Rich substrate

[niko]

Hi folks!

This is my first post here.
TzunamiCarlos told me about this forum. I'm not sure he posts here under that name but chances are he is.

My post today is about rich substrates. I live in the US and here most folk do water column fertilizing. It works well if you stay on top of it - fertilize carefully and make sure you don't have big fluctuations of the fertilizers.

I currently have 5 tanks - two 55 gal., a 180 gal., 10 gal, and a 30 gal cube. The water column fertilizing of so many tanks is rather ridiculous. You should see the amount of Fertilizers - Nitrate, Phosphate, K, Traces, Fe that I pour in the tanks.
In addition - I maintain two 120 gal. tanks in other people's houses. Fertilizing the water is a problem there. I do it only once a week, when I visit to make a water change.

In order to try a different approach - with less water column fertilizers - I recently set up a tank with a "complicated" substrate. It is a mixture of laterite, worm castings, pumice, peat, and gravel. All of these are mixed together and that layer is covered with about an inch (2.5 cm) of plain gravel.

The commercial planted tank substrates that are sold in the US don't seem to do that great of a job. I am talking about FloraBase and Terralit. There is another one that is kind of new and may be good, I don't know, have not tried it - the name is FertiPlant.

I decied to experiment with my own mixture after reading some Brazilian web sites:
http://www.discus.com.br/dicas/detalhar.asp?id=11
http://www.geocities.com/aquabrasilis/humus.html

Does anyone have experience with such substrates?
Will they really help me fertilize the water colum less?

--Nikolay

[Sir Plants-a-lot]

Heklo Nikolay,

I tried a similar substrate on both my recent tanks. The first was a 40 gallon and the substrate included laterite plus some other clays I found around here (some grey and some yellow) ,peatmoss, soil and a few tbsp of "8-8-8+humic acids" plant fertilizer. The fertiliser went at the very bottom, below the clay, in order to prevent it from quickly leaching back up into the water. The plants grew very well, and the water was always crystal clear, except after i had been moving the plants around.

The second was a 135 gallon and the substrate was similar. Plant growth was similar but after about 4 weeks i got green water for a few days. PITA, but it went away.

Personally I like this kind of rich substrate, and from time to time I press balls of clay mixed with the same 8-8-8 fertiliser deep into the substrate.

My only comment about your method is that maybe the top layer of gravel could be a bit deeper, especially using worm castings. All those nutrients can leach through the gravel into the water column.

Regards,
Kevin

[Sir Plants-a-lot]

Forgot about the second question...

You won't need to add nutrients to the water column, at least not macros. But if you have plants like anubias or moss that grow above the gravel level, they won't get much. Traces will still be an issue though. I currently dose both micros and macros into the water anyway, so I didn't save myself any work by putting all the extras under the substrate.

Regards,
Kevin

[Allen_1971]

First off, a warm welcome to our Forum. I know carlos as we have communicated over the web before.

With regards to the substrate, most locals here use premade substrates with brands like JBL, Dennerle, and ADA being among the more popular substrate. Very few people here actively experiment with "home-made" compositions, though there are a few.

Having said that, your substrate sounds great. It should be more than sufficient to supply most of your plants needs. The only thing I don't like in it is the laterite, but thats more because its messy when you replant. Otherwise, Laterite is a good subtrate.

Still, I'm rather suspicious about whether you can get away from fertilising the water column. Initially, it should not be a problem, but I doubt you can avoid it completely. Perhaps in low light setups...

Anyway, thats just my 2 cents.

[lvanilla]

Since each base fertilizer got their own pro n cons. Is it adviceable to mix different brands of base fertilizer so that you will have a balance substrate with different or all nutrients and composition? Hence it will be suitable for all types of plants rich with all nutrients.

Personally I m setting up a 3 footer with JBL and oceanfree base fertilizer. Both composition is different. Wonder how it will perform.

If it is good, next time I will try dennerle, JBL and oceanfree together. Hmmm.... I may skip JBL and replce with other brands as it will make water cloudy....everytime u remove a plant.

Any comments?...

[FC]

I tried in the past to have rich substrate by injecting liquid nutrients into it. It cuts down the routine from twice a week to once fortnightly. The doseage is, of course, geared to last 2 weeks.

Your rich substrate cocoon sounds a bit aggressively to me. The downside is that if overdone, you will have to re-do the base. I also think that you should have a thicker gravel, something like 2 inch clean gravel on top.

I have pure laterite based system in my tank. Early this year, I experimented solid fertilizers meant for house plant, peat extract, some macro and micro nutrients and bacterials into the substrate. It works very well for my stem and rossette plants. I hardly need water column maintenance. The water column is very low in nutrients but my plants have no problem with it. Now the only time I add nutrient is during water change but in low dosage because the plants have yet to show sign of deficiency. I have no algae problem except on my newly planted Glossostigma which I later gave up because my Cory Stebai were digging them up before they have a chance to establish.

[Plantbrain]

Well you sound like a candidate for the non CO2 tank.

Soil tanks work well IME. But more rich material is not "better",

You will have to do nothing but top the tank off for evaporation, feed fish daily at least, plant heavy from the start, add some herbivores, keep light 2w gal etc. Add some floating plants(10-20% of the water surface).

Use easy to grow plants, there are plenty to pick and choose from.

You can also use some DIYCO2 to get the plants growing and rooted well and to take out any water column nutrients in the start up phase.

Then remove the CO2.

It works well since the rate of plant growth is slow and the fish waste alone can supply enough.

I add only 4 things:
KNO3(dry)
K2SO4 "
KH2PO4 "
Trace mix (liquid).

3x a week,
It's not bad after a couple of times.
You need to get some help from the owners of the tank, just have them add he ferts once in the middle of the week.

Feeding the plants(just like feeding their fish)

Regards,
Tom Barr