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Product for Helping Plants Survive???

2K views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  aunt kymmie 
#1 ·
I was curious, I have never had a problem with the plants in my tank, they have always grown full and rapid. But in my community tank, I'm starting to have problems with my plants, they are slowly dying. I know they need Iron, so I was curious what are some good products I can get to help them live? Thank you.
 
#4 ·
Flourish, Flourish Excel and root tabs are what I've found helpful in my planted tank. What type of lighting do you have on the tank?
They actually have those at the LPS around here. I saw someone mentioned them in another thread, and thought i'd get an opinion first. I saw someone said they contain Laterite, and it could possibly make a black mess in your tank. Is that true, or only if you use them wrong?
 
#5 · (Edited)
I haven't found that they make a mess if you use them properly. I shove them down in the substrate and they're good to go. The one time I pulled up a plant (it was covered in algae and I just wanted it gone from the tank) a cloudy mess came up with the roots. It quickly dissipated and wasn't a big deal. I think if you shove them under the substrate and leave them alone they'll be just fine.
My plants *love* them!
 
#7 · (Edited)
The Fourish tabs are the only ones I'll use now.

I used another brand (can't recall the name of them) and the tabs turned to mush after being in the water for only a day. If you disturb the other tabs by uprooting or moving the plants around them, the mush will come up and mess up your water column.

I have found that Flourish tabs do not get mushy. The tab holds together pretty well until it's finally used up by the plant roots.

I use them based on what plants are in the area. My sword plants get a tab right at the roots as swords are heavy root feeders. Other plants like crypts and stem plants get a tab in between all of them. If you are not sure if the plants you have are heavy root feeders you can place the tabs in the gravel around the plants. The roots will grow towards the tabs and get nutrients.

I also break apart tabs and use smaller pieces for the smaller areas between stem plants.
I do not put any tabs in the open free swimming area at the front of tank as there aren't any plants there. I think the instructions say something like place a tab every so many square inches but if you don't have plants growing in every square inch what would be the point of that??
 
#8 ·
Thank you very much I really appreciate it. Someone told me when I first got my tank, to try to avoid putting too many chemicals into the water, because you don't want to end up with a "chemical cocktail", and ever since then I'm really hesitant to put any liquid medications or anything liquid into the water. I had a case of the ich a few months ago, and that was the last time I added liquid. I think I'm going to go ahead and take your advice with the Flourish tabs. Thank you very much.
 
#9 ·
You won't be sorry. Here is the breakdown of the ingredients in these tabs:

Flourish Tabs™ are growth stimulating tablets for plant roots. They contain essential trace elements, amino acids, and vitamins. They are rich in iron, manganese, magnesium, calcium, potassium, inositol, choline B12, biotin, and other factors that have been determined to be beneficial to aquatic plant roots. View a chart of Flourish Tabs™ constituents and signs of their deficiency. They contain no phosphate or nitrate that would promote algae proliferation. Each pack of ten tablets treats a 12 X 30 inch plant bed twice.

They are so "safe" that you could eat them, not that you would...lol
All good *stuff*. Happy Planting!!
 
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