I have made my own root tabs which have proven extremely effective and economical and you only need two easily sourced ingredients!
I used:
- Fullers Earth in my original experiment however, I am in the process of ordering some red pottery clay powder for my next batch. It's really important that the clay or fullers earth is the red variety as the redness is the cheated iron which is essential.
- E.I. Complete Fertilizer salts. I bought mine from CO2 Supermarket as this is the mix I use for my liquid fert too. Instead of using salts, any liquid fert for aquaria would work.
Here's what I did:
- Mixed in a measured amount of salts with the powder.
- Added enough dechlorinated tap water (cold) to make up a stiff clay.
- Rolled the clay into balls of various sizes. Small for foreground plants and large for background and greedy plants.
- Allow to airdry overnight. Baking is not an option as I will destroy some of the chemicals.
- Store in a cool dry cupboard until needed.
The advantages of this method are that:
- The clay also contains nutrients and minerals which aren't in the fert mix.
- The clay is easy to handle and to push into any substrate.
- It slowly softens and releases it's contents over a period of approx a month and after that, it just becomes part of the substrate.
Most importantly, I know exactly what I'm putting into my tank and can very accurately place the clay balls near or under roots. As a final advantage, being heavy, the clay balls can't be uprooted by burrowing fish such as loaches and will therefore stay where they are put.
The image above shows the dried clay balls. They appear slightly grey as the salts do tend to crystallize slightly on the skin whilst they are drying. This was probably due to the fact that I dried these on a radiator as they were needed fairly quickly.
As an alternative, it is possible to go completely organic and use seaweednextract as the liquid feet instead. Apparently it is fairly effective however, seaweed contains a high content of iodine which can inhibit growth in large amounts.
Here's an easy to follow instruction.
By using these in conjunction with E.I. Liquid fertilisation, my swords and crypts are really really taking off and I have spare money which I can then spend on more plants!!!
As a final thought, red montmillorite clay, red fullers earth and red pottery clay can be used on their own as substrate certs as they all contain the essential cheated iron and minerals. However, they will be slightly less effective without the addition of extra salts.
Hope this helps!