Substrate And The Challenge Of Feeding Plants

[Evad]

Hi there,

Getting ready to set up my 180gal again. Had a fully planted rainbow tank years back and just getting back into the hobby. Back then I used 4" of flourite and primarily fed the plants from the ground.

This time I don't really have hundreds of dollars for flourite, so I was wondering if using regular gravel and feeding primarily through the water works just as well? I know some people prefer it.


Any advice is appreciated.

 

[frozenbarb]

It won't be as good because some plants feed through the roots and some through the stems. But mostly all feed through the leaves as much as the roots.

You might want to get dry ferts try RexGrigg.com to buy bulk dry ferts. As for gravel use Root Tabs or underground fertilizers

 

[aaronnorth]

rossettes usually feed from the roots and stems usually feed from the water,

 

[Evad]

So what are you two saying exactly? Do I need a better substrate than gravel alone? Or can I just use a root fertilizer in a regular gravel substrate?

 

[SuperColey1]

All plants primarily feed through their leaves but some will take from both. This is why some people have success with plain old gravel or sand. It is easier for the plant to get its food through its leaves than through it's roots.

I would recommend a nutrient source under the gravel though because it gives more room for error if you are on the low side. If it is too expensive for you to get a nutrient rich substrate (something like Eco-Complete would be about $50 and then top it with small gravel or sand) then dig up enough normal soil from your garden and leave it out in the sun for a week or 2. Then add it to your tank (not topped with anything else) This route does mean you need to give it a few weeks to leech out the ammonia before adding fish.

If I had a tank of crypts (which I have. lol) and relied just on their roots the nutrient substrate would be used up too quickly therefore I dose daily which will make the substrate last much longer whilst also absorbing some excess ferts in the clay particles.

Andy

 

[Evad]

Ok that makes sense. Is eco complete something that I would use in place of the gravel or something I could mix in with the gravel to improve the substrate?

 

[aaronnorth]

Ok that makes sense. Is eco complete something that I would use in place of the gravel or something I could mix in with the gravel to improve the substrate?

Eco-complete is usually used on its own but there is no harm in mixing it, it will be like a 'dliute' solution though, its available from aquaessentials and aquatics online.

 

[Evad]

Thanks. I am starting with 150lbs of gravel and 75lbs of eco-complete. I will only put the eco complete where i have plants and leave a lot of the non-planted space to be 100% gravel.

Can you believe it was cheaper to buy 225lbs of stuff via mail order and have it shipped? Crazy.

 

[plantbrain]

The only things Flourite or EC add are perhaps some Fe and Mn, they do not add N, P, K etc.

So they are far far far far..................from being a complete or needed for adding "ferts".

ADA aqua soil has the Fe and Mn+, + NPK etc.

I think the best approach, and there's a lot of both hobby and research to support this: aquatic plants are opportunistic, they take nutrients from either location.

So don't be swayed into the "either...... or" mentality.

Use both.

This way if you forget to dose the water column, you have a back up, at higher rates of growth, some plants can use both well.
You also have less draw over time from the sediments if you dose the water column.

As far as plants doing better/worse with sediment ferts or water column, no one in the hobby has done any split chamber test to show this.
Plants generally use nutrients in both locations anyways.........

Fish waste is more than enough to grow any algae you might see, so the main advanatage is ease of use for sediment ferts.
Not algae control.

I've easily grown monster swords and crypts with plain old sand.
Huge plants and lots of them for decades.

They have huge root systems for other reasons also: they live in streams and rivers where the dry season and wet season flows are huge.
They get swept away if they do not have large root systems and when the water recedes, they would dry up without a large root system.
It appears to have very little to do with nutrient preference.

If you have a fairly lean water column dosing routine, and add fert sticks under such plants, this will lead you to think/assume they prefer root tabs etc, however, if you doa control test where you only feed ferts to the water column and at similar rich levels, now you can see the growth rates are no different. So adding fert to the sediment is easy and makes dosing easier, so you might as well go whole hog and add the entire sediment this way and dose the water column for best results.
From there: keep light moderate to low and make sure you really focus a lot on good CO2.

Keep the tank pruned, add algae eaters, water changes often, dosing etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Evad]

Thanks! You say "plain old sand" but what about "plain old gravel"? Can I grow plants in gravel ok? My concern about sand is that its impossible to vacuum and I would prefer to us gravel if possible.

 

[Egmel]

My concern about sand is that its impossible to vacuum.

I have sand and I would say that you can vacuum it... you just require a different technique from that used with gravel. With sand most of the rubbish sits on the top. You waft the siphon/hoover over the surface rather than putting it into the substrate

If you do go with sand then grab some Malaysian Trumpet snails, they help keep it well turned and will take some of the rubbish on the top down to the plant roots as fertiliser.

Edit - but yes I think plain old gravel is the same as plain old sand nutrition wise

 

[Evad]

I figured they were the same nutrition wise - just wasn't sure if plants liked sand as a medium significantly better than gravel.

Good call on the snails - I'll remember that