seachem ferts are just fine (i use them) cheapest place to get them would be
www.bigalsonline.com your tank is small so some big bottles will last you a long time. you can also go with compounds like K2S04 and KNO3, it's cheaper, but you need to learn how to dose it... it's just my personal opinion that you start with seachem stuff at least because dosing is a bit easier... need more nitrogen? add flourish nitrogen. need more potassium? add flourish potassium. when i was starting, i was worried about enough stuff, i didn't want to worry about what ferts i was putting in. you can also find somebody to help you dose compounds if you want to learn that straight off the bat. people can tell you where to get it, how much to get, and how to dose it, it's just not as easy as the seachem stuff, but not bad either, don't let me sway your opinion too much
it's what i have done, and i haven't regretted it, that's about all i can say about it.
what ferts do you need? really you need everything... but not a lot... the whole point of fertilizing is to give your plants just enough nutrients that they can grow, but not too much that algae grows, and not too little (also causes algae) so it's a balancing act and is honestly the only difficult thing to learn about this hobby. as soon as you figure it out, you'll be set. seachem makes a flourish line for just about everything you could need. they need:
light (duh)
CO2 (optional, but you already got it, fine)
nitrogen (usually in the form of nitrates [NO3] and other compounds)
phosphorous (usually in the form of phosphates [PO4])
potassium (potassium [k] is potassium)
in smaller amounts you will also need:
iron (flourish iron works fine)
trace minerals (just grab some flourish and flourish trace and you should be covered with these)
the first list contains the nutrients that plants need the most of... the other things need to be present, but usually not in large quantities. here's something though... the eclipse systems do have PC bulbs (power compact) which is good... but they don't have very high light... if you got another bulb and put it in there (there are retrofit kits) you'd have bright lights and your tank would grow quickly. since you just have the stock light, you can still grow lower light plants without a problem, but that also means you won't be using up a lot of fertilizers because plant growth will be slow. don't expect to be fertilizing as much as most of us do, and don't expect results within one week.
as for water changes... you don't NEED to do 40% water changes weekly... but if you're doing it already, knock yourself out. it doesn't really hurt anything. just use tap water though... RO is good for fish... bad for plants. all the nutrients are gone! one good thing about the water changes though... when you're learning to dose fertilizers, you WILL screw up. that's a given... but if you keep changing half of your water each week, that means that no fertilizers will continually build up in your tank. so if you're dosing too many phosphates or something... each week you will drastically reduce the concentration so you won't run into algae problems as quickly. it gives you more error room which is good. after you get good at fertilizing you don't need to do it every week... but it certainly doesn't hurt, and it might even be a good idea while you're learning to fertilize in the first place.
test kits:
the AP stuff is fine for now. in fact, bigals has the "master kit" on sale for 10 bucks now i think... go grab it. you'll want PH, GH and KH. those will be so you can figure out how much CO2 is actually in the water. since you also need to know your nitrogen and phosphorous levels, you should get a phosphate test kit and a nitrate test kit (i think you need to buy those seperately from the master kit) you don't need to worry about potassium too much... it's more forgiving and doesn't usually cause huge algae issues. you can tell if you're adding enough iron by looking at your plants... but the 2 tests that will be the most important for controlling your algae will be the phosphates and nitrates. planted tanks aren't like normal tanks... you actually NEED some nitrates and phosphates in the tank... but it can't be too high... this is why you need these kits, so you can monitor the levels.
sorry this is so long, but it's your first post so i had to scare the crap out of you
honestly there is a ton of knowledge, you'll make mistakes (we all do) just learn and keep going
it's a very fulfilling hobby when you can actually grow plants instead of algae. we're here for ya...
JP
PS don't make your subject so big on your next post
it should just be a single line...
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