Today it was time to mow the lawn even though it's almost December and Minnesota is FREEZING! Who said you can't mow the lawn in late November anyways? haha!
I have used eco-complete in this kind exact situation and was able to grow HC and dwarf microsword but I'm sure like mistergreen said the plants will grow faster.
Its a standard fired clay substrate. It is much the same as terra cotta. Plants cant send there roots through the clay. Just the first small pores they attach to. After that the porous inner structure is too small to allow roots to reach, or for that matter water to pull nutrients out off.
If i were to make a clay pot, i could add in tons and tons of ammonia and phosphates and say that my pot would help grow any plant better than the competitors pot, but once the plant roots extract everything from the surface they can reach, the pot is still just a pot, but i can say its got 50000000 ppm of ammonia locked inside
This is prett much how flourite and eco complete work. The good news is they are able because of this to exchange cations allowing them to hold nutrients in the water, making them available for plantsr later on. So if u dont fertilize, when u feed and it gets broken down, and change water, the subsrate acts like a sponge and holds onto as much as it can thus maintaining consistent growth, this works out well in a low tech tank, but in a well fertilized tank, you'll never see this happen as plants can easily absorb nutrients from the water column
I’ve been growing HC for the past few months in a small container filled with about ½ inch of potting soil and just enough water to cover the plants. I use the containers you get when you buy olives at one of the olive bars they have in the grocery stores. It is maybe an inch and a half high and has about a three inches radius. With only this small amount of dirt and water I find that the containers float and so I have taken to floating them in the corners of my grow out tanks. Once a week or so I dump the excess water and replace it. With only a small distance between the light and the plants and almost no water they grow very well. Not only do they get good light but they don’t block any of the light from the rest of the aquarium. Just this morning I split one container into three and I probably could have made four or more. Rather than clipping the plants I just pull out clumps and plant them .
Cool, what are your plans for the plants in the trays?
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