there while you're packing everything up. Then get your fish in a bag or even like a small Tupperware container, finish draining the tank then go ahead and transport the tank and the fish to their new home. If you think this trip is going to take longer, especially if this is going to be something that is a 5 plus hour drive, what I would then do is get a brand new bucket and if you can either get a USB powered air pump or a battery operated air pump with a stone put that into their bucket and then have the fish in there so they get air. Don't fill the water level much more than about a third. And if you can find one of the paint style buckets that has a lid with a small circular hole on the top, that will be even better to prevent splashing. They should be able to handle temperature changes for that period of time. It's just making sure that there's not too much poop to cause ammonia and that they have oxygen. If you're looking at something like a multi-day trip that I would definitely look at a bucket or some other kind of like larger tupperware container to where you can change water at a hotel or something every day. Just make sure that you get the water
close in temperature as possible and keep a declorinator with you.
I use all the seachem flourish lineup but don’t follow the chart and I have EXTREME plant growth ever since. For reference I was using niloc g before. I simply like to dose every nutrients separatly depending on the deficiency and just by eyes🤷🏻♂️
God you just saved me a bunch of time money and aggravation I sincerely appreciate this video and I will be moving over to easy green this week!
I have tried seachem flourish, the aqua products, and dustin's grow juice. For the price and results, I prefer the aquarium co-op easy products.
Hands down the easiest and most effective I've used
Same if I don't have that I do like Dustin's 🙌🥰
I am going to give this line a try! Thanks!!
when dosed as instructed, I had major algae problems with aquarium co-op line.
I agree.
The only seachem product I purchase is Prime. It's been my go-to conditioner for decades. Do you prefer fritz over prime?
I prefer Safe due to the amount of water I change. Otherwise my go-to was always Ultimate as it has some aloe added for slime coat health
I use equilibrium to raise the GH of my RO water. Is there a different product you would recommend?
Equilibrium is a good product, but if you want something more cost efficient, there's lots of powdered options out there. I've used salty shrimp for my shrimp before and it's great.
@@BentleyPascoe I just want to add back the essential minerals for fish and plants. My RO water has a TDS of 1-2PPM and measures a GH of 0. I have a simple fresh water tank with easy to keep fish, no invertebrates, and floating lettuce is the only plant. I just want something simple to remineralize the water to standard levels.
I’m in Australia so I don’t have access to some of the other all-in-one ferts you mentioned. How can I check if some of the local brands here are in fact true all-in-ones? Ps I fell into the seachem trap and it’s a nightmare
What I would look for is if it has a percentage in its guaranteed analysis roughly close to something like the aquarium co-op Easy Green or NilocG thrive. Alternatively you can look to see if it has a dosing instruction that will get you somewhere between two and three parts per million nitrogen. If it has a kind of instruction and it doesn't look like it requires a different product then you've got the right kind of all-in-one mix to do that easily as opposed to something that is mostly just your trace minerals and is missing nitrogen and/or phosphorus.
I'm in New Zealand and I can't get Easy Grow. Do you think 2HR Aquarist APT Complete would be ok?
These are the only other brands I see here in NZ: API Leaf Zone, Sera Florena, Evolution Aqua the aquascaper Complete Liquid Plant Food.
Just check to make sure it is a significant source of nitrogen and Phosphorus and you're ok!
What about Fluval's Gro+? I have the Seachem Flourish and have been frustrated with it's performance. My local stores carry Fluval's product, Seachems products, and Brightwell products. Out of those which would be better?
Fluval Gro+ is similar in that it's not a significant source of nitrogen. If you have a decent plant load it's ok, but it's mostly just micros. Brightwell Florin Multi is all the micros + potassium. From there all you need is nitrogen (similar story) which is the Florin Gro if you don't have a reasonable fish load.
Thank you. Very much appreciated. Oh and thank you for the Aquasky review and tips as well. Really enjoy your content Mr. Pascoe keep up the awesome work! 👌
actually developped bba in my aquarium about a month after i started using flourish as a all in one... was really wondering what could have caused it and didnt suspect this stuff cause i tought it was a decent all in one.
that stuff is going to be shelved for a while for sure and see how it goes
Yes,yes,yes I couldn’t agree more. Please drag the soap box more often, that was great.
Subscribed after only seeing this video! Love you! 😂
I just discovered tou tonight and I freaking love you!
I have gained so much respect for you in standing up for customer. I have also been a fool to use this stuff - no more. What pisses me off is that I am from South Africa and I pay around 9 to 10 times more here what you are paying in the US. Pity we can't get Co-op's products here. Congratulations in kicking their a***ses. I don't watch any videos promoting Seachem products. So by the way, their root tabs nearly wiped out my colony of shrimps. THANKS FOR OPENING MY EYES!
Thanks for telling this before I add them. I bought them to add under the substrate as I am building this Aquarium. I was planning on buying some Shrimp once the Aquarium stabilized. I now wonder if the Snails would be safe.
Thank you for sharing this here.
I am so sorry for your loss.
I use seachem liquid fertilizers, (specifically flourish, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and excel) but I don't use them as they recommend. I have a low-tech 60 gallon planted aquarium, for example, and I'll check my nitrates and if they are very low I'll add some nitrogen for the plants. If my phosphates are too low I'll add seachem phosphorus. I don't have a way to check potassium, unless there are holes in some plant leaves, but I'll add potassium maybe once a week for the heck of it. I use the base flourish for all the non-NPK trace elements about twice per week and I'll add some Excel about twice per week too to help keep algae at a minimum. If I ever went to a high-tech tank then I'd switch to dry-powder fertilizers, but this is easy to get, use, and it lasts a long time. It's less concentrated than a lot of the other stuff, but that's good, because it stops me from over-dosing fertilizer and causing an algae bloom. But that's just my experience. Oh, I have RO water so I use seachem equilibrium to bring up my GH for the fish and plants (plants need calcium and magnesium) and I use seachem alkaline buffer to bring up alkalinity if it's too low. I don't use these things without first measuring, for example after a water change and then add the amount I need.
Not a fan of Ranting Bentley, but great video! You successfully gave me the mind boggling feeling of using seachem florish products, so much so I can't even think to write a thoughtful response!!! 🤣 All kidding aside, I enjoyed the video but not as a steady video theme. One every now and then would be a nice change of pace tho.
Thrive, thrive root tabs, and excel (or similar) seem to work for me. Why overcomplicate it?
Ha :) I have been waiting for you to post this video :)
LOL! A righteous rant! BTW I know you are neutral on the other all in one brands but NilocG has formulas for high tech, low tech (Thrive C) and shrimp tanks (Thrive S) which is why I went with them. Pick the one for your style of tank and you are good to go. 😁
ROFLOL ~Wheeze~Snort~ROFLOL gasps for breath...you had me laughing very hard, over your rant. you are funny when you rant.
Now to Seachem I agree with you, i bought some safe and something else I can't remember now, some ph balance stuff. Trying to figure out a dose for anything other than what they list on the back is a WTF moment. Trying to scale down the dose for a 20 and a 16 gal is next to impossible. I look like some sort of drug dealer with my gram scale out and all this white power and I am sure i am still doing it wrong.
As to all the other stuff Seachem says you need, that is enough to make a new hobbyist run for the hills. Or worse yet, they get the doses wrong and ruin their tank, and lose all their fish. New Hobbyist's do not need this kind of confusion.
Easygreen and root tabs were the first items I bought and used and I continue to use it as along as my nitrates are low enough for me to use it, other wise I use brightwell florinmulti (thank you bentley for that tip), so my plants get the other stuff they need without driving up the nitrates.
Easy~simple and I don't have break out any gram scales. This is what new hobbyists need, simple, easy to use stuff so they can focus on keeping their water good and their fish healthy.
You held back! I thought that would have been much much worse @Bentley Pascoe
What heater wattage would you recommend for a forty breeder?
2x 100w or 1x 200w if you want something in the 74-78 range.
Hello Bently. Completely agree with your opinions here!
I have an off topic question if you dont mind. Why do you prefer heavy root feeder plants over stem plants that can clean up your water column ?
Are there benefits of plants like vallisenaria or crypts over plants like pearl weed and rotala that take nutrients from the water column?
Thank you!
This is mostly an aesthetic choice. I tend to go with lower maintenance plants and most of your heavy root feeders are low maintenance or epiphyte plants being other low maintenance just because of my work schedule I don't have enough time to keep up with the faster growing stems so they tend to get really out of control fast in my aquariums.
@@BentleyPascoe thank you for the reply I appreciate it! Your tanks do look great. Do you think root feeders can clean the water a little bit at least?
@@omzdubz yep they do, they do pull some from the water column as well
Awesome rant Bentley! 👍
I was using Equilibrium to raise my GH but it only half dissolves in the water. I found a much cheaper alternative. Good by Seachem...😌
Which one?? I have low GH I'd love to know what your alternative is
Same I need an alternative
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@@canelami1285 Look me up on CZcams.
Wow just Wow, thanks for the honesty.
I like to dose advance infrequently when I'm setting up a new tank to help jump start the growth. One day I'll switch to powders.
I did buy the trace and iron... Probably don't need in retrospect.
Couple months ago I bought potassium phosphate, potassium sulfate, and magnesium sulfate to fill in the gaps.
I tossed in some oyster shells to handle calcium and carbonate, along with other trace minerals.
I guess I could toss in some cheap nails for my iron though.
I just drop in a pinch every water change or every week or 2 if no need to water change.
Never need nitrogen. I fact I've had to water change out my nitrogen regularly, though phosphate dosing helped this.
I have easy green for my non dirted tanks.
They should definitely use a standardized dosing concentration, even if they still use all the bottles, and should have a measurement device instead of “a capful”. I will still just stick with Easy Green
Yeah... I started my first planted aquarium (a Fluval Flex 9G) about a year ago and got sucked into the Flourish line, my plants look great now that I'm using all of those products, but I made the mistake of thinking Flourish would be all I needed at the start. I'm using syringes to measure the doses. It's becoming tiresome. As soon as I run out of my supply, I am going to switch away.
Have you ever tried api leaf zone? Here in the lower mainland of British Columbia in canada seachem is the big seller or ive seen api leaf zone, thinking of trying it
I have not yet
@@BentleyPascoe ok. Im just doing anubias and java fern in 90 gal african cichlid under the aquasky 2.0 and keep having problems with algae or anubias turning yellow … pissing me off!
I'm just getting back into the hobby and found this video while trying to figure out the SeaChem's plant line. I think I'll just get some Easy Green, Easy Carbon and a few plants from Aquarium Coop instead. 1 pump of Easy Green and Easy Carbon every other day seems pretty simple.
I sure hope I get a response because I desperately need to save money so can I order the product you mentioned online & never ever buy all that seashem crap again after my current stock is finished? What do you think? Can you recommend the name of that product so I can look it up online because I live in Australia so hopefully AustraliaeBay has it available with free shipping.
There are a number of good all-in-one fertilizers out there, try looking at something like LCA's all in one premium based on a quick search. In the end you want something that contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and your trace minerals. Depending on your water, you might also need to have some kind of GH booster that will ensure you have proper calcium and magnesium levels. Usually this is only if you're doing RODI or you have extremely soft water naturally out of the tap. A simple GH test will show you if you are four degrees GH or higher. You don't need a GH booster.
I was wearing a gas mask when handling flourish excel. All the recipes to use to kill BBA were causing my anubias roots to rot- even though BBA cleared up on the leaves on the anubias
I've been using Thrive, What do you recommend?
Thrive is a really good all-in-one, if you've had success, stick with it!
Hey Bentley. I don't know if you'll ever read this but I'd like to know your opinion the product called Easy Life Profito. It's the one I am using (and is supposed to be an all in 1 fertilizer) but you have way more experience and knowledge about this topic than I do. Is it actually good? Thank you!
I don't have any direct experience with it unfortunately. Looking at it online, it's very similar to Brightwell Florin Multi, no nitrogen or phosphate, but everything else you need. If it's doing well, stick with it!
@@BentleyPascoe Oh I'm using it in a tank full of guppies so probably no need for those, which makes it a perfect fertiliser! That's what I needed to know. Thank you, stay awesome!
so in a nut shell, what would you suggest for an "all in one?" i meant long story short please
For people who want complex dosing do powdered EI. For liquid, all-in-one.
I checked on Amazon Canada because I shop there.
The Seachem stuff all sells for $26 ish. Easy Green I pay $35 for. So if you needed to buy Seachem it would cost over $180 Canadian. My Aquarium shops are a long drive so more often than not I order online. Now last time I went to my local shop they sold me Prime, which seems to be a good product. Thanks for the review, I hope you had a stiff drink to settle your nerves.
You and Corey make me feel better about never succeeding with this stuff and spending way too much money on it before I got easy green. Happy supporter of Corey now, not so much seachem.