Osmocote plus disaster

[Happi]

Sure, there's always room for difference of opinion.

Vin in his presentation said that for his Rotala Kill Tank, he had his water column nitrate level tested by some university friend with expensive equipment and it was 0 nitrates?

yes I read that too, but so far I have seen people added these in deep substrate and even sand and still had the reading go off the Chart. not sure if his substrate was really deep more than 4+ inches or so, in deeper substrate the NO3 is usually converted into Nitrogen Gas rather than releasing it into water as NO3. if his reading were truly 0 ppm NO3, this strongly suggest whatever I just mentioned, because otherwise you will never ever find a reading of 0 ppm NO3 in aquarium.

I believe Vin experiment was to demonstrate that root feeding was the way to go to grow those plants properly, but I demonstrated that you can grow them without root feeding and with lean or even higher but proper dosing. the experiment were posted in the thread "lean dosing Pro vs Cons"

I strongly believe the results he was seeing was truly due to lean dosing rather than root feeding. if you were to setup a inert substrate aquarium and dose lean the end result would be similar to Vin. if you were to use aqua soil without root feeding and dose lean in the water the end results again would be the same. the major players are NH4/Urea that are contributing most of the good results here.

but with excess root tabs you are looking for lot of issues, if we recommended 1 root tabs for everyone's tank, the end results is not going to be same for everyone.

 

[Maf 2500]

There is no way to control the release from these balls in the aquatic environment and therefore the risk of rolling the dice is too much for me to contemplate.

 

[Ria95]

Hi all,

I'm sure that this will have slowed release, but I'm not sure how much. This is because the <"TAN, ammonia (NH3) / ammonium (NH4+)"> is a gas / monovalent ion and it won't be bound by <"any CEC in the substrate">, so potentially you could just end up with a dump into the tank water that erwin123 references.

That would be my worry, you are back into Donald Rumsfeld territory with a lot of <"unknown unknowns">.

cheers Darrel

Quite a lot of the osmocote ends up in the water column. There is this controlled experiment with osmocote covered by 5 cm of sand vs not covered. I've linked to it in a previous thread, sorry for the repetition IntuitiveAqua.net | Knowledge Experience Intuition

It seems that the nutrients kept releasing for around 6 months and indeed the sand just slowed things down a bit. It's difficult to determine from Vin's tank what and how much the soil contributed to the water column. It's a good journal but there are very few water values given in his journal, his tank was also full of algae at the start, water change schedules, tank maturing over time ...

You can see it in the graph from the site how there is already nitrification starting to shift ammonia into nitrate in A tank. Same can happen in tanks with plants. Plants and algae can also consume the nutrients as soon as they are available or roots 'intercepting' the nutrients in the best scenario. It's clear however that a sand cap, much less a gravel cap, isn't that great to keep the nutrients only available for the plant roots.

Bottom line you are right, you end up with a black box and with a hard to remove long-term nutrient source.

 

[Hanuman]

Most plants can grow purely with water dosing fertilisations and I think Vin, Tom Barr and a few other have demonstrated that many times over. However, if I remember well what I read at that time is that a few plant species will prefer root feeding, and in general, root feeding provides some benefits even for plants that can grow fine without it.

This said, I can give you one instance of a plant where root feeding seems preferred, or at least where the root mass is required for the plant to expand. So this technically is not necessarily a preference for root feeding but I think it has some relation. That's the case of Blyxa japonica and I would suspect for other Blyxa sps. I have kept B. Japonica for nearly over 2 years wedged against the aquarium glass and some plastic tube with plenty of fert, CO2 and light. No substrate. The plant never really grew yet never died but kept producing offspring. Roots were notoriously small and never grew beyond 2-3 cm max. Once planted that plant became a monster and root system...well, we all know what B. Japonica root system is like. I would need to experiment on planting on pure sand and see how that goes but I doubt it will thrive as well as on a rich substrate.
Erios are also plants that in my experience will do much better when substrate is rich. E. Ratnagicirium for instance or E. Udonthani and others which I have grown extensively have shown to me that without a rich soil it's the end of them. E. Ratnagicirium is particularly sensitive.

Overall I think plants no matter wether they are comfortable with column dosing or not will always benefit from also being fed from roots.

 

[erwin123]

This said, I can give you one instance of a plant where root feeding seems preferred, or at least where the root mass is required for the plant to expand. So this technically is not necessarily a preference for root feeding but I think it has some relation. That's the case of Blyxa japonica and I would suspect for other Blyxa sps. I have kept B. Japonica for nearly over 2 years wedged against the aquarium glass and some plastic tube with plenty of fert, CO2 and light. No substrate. The plant never really grew yet never died but kept producing offspring. Roots were notoriously small and never grew beyond 2-3 cm max. Once planted that plant became a monster and root system...well, we all know what B. Japonica root system is like. I would need to experiment on planting on pure sand and see how that goes but I doubt it will thrive as well as on a rich substrate.
Erios are also plants that in my experience will do much better when substrate is rich. E. Ratnagicirium for instance or E. Udonthani and others which I have grown extensively have shown to me that without a rich soil it's the end of them. E. Ratnagicirium is particularly sensitive.

Here are a couple of pics of my Erios and their root systems (E. 'Vietnam' , E 'Japan, E Cinerum).
I'm not saying that they can't grow fine with water column dosing, but the presence of osmocote in substrate does seem to promote the growth of their root system?

 

[Hanuman]

I'm not saying that they can't grow fine with water column dosing, but the presence of osmocote in substrate does seem to promote the growth of their root system?

That's basically what I think. Erios in my experience will do much better in a rich substrate. When substrate depletes or is poor to start with they'll do poorly or possibly die even if you have heavy column fertilisation. From left to right (E. Lineare, Selection of E. Lineare, E. Vietnam, E. Udonthani (Cinerum), E. Quinquangulare.

 

[Happi]

@Hanuman
If you were to add urea in your liquid fertilizer even with depleted soil, this plant will grow like crazy.

 

[Hanuman]

A test to be done! Some time ago I wanted to setup a shallow tank with only erios but the tank came, glass job was sh***ty so I returned the tank.

 

[eminor]

Too bad 2hr aquarist removed his usefull article on how to use osmocote mainly to sell his product, business after all, can't blame him, no way to get it back ?

 

[erwin123]

Too bad 2hr aquarist removed his usefull article on how to use osmocote mainly to sell his product, business after all, can't blame him, no way to get it back ?

no problem, i summarise for you:

(1) use the NPK version
(2) Use tweezer to add 1 pellet per square inch

That's it.

My own take on this is that not all plants need osmocote, you should just add 1-2 pellets per square inch under the more difficult plants that may need the extra help. Easy and medium plants will all do fine with water column dosing.

There are additional techniques that Dennis didn't share in his article such as the fact that instead of using tweezers to plant in the general area of the plant, I understand that he will wrap the osmocote pellet(s) among the root system.

 

[eminor]

no problem, i summarise for you:

(1) use the NPK version
(2) Use tweezer to add 1 pellet per square inch

That's it.

My own take on this is that not all plants need osmocote, you should just add 1-2 pellets per square inch under the more difficult plants that may need the extra help. Easy and medium plants will all do fine with water column dosing.

There are additional techniques that Dennis didn't share in his article such as the fact that instead of using tweezers to plant in the general area of the plant, I understand that he will wrap the osmocote pellet(s) among the root system.

thx, how can you wrap pellet in the root system, i mean the best i can do is put the pellet in the bottom just below the plant ? if i want to wrap i'll make a huge ammonia spike ?

Does plant know when there's new and lots of nutrients nearby, can they make root to get the food ?

Also once every nutrients in the pellet are used, what the pellet become ? does she stay in place ? thx so much

 

[erwin123]

Propagating Eriocaulon species

Eriocaulon species generally prefer a combination of soft water (<2dKH) and rich soil. Some Eriocaulons naturally develop side shoots as they grow large. They can also be propagated by splitting a large plant in half. Eriocaulon ratnagiricum, Eriocaulon quinquangulare are both popular Erios that...

www.2hraquarist.com

Every few months (maybe Dennis farm tank its only a few weeks), you will have to uproot your valuable Eriocaulons in order split them up. Some you sell, some you replant. Before replanting, I heard that Dennis will wrap the osmocote pellets within the root system. Given the prices you can sell the more exotic Erios for, I guess its worth the extra effort.

I might be wrong, but the Erio on the left, there is an osmocote pellet visible.

Anything else, using a tweezer in the general area should be good enough.

The osmocote shells remain. so when you pull out the plant, there might be osmocote shells stuck within the root system, just clean up the roots and toss the pellets.

 

[Libba]

I like the ADA Bottom Plus root tabs. I think they are just clay that has been soaked in ammonia then pressed into a pill.

 

[Hanuman]

Too bad 2hr aquarist removed his usefull article on how to use osmocote mainly to sell his product, business after all, can't blame him, no way to get it back ?

Unfortunately for him, the Web never forgets anyone that has interacted with it.

How to use osmocote for substrate in planted aquarium

Fresh aquasoil such as ADA aquasoil contain high amounts of ammonia. This is very effective for plant growth, however, it does deplete over time. Spiking the substrate with root fertilizers such as osmocote is an easy way to enrich aquasoil with nutrients.

web.archive.org

This said, he doesn't say much that we don't know at this stage.

 

[eminor]

Propagating Eriocaulon species

Eriocaulon species generally prefer a combination of soft water (<2dKH) and rich soil. Some Eriocaulons naturally develop side shoots as they grow large. They can also be propagated by splitting a large plant in half. Eriocaulon ratnagiricum, Eriocaulon quinquangulare are both popular Erios that...

www.2hraquarist.com

View attachment 195013


Every few months (maybe Dennis farm tank its only a few weeks), you will have to uproot your valuable Eriocaulons in order split them up. Some you sell, some you replant. Before replanting, I heard that Dennis will wrap the osmocote pellets within the root system. Given the prices you can sell the more exotic Erios for, I guess its worth the extra effort.

I might be wrong, but the Erio on the left, there is an osmocote pellet visible.

Anything else, using a tweezer in the general area should be good enough.

The osmocote shells remain. so when you pull out the plant, there might be osmocote shells stuck within the root system, just clean up the roots and toss the pellets.

Yes it's looks like an osmocote pellet, from now, when i'll buy a plant i'll put one or two balls in the root before planting, that's amazing. Could be the way for my nemesis plant, myriophyllum tuberculatum

Unfortunately for him, the Web never forgets anyone that has interacted with it.

How to use osmocote for substrate in planted aquarium

Fresh aquasoil such as ADA aquasoil contain high amounts of ammonia. This is very effective for plant growth, however, it does deplete over time. Spiking the substrate with root fertilizers such as osmocote is an easy way to enrich aquasoil with nutrients.

web.archive.org

This said, he doesn't say much that we don't know at this stage.

amazing thx, miss a bit of it but as you said now we know how to do it =)

 

[Happi]

At some point things got slightly better, but plant would start to melt randomly if water wasn't changed frequently, the nutrients buildup still continued but they were not as bad compared to before. The tank remained very unstable despite doing several water changes and it was finally taken down. So I ended that experiment, this was one of the last picture taken before tearing it down.

 

[eminor]

Sure, there's always room for different ways to approach how to feed plants

Vin in his presentation said that for his Rotala Kill Tank, he had his water column nitrate level tested by some university friend with expensive equipment and it was 0 nitrates?... and he had like 1 pound of osmocote in his substrate or something like that?

@erwin123 sorry to update the topic but won't create one for that, it seems that there is a rotala killer tank kind of summary video, any idea where i can get it ? thx

 

[erwin123]

@erwin123 sorry to update the topic but won't create one for that, it seems that there is a rotala killer tank kind of summary video, any idea where i can get it ? thx

There is a video of Vin Kutty's presentation floating around the internet but I don't have the link. It was shared by Happi previously.

 

[John q]

It was shared by Happi previously.

It was in this post, but I think the link is dead now.
Post in thread 'Root tabs and/or liquid ferts' Root tabs and/or liquid ferts

 

[Hufsa]

It was in this post, but I think the link is dead now.

@eminor , I am sending you a message shortly about the video