Hello From CT!

[Plant Heathen]

Hello everyone. I've kept  fish for years and had several planted tanks for years. I haven't had a tank in a few years now but am starting up a new tank with a new plan. Its a 40 breeder that I want to do planted with a bunch of nano fish and inverts. It's been quite a while sins I have had a planted tank and with some quick research I see a lot has changed. Now with the plan of adding shrimp and some other inverts I'm thinking about fertilizers. I have seen some shrimp safe ferts out there but they have no copper in them which is good for the shrimp but not the plants. So if you using shrimp safe ferts how do you get copper to your plants if not how big and often do you all do water changes so the copper doesn't kill the inverts? I've also seen people using azmicote under the substrate instead of root tabs. In doing so is the tank still shrimp safe? I plan on adding Co2 at some point but not right off the bat. I'll use something like Excel for the start till I can afford a pressurised setup. Well thank you for reading and any tips are welcome.  

[OblongShrimp]

Welcome!  You are fine with copper in small amounts, shrimp use copper to carry oxygen like like we use iron so it is required in small doses.  I haven't had problems using copper containing ferts or foods.  The only time I think it becomes an issue is if you are using copper based medications.