Entering the Seachem 7day fertilising routine.

[Stelakis]

hello!
I ve been in the planted tank hobby about 6 months now
I have 3 planted tanks and up till now if been using a number of ferts and tests some of them Seachem.
I decided to take a more holistic approach and since i found that you provide a full and complete (?) 7day fert. routine and since i ve always been happy with your products, i bought your entire fert. series.
here are my questions on this:
1) how do i transition to your 7 day routine?
For example, yesterday i dosed some ferts based on my old routine. should i do a 50% water change per se and then starts yours?should i wait some days?
2) in one of my 3 tanks(the most heavily planted one) i have some gsa issues. should i do something "special" before starting your routine?
3) in case i spot a deficiency should i/can i alter your routine?
Thank you

PS for your own convenience answering, please consider my tank's co2 and light conditions top notch and adequate.

[Tech Support PE]

Good day Stelakis,

Thank you for starting to use our whole Flourish line, I think you'll be quite happy with the results. As far as when and how to start, I would do your regular water change and start following our dosing calendar that same day. There's no need to do anything special or different when starting our regimen; any time is a good time. If you find a deficiency, you can certainly increase dosing as needed to meet your plants' demands. However; I would recommend doing so carefully, increasing dose by no more than half of the base dose and waiting a couple of weeks to watch how your plants and animals respond. Most of our Flourish line have an Expert Dose section that tells how much a specific dose will raise that specific nutrient. If you have a target concentration, for example 10 ppm NO3, that information can be used to reach your desired concentration. You can also use our online dosing calculator to figure out how much you will need to add to reach a target concentration.

calculators.php

I hope this helps. If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to reply.

Kind regards,
PE

[Stelakis]

Wow! this dosing calculators you provided are amazing! thx for sharing.
No i wasnt aware of the Expert Dose. so i guess IF needed i can use the calculator you provided yes?
1) If following your regimen, i see that for example i have iron concentration X while I want to have 2X. will i have to add the extra amount the calculator indicates on top of the regular dosage?
2) Regarding water changes in general. I think doing a 50% on day 7 is the best option yes?( i mean do a 50% then dose the 7th day products)
3) do you provide some sort of generalised plant deficiencies list or something similar?

[Tech Support PE]

Hello Stelakis,

1- Since the calculators include a Current Concentration [of XYZ] and Desired Concentration you can target any specific concentration you want and it will tell you what you need to add to reach that goal. This will be your normal dose, not a dose in addition to the regular one on the bottle.

2- In my high light/high growth tanks I prefer to do weekly water changes to make sure I siphon out all of the physical debris (main contributor to algae) and do a sort of reset for my nutrients. It's best to count your water change day as Day 1 for the purposes of dosing to make sure you've got everything you need in there after taking stuff out during the water change. Since it sounds like you're a bit more advanced and will be targeting specific concentrations, I would highly recommend using the calculator to figure out what you need to reach the full concentration of everything, assuming zero concentration on Day 1 (immediately after your water change), then continue normally scheduled dosing from there.

3- Ask and you shall receive: Flourish-Constituents-Deficency.pdf

I hope this helps.

Regards,
PE

[Stelakis]

I honestly couldn't expect any better answer.
You answered everything leaving nothing behind and this is something I rarely find .Thank you for that.
One last issue:
Although i use adjusted RO water (by adjusted i mean that the water comes out of my RO filter at a set/desired TDS value) i really want to have the entire flourish line and that is not an option for me. I am talking about the regime of the 7th day(acid and alkaline buffers and equilibrium)
Although you provide a thorough list on your site regarding available dealers around the world, the list covering Greece is really outdated.
Since i have a very extensive knowlegde of Greece's aquarium supply market, I strongly believe that you are greatly mis-represented here.
Acid and alkaline buffers as well as Equilibrium are nowhere to be found not just in Athens(the bigger city of the country) but in Greece in general.
The last week i visited almost EVERY major LFS and everybody blamed the importer/representative(it's the same person for the entire country). 1 or 2 cases might be a coinsidence but more than 10 are not....
I will admit that these 3 products might have a more norrow buying audience than the average BUT atm people here struggle to even find Prime....
My next action was to search the major EU websites/stores ( obviously i dont know them all) and the ones i found were asking for shipping expenses reaching even the actual price of these three products.
Can you please help me with that?perhaps suggesting some specific sites?

[Stelakis]

...

[Tech Support PE]

Hello Stelakis,

Sorry for the delayed response. Has this been a long-term issue for you guys? International business and shipping has been hindered lately due to the virus. If you're unable to find a local retailer with the products you need your best bet is to ask your retailer about doing special orders or try to get recommendations from them. They should be able to contact their distributors and find a means of getting product to you.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
PE

[Stelakis]

hello!

no worries.
no its not a covid19/lockdown issue. it's just that the seachem distributor in Greece simply doesnt do his job correctly. It s a permanent thing.
3 owners of the biggest fish stores in Athens Greece (almost 4mil inhabitants) told me the same thing:
Your distributer choses not to stock a single item. not even the basic/best seller ones (eg Prime).
So he waits until everybody runs out and then makes an order.
Obviously that harms you as a market player cause people will buy something else .
I just received Equilibrium from Germany ( having to pay trasport) but that is just me... The majority of buyers wont wait and/or wont pay more to get your products from abroad so I believe that you should contact your distributor or supply chain manager..
Please keep us updated on the matter
Thank you

PS Just today and after 1 month i saw prime back on the shelves...