Re: Evil Jobes Plant Spikes?

["Giancarlo Podio" <gp at isaconsulting_com>]

Hi Dave, I'm no expert but I would think the same will happen with any
substrate tabs that are exposed to the water column. I use Flourish Tabs and
Jobes sticks together and I do see a slight increase in algae growth after
stiring up the gravel or vacuming. I think water changes will help you a lot
and also finding those little pieces of plant spikes that did escape from
under the gravel. I would just avoid stiring the substrate up too much. I
think something similar was documented in the Sears-Conlin paper. I always
try to avoid stiring up the gravel, I like a deep rich gravel bed but I'm
sure there are plenty of nutrients and nasties under there that I would not
want to release into the water. If things got really bad I would lay another
half inch or so of gravel over the top but I doubt you would need to do that
if you did a couple of large water changes. We used to do a similar thing
during cycling where we'd pollute the gravel with heavy feeding, then burry
it all under a new layer of gravel and start again until the bed was nice
and think and rich by the time the tank was cycled (Funny, I had forgotten
about doing this until now :-)

Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio


----- Original Message -----

  a.. To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
  b.. Subject: Evil Jobes Plant Spikes?
  c.. From: Dave Millman <dave at tactics_com>
  d.. Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 11:29:24 -0700
  e.. In-reply-to: <200305201234_h4KCYa4D031391 at otter.actwin.com>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
I've been using Jobe's Plant Spikes for Ferns and Palms for 18 months under
my Swords, which usually keeps them happy. About six weeks ago, I did some
long overdue maintenance on the tank, removing several large plants and
disturbing the gravel big time. I estimate that I released a total one whole
spike or more into the water column-actually, four or five semi-dissolved
half spikes, which broke into zillions of pieces when they came out of the
gravel.

Since then, I've been fighting the worst algae to ever hit my tank. It's
been driving me crazy trying to pin down the cause. Finally during the last
week, I see two mentions of how Jobe's Spikes can cause an algae explosion
if released from the gravel. Oops...Water changes seem to have helped, but
the tank still has a ways to go.

What can we use under swords to prevent this from happening in the future? I
have 100% Flourite, which probably provides sufficient Iron for the root
feeders (I dose iron as well). Is there a recommended substrate fertilizer
that people have had good experiences with?

Thanks.