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Re: [APD] sword root tabs -- or- Poking at substrates



I think it's hilarious that if someone isn't following the latest fashion in
aquatic gardening it raises the ire of the APD. I remember the same attitude
on this list several years ago when somebody dared to suggest that Flourite
wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I imagine in a few years you'll be
screaming at us because we don't realize that the aquatic plants we grow are
actually terrestial plants and need substrate fertilization.

On 7/27/06, S. Hieber <shieber at yahoo_com> wrote:
>
> All kidding aside. Sure you can muck about in the substrate if you want;
> of the seven methods of aquatic gardening, two of them rely on substrate
> fertilizing.
>
> My point was only that there's really no need to do so and I thought it
> was kind of an old fashioned approach to aquatic gardening, borne of the
> terrestrial methods and raised on the mistaken trepidation that ferts in the
> water column are best avoided.
>
> "Ground" fertilizing makes sense for terrestrial plants; it's hard to feed
> them adequately through the leaves. So, it makes sense to put ferts in the
> soil for land plants. For dirt underlayment tank, where one is trying to
> avoid having to dose ferts again and again, tabs don't make much sense and
> in the cases with a dirt underlayment tank where you do have a need to add
> more nutrients, then it might be better to add straight to the water column
> that go disturbing the substrate with that dirt underneath it.
>
> Feeding through the leaves is not difficult with submerged aquatic plants.
> And as Tom, for one example, has said again and again, it's not as if
> nutrients themselves are going to cause algae just because they are in the
> water column.
>
> Tarah Nyberg gave a fun, literally hands-on, and interesting talk at one
> of the aquatic plant conventions on how to make your own fertilizer
> balls.  It's easy although a little time consuming and fun the first fifteen
> minutes or so. Prepackaged tabs save some of the work but tend, ime, to an
> expensive way to avoid putting ferts directly in the water column where they
> do no harm in a healthy tank but feed the plants just as well as ferts
> placed in the substrate.
>
> sh
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: S. Hieber <shieber at yahoo_com>
> To: aquatic plants digest <aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 6:53:36 PM
> Subject: Re: [APD] sword root tabs
>
>
> Well, sometimes the hobby advances, and sometimes they try to clear
> inventory.
>
> Thre's a big diff between poking tablets in substrate and having a dirt
> underlayment. One of the points of the dirt underlayment, as outlined by
> Diana, is to provide the nutirents when you set up so you don't have to keep
> dsoing -- although, Diana said at AGA2K4 that she does add ferts for swords.
>
> sh
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Aqua Botanic <aquabotanic at qwest_net>
> To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 6:38:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [APD] sword root tabs
>
>
> <<I haven't used root tabs in years although I hear they are still sold.
> Just throw ferts in the water.<<
>
> LOL, Scott, you really crack me up sometimes.
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