Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 09:52:18 -0700
From: "Cory Pedersen" <cory at angelcom_com>
Don't bury the compost enclosed in nylon. Nylon gives off a
substance that harms aquatic plants. A better thing to do would be
to extract the nutrients from the compost by soaking the compost in
water, then carefully draining off the water and letting it settle in
a plastic shoe box for about a week before adding the water to the
aquarium.
Then I'm feeding the plants not the roots. If that's the case why don't
I add a little miracle gro to my planted aquarium? I want to stick it
in something so when I put it in the tank it doesn't turn my water all
brown.
Extract from compost will have all the nitrogen in the form of
nitrate. Miracle-gro will have a lot of its nitrogen as ammonia,
which can be toxic if not added carefully and in small amounts. If
you were to bury unextracted compost, a lot that nitrate nitrogen
would be lost via denitrification---converted to N2 by bacteria that
utilize NO3 as an oxygen source when O2 is not available.