Fertiliser Tablets,

[BigIan]

Any one know of a good fert pellet that would work well for crypts and swords in a sandy substrate?

 

[baron von bubba]

Any one know of a good fert pellet that would work well for crypts and swords in a sandy substrate?

notice in another post you are planning not to add any ferts to the water column? is this really a good idea?

 

[BigIan]

the tank will have low light, and slow growing root feeding plants and no co2.
Adding ferts to the water column will just cause algae as little of it will be taken up,

 

[aaronnorth]

it would be easier to add a nutrient rich substrate, much cheaper in the long term too,

but anyway, Tropica Capsules & API root tabs are considered the best.

Are you going with water changes every few months then?

 

[Jallen]

the tank will have low light, and slow growing root feeding plants and no co2.
Adding ferts to the water column will just cause algae as little of it will be taken up,

Water collumn ferts with no phosphate or nitrate like PlantaMin don't cause algae.

 

[BigIan]

I want corys and a sand substrate, and the sand is obviously the best substrate for them, so the substrate needs to be kept rather clean for them, and so
Water changes will probably be weekly.

The planting will be clustered in 2 main spot and so no real need for the full substrate to be fertilized, and last time i bought a fertalised substrate for the tank it Put nearly 600 quid im Mr ammano`s pocket.

 

[aaronnorth]

you can buy something such as JBL Aqubasis+ and cap it with sand. That is the way i went in my 60litre. Costs £8 for 5l from Zooplus. in shops it is £15 but still cheaper. you can spend that much on a packet of root tabs.

in a low tech tank water changes are best done monthly or bi-monthly. With experience, you can go 6 months. Some refer this to the Walstad style. you may want to read more from her book "Ecology of the planted aquarium" by Diana Walstad. lots of info on the web though.

If weekly water changes are performed, then this can cause algae due to CO2 fluctuations.

Plant produce a certain amount of RuBisCo (CO2 fixing enzyme) so they adapt to low CO2 levels. When a water change is performed, the CO2 levels will change, so the plants have to adapt and change the RuBisCo production. Algae can do this much quicker so it moves in.
It is hard getting it in your head not to do water changes but it is possible and lots of people do it.

this may give you some more info aswell:

http/www.barrreport.com/articles/433-non-co2-methods.html

a gravel vac changing only about 5% wouldnt be too bothersome i suppose though.Just do it after lights out or to the end of the photoperiod if possible, so the CO2 levels have dropped by the mrning when photosynthesis starts again

Thanks Aaron

 

[BigIan]

Well to be honest i`m looking at running the tank as one would a normal fish tank, with the exception of much more thought going into the aquascaping, and some root tabs.
frequent water changes to keep the neutrients out of the water column, and to keep the floor of the tank a healthy place for the corys, I am not trying to follow diann walsteads method with pond soil substrait heavily planted and alowing the plants to filter the tank,
nor am i going for the amano method of hi light hi co2 and high nutrients.

And as we all know with heavily planted tanks all the fish waste is quickly absorbed by the plants, i`m looking at having a couple of dozen or so root feeders in two dense patches so for a start i would end up looking at fish poo, rolling around on my substrate,

And as for the cost, looking at using the tropica capsuels, i`ll be paying around 30 quid a year,as they apparently last for 6 months,

and enough substrate to cover the bottom of my tank even at 8 quid for 5 l would still cost me somthing running up to 60 or so quid

but cheers for the advice

 

[Truck]

the tank will have low light, and slow growing root feeding plants and no co2.
Adding ferts to the water column will just cause algae as little of it will be taken up,

Water collumn ferts with no phosphate or nitrate like PlantaMin don't cause algae.

as a pose to what? ferts WITH nitrate and phosphate?

just to reiterate, nitrate and phosphate DO NOT cause algae

 

[baron von bubba]

Well to be honest i`m looking at running the tank as one would a normal fish tank, with the exception of much more thought going into the aquascaping, and some root tabs.
frequent water changes to keep the neutrients out of the water column, and to keep the floor of the tank a healthy place for the corys, I am not trying to follow diann walsteads method with pond soil substrait heavily planted and alowing the plants to filter the tank,
nor am i going for the amano method of hi light hi co2 and high nutrients.

And as we all know with heavily planted tanks all the fish waste is quickly absorbed by the plants, i`m looking at having a couple of dozen or so root feeders in two dense patches so for a start i would end up looking at fish poo, rolling around on my substrate,

And as for the cost, looking at using the tropica capsuels, i`ll be paying around 30 quid a year,as they apparently last for 6 months,

and enough substrate to cover the bottom of my tank even at 8 quid for 5 l would still cost me somthing running up to 60 or so quid

but cheers for the advice

dude, "running the tank as you would a normal one"? is algae normal for you? cos if you dont listen to the guys trying to help you and dont add water column ferts and do weekly water changes with tap water then algae will probably be normal for you once more.
do you think nutrients in the water column cause algae? its pretty much the opposite thats true! unless you are having really sensitive fish its NOT a problem!!

 

[BigIan]

My tank has no issue with algae despite me changing a good 30-50% of the water weekly, So why should i all of a sudden panic about it when i add some root tabs?
And as i will be very lightly planted with plants that feed through the roots, Where would the nutrients in the water column go? If i were to dose with any meaningful amount of ferts then in my opinion most of it would just be food for algae. So by only adding ferts to the substrate directly under the plants, I limit the ferts in the water column and target it directly where it needs to be directly next to the plants that need it.
And corydras spend there time on the sand bed, and i have seen some kept in dirty conditions with sores on the underside and eroded wiskers, I have kept them on clean sand before and had none of those issues and this is what i want this time.

Fish keeping is not an exact science What works for one person does not work for another.
I`m well aware that if i add plenty on N, P, And K, to the water column along with Co2 and a nutrient rich substrate and 2-3 WPG that i could have incredibly luch growth, with my plants pearling, That is not what i want, i want a nice simple set up as i don`t have the time for a high maintenance set up.
Hence the reason i will be planting with slow growing rosette type plants that i simply get to plant and forget about.
A planted tank does not need to be complicated...


Sorry if you feel i`m ranting but If i have no algae issues in a tank that has been running for 4 years or so as a general rule when i have had algae i have been able to pin it to other issues than water changes, such as incorrect lighting nutrient spikes, or when my co2 had gone wrong. Never have i had an issue with water changes causing algae, I do honestly believe that this is just the latest band wagon,

but thanks for the advice....

 

[baron von bubba]

My tank has no issue with algae despite me changing a good 30-50% of the water weekly, So why should i all of a sudden panic about it when i add some root tabs?
And as i will be very lightly planted with plants that feed through the roots, Where would the nutrients in the water column go? If i were to dose with any meaningful amount of ferts then in my opinion most of it would just be food for algae. So by only adding ferts to the substrate directly under the plants, I limit the ferts in the water column and target it directly where it needs to be directly next to the plants that need it.
And corydras spend there time on the sand bed, and i have seen some kept in dirty conditions with sores on the underside and eroded wiskers, I have kept them on clean sand before and had none of those issues and this is what i want this time.

Fish keeping is not an exact science What works for one person does not work for another.
I`m well aware that if i add plenty on N, P, And K, to the water column along with Co2 and a nutrient rich substrate and 2-3 WPG that i could have incredibly luch growth, with my plants pearling, That is not what i want, i want a nice simple set up as i don`t have the time for a high maintenance set up.
Hence the reason i will be planting with slow growing rosette type plants that i simply get to plant and forget about.
A planted tank does not need to be complicated...


Sorry if you feel i`m ranting but If i have no algae issues in a tank that has been running for 4 years or so as a general rule when i have had algae i have been able to pin it to other issues than water changes, such as incorrect lighting nutrient spikes, or when my co2 had gone wrong. Never have i had an issue with water changes causing algae, I do honestly believe that this is just the latest band wagon,

but thanks for the advice....

whos saying you need to panic adding fert tabs?

is it correct that plants with roots dont ONLY feed through the roots, they ALSO take nutrients from the water column?
most ppl dont like adding marcros to a low tech tank if they plan not to do water changes, (and stocking levels are large enough to supply the plants) so if you plan water changes why worry about adding ferts?
the only reason for this would to believe that ferts cause algae??

keeping algae away is not best done by limiting water column ferts, if that means the plants dont grow as well, or worse they get deficient they will leech organic waste back to the water column, which could be a nice algae trigger in itself.

you say that in your tank WITH co2 added water changes didnt do you do harm, far enough, it wouldnt and no one said it would!!!
you say your CO2 going wrong can induce algae.
in a tank with no additional CO2 added, then tap water changes can fluctuate CO2 levels. this is a known algae trigger. hardly jumping on the band wagon is it??
i guess you have tested to see if your tap water contains CO2?


ah so adding ferts is actually the cause of algae!!

Adding ferts to the water column will just cause algae as little of it will be taken up,

could you please explain this to me then?
if i had a tank i was running 3+ watts per gallon of T5 (which as you'll know, the higher the lighting is, the more likely you will be to get algae problems.)
and i were to have around 50ppm nitrates and 5ppm+ phosphates, then why dont i get algae?

also could you explain why my old 1watt per gallon tank, no ferts added and water changes would still get algae?

cos i thought algae was primarily caused by light, plus ammonia, fluctuating/low co2 levels/poor flow, by fert limitation, by poor bacterial growth in the tank/low O2 levels and/or poor tank maintenance

 

[aaronnorth]

Well to be honest i`m looking at running the tank as one would a normal fish tank, with the exception of much more thought going into the aquascaping, and some root tabs.
frequent water changes to keep the neutrients out of the water column, and to keep the floor of the tank a healthy place for the corys, I am not trying to follow diann walsteads method with pond soil substrait heavily planted and alowing the plants to filter the tank,
nor am i going for the amano method of hi light hi co2 and high nutrients.

And as we all know with heavily planted tanks all the fish waste is quickly absorbed by the plants, i`m looking at having a couple of dozen or so root feeders in two dense patches so for a start i would end up looking at fish poo, rolling around on my substrate,

And as for the cost, looking at using the tropica capsuels, i`ll be paying around 30 quid a year,as they apparently last for 6 months,

and enough substrate to cover the bottom of my tank even at 8 quid for 5 l would still cost me somthing running up to 60 or so quid

but cheers for the advice

ok,
a low tech tank can still be compared with Diana Walstads method, it is just that her style is truly natural. we just switch fish food for supplying nutrients with artifical fertilisers, and run a filter and artificial lighting.
I was unsure on your tank size so fair point, it just depends on how long you are wanting to have this running.

My tank has no issue with algae despite me changing a good 30-50% of the water weekly, So why should i all of a sudden panic about it when i add some root tabs?

is that the tank with pressurized CO2? if it is then CO2 levels are stable = no algae.
If it is just a "normal" fish tank then adding plants brings in more opportunities for algae to strike because if plants are constantly adapating to differing CO2 levels they are not growing as fast, which leads to algae.

And as i will be very lightly planted with plants that feed through the roots, Where would the nutrients in the water column go? If i were to dose with any meaningful amount of ferts then in my opinion most of it would just be food for algae. So by only adding ferts to the substrate directly under the plants, I limit the ferts in the water column and target it directly where it needs to be directly next to the plants that need it.

ferts in the substrate will still leach into the water column eventually.

Never have i had an issue with water changes causing algae, I do honestly believe that this is just the latest band wagon,

as i explained above, this inly causes algae in low tech tanks, if it is high tech or "normal" then it isnt the same,
it isnt the latest bandwagon at all, the link i gave to in my above post was from 2005. I havent been in the hobby before that except when i was 5 so i cant comment if it was known before that lol.

Thanks, Aaron

 

[Jallen]

the tank will have low light, and slow growing root feeding plants and no co2.
Adding ferts to the water column will just cause algae as little of it will be taken up,

Water collumn ferts with no phosphate or nitrate like PlantaMin don't cause algae.

as a pose to what? ferts WITH nitrate and phosphate?

just to reiterate, nitrate and phosphate DO NOT cause algae

Just the fact that plantamin says on the back that it doesn't include those 2 things because they cause algae shows that there is proof that they do.
If they didn't and there was no evidence for it doing so then they would be forced to remove it by trading standards or some authority. Not to mention the probable millions they have invested in research on the subject.

http/www.grinnell.edu/academic/biology/c...%5C5-TlrsV4.pdf
http/www.ncsu.edu/sciencejunction/depot/...ter/lessons/np/
http/www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...62e27344eacdaec

Now I'm sure you are going to say it's all to do with the light.
Both of my tanks get direct sunlight and niether have ever experienced any kind of algae except for very small amounts of brown algae on the tallest of my plants, and that only started happening when I used higher temperature lights, it seems, though I'm not sure, that higher temperatures of light are more likely to cause brown algae to me, but again, not sure on that point.

Light is the on/off switch in the whole algae growth situation, but it won't do anything if the electricity isn't there, which in this analogy is the phosphate and nitrate.
As you increase the amount of nitrate and phosphate, algae will grow quicker and more easily. There is substancial evidence for this.

 

[Truck]

Just the fact that plantamin says on the back that it doesn't include those 2 things because they cause algae shows that there is proof that they do.
If they didn't and there was no evidence for it doing so then they would be forced to remove it by trading standards or some authority. Not to mention the probable millions they have invested in research on the subject.

thats not proof at all, how come i can dose 20ppm of nitrate and 2 ppm pf PO4 without getting algae if it causes it, ammonia is the trigger for algae and others will back my statement up