Aquariumplants.com Total Pellet Fertilizer - Review

[dinokath]

Well, I am not sure what happened since my last post, but it seems the tank crashed. I don't mean that everything died, but my plants seemed to have 'melted'. The amazon swords leaves went transparent, the rotalla wallichii turned to stems and most of the stuff that is red in color pretty much died back.

I followed the directions on the bottle of pellets, same as I did when I initially went to the pellet ferts. Within about two weeks, everything seemed to had died back. Leaves turned brown on the red plants, the swords went transparent, the cabomba turned yellow/brown and the wallichii lost all their leaves. All my water parameters were well within toleration limits.

I did a 50% water change on Monday, June 22nd, removed all the plants, cleaned the crap out of the gravel, and replanted everything. I tossed about 1/2 of what I had and kept the best looking specimens of everything except the micro swords. I tossed those all together (I couldn't get them to stay put. Every week I was replanting them since they had a natural bouyancy to them). I also went to all powdered ferts too.

Since Monday, the wallichii have sprouted more fresh purple/red growth than I had seen since planting them and all the speciments I saved seem to be sprouting back nicely and the swords are sending out new leaves.

I emailed the company on 6/13 asking for an opinion and have not heard back from them, so I cannot report on what I think may have gone wrong. I have about $120 in plants in the tank at stake, so instead of riding the experiment out and seeing what happens, I decided to end it early and go to powered ferts.

There has to be some validity to the effectiveness of this product because I went almost two months using it and was completely happy. If I had received some advice from the company in my email, I may have been able to identify the problem and correct the issue.

So, here ends the post. I will not call this one a winner or a loser. There may have been factors I was not aware of being brand spanking new to planted tanks, but you can read for yourself and see what you think. Water parameters were normal, water changes were done religiously (minus one two week period there) and don't forget I am injecting pressurized CO2 and have just shy of 4wpg of T5HO lighting.

Your thoughts and suggestions are most welcomed. Thanks for tuning in!

[brutus]

I noticed your nitrate readings dropping from 10ppm when the plants doing good to 5 ppm with good growth.Any idea what it was after the crash? Maybe 0ppm if you kept up with big water changes.Im sure it will rebound into a great looking tank again.

[dinokath]

Well, see that's the thing with these pellets. You don't have to (supposed to) dose to any specific levels, so I check the tank levels periodically just for my information but didn't add anything to bring the water levels up to anything specific because the pellets are supposed to be 'set it and forget it' from what I understand per the website. I didn't check water chemistry when I did what I did because of the way the pellets are supposed to work. In retrospect, perhaps that would have been a good idea, but in keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I didn't.

I read that tank nitrates are desired at 5ppm, not that 10ppm will kill anything though. You think I need to shoot for 10ppm? Thanks for the feedback!

[mgamer20o0]

my guess is it ran out of something. really who knows now. there really no set it and forget it more so with co2. it boosts the growth to unnatural levels almost. live and learn. trust me i have killed off my own fair share of plants.

most people shoot for 10-20 nitrate levels but thats just one part in pnk.

[dinokath]

Yeah, I hear ya. Live and learn. Danke mgamer.

[neoguri]

Anyone else try the aquariumplants.com PHOSPHATE and TOTAL pellets? Can you describe your experience?

I'm trying to keep my Nesaea sp. "Red" alive and figured it'd try them.

Thanks,
Jerry

60 gallon tank
4 x 48" 54 watt T-5 midday and aquaflora blubs
Milwaukee regulator and 5 lb CO2 cylinder
5 bags of seachem flourite and 55 oz laterite substrate
DIY CO2 diffuser (gravel cleaner and Ovation 210)

[krap101]

I've actually heard that aquariumplant.com's gravel/sand stuff is actually overpriced Turface. There's been comparisons, where they are almost exactly the same, although I haven't seen the side by side comparison, I'm using Turface for my 2 tanks right now.

[neoguri]

i'm actually asking about the fert pellets not the substrate. I'm using flourite substrate.

[Robert H]

First off, Turface and Soilmaster are two different products made by competing companies. Both are clay gravel. APs substrate could be very much like either one.

I think Dinos experience here shows that there is not one magic fertilizer product. You need to know specifically what nutrients it provides. There are macro nutrients and minor nutrients. Most of these types of products are mostly minor trace minerals with perhaps a very small amount of macros. Plants must have BOTH macros and minerals. Flourite incidently only provides the trace mineral iron and nothing else.

Balanced with nutrients, is light and C02. If any one of these things is lacking, macros, trace, light, c02, it can cause your plants to crash. Any type of fertilizer tablet or pellet is a good idea, but by itself may not be enough depending on what type of nutrients it provides.

The info on their web site does not provide a guranteed analysis, which breaks down each ingridient to the percentage. Its lists the nutrients but not in the percentage. It lists some macros, but it could be less than 2 % or 20 % who knows. It is also a rather odd mix of nutrients. It does not include all the needed trace minerals, and shows two forms of chemical nitrogen. It does include some macros, but not all, and seems strangely high in calcium and carbonate.

Nesaea red by the way needs tons of light and grows extremely slowly

[neoguri]

Thanks Robert.

I bought a 10 pack of Seachem tabs instead.

I also ordered the following from Planted Aquarium Fertilizer:
Potassium Nitrate
Potassium Sulfate
Mono Potassium Phosphate
CSM+B Plantex
Iron Chelate 10%

I'll start dosing using Tom's EI. Does that sound right?

Thanks,
Jerry