Aquariumplants.com Total Pellet Fertilizer - Review

[mom2reds]

very pretty tank. I love gouramis to.

 

[dinokath]

Thanks Mom!

Everything is growing nicely. The rotala wallichii looks like crap right now but I think my pink kissing gourami is making a meal out of it. It is the only plant I see it munching on from time to time. It continues to grow and I think it is looking better than it did a few days ago. I know it is hard to grow, so I will not be terribly disappointed if it dies, but the root systems are crazy developed. I pulled one bunch out just out of curiosity to see how the were developing and was very shocked at how hard I had to pull to get the bunch out of the substrate! Roots were about 3 inches long and plentiful.

Algae seems to be in check. I have had to clean the glass twice since starting this experiment and it appeared to be green spot algae. I wouldn't say that it was a problem, just about a dozen or so dots here and there. I last cleaned the glass on Saturday May 9th and no issues since. There is some algae growing on some of the leaves, but I trust the oto's to do their jobs....

The alternanthera reineckii keeps shedding leaves, but they are all the older leaves and I read that they will lose their leaves when transplanted. The old leaves are quickly being replaced by new leaves and I am not seeing new leaves being shed, so I think all is good there.

Wisteria looks good and my Red Tiger Lotus bulb is growing in now. I have had to trim some ratty looking leaves off the Aponogeton Natans but again I have a fishy suspicion (no pun intended) that the pink gouramis are nailing the vegetation.

I am feeding the fish bloodworms about once a week or so to keep their diets mixed up and the pink kissing gouramis are the only fish in the tank that do not eat them. All the other fish go nuts for the bloodworms, so I have to assume I have a couple vegans in the tank there...

Tested my tank water last night and here's what I have:

Nitrite - .00 - .05ppm (hard to tell)
Nitrate - 5ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm
Phosphate - .5ppm (this is a huge dip from where I started at 3ppm)
KH - 5 (a HUGE jump. I removed the crushed coral from the filter when I started and my last water change was 25% on 5/9)
GH - 13 (This is another HUGE jump. No idea why. Advice or input?)
pH - 6.7 (regulated by the CO2)
CO2 - 23ppm (per a test kit)

Tap chemistry is:

pH - 6.8ppm
GH - 3.0
KH - 2.0
Everything else is 0ppm

Any ideas why the hardness is so high?

Let me know what you all think. I will post pics next week with some close ups of the leaves. I don't want to run out of space on this thread to post pics.

Thanks!

 

[dinokath]

Had to do a major trim on the tank. It was out of hand! Everything was crazy overgrown and growing out of the tank. The cabomba was way tall and the pennywort was about 4 inches out of the tank. The alternanthera reineckii got a major cut back. I cut the tops off and replanted them. The wisteria was huge and bushy out of control too.

The rotalla wallichi looks like it is rebounding too. There's certainly more of a purple/red bushy glow about it in the last few days.

I am by no means calling the Aquariumplants.com Total Pellet fertilizer a success yet, but I am not disappointed. I have not dosed any ferts since starting this experiment with the exception of the product I am trying out. Algae has been minimal, although I admit I have no frame of reference as this is my first planted tank!

I'm dosing the next round of ferts the first Saturday of the month, per the instructions on the the bottle....

 

[mom2reds]

cool i may have to give them a try after I change my substrate.

 

[mom2reds]

any updates

 

[dinokath]

Yep! All is going very well. Had to do another major trim the day before yesterday. I will take some photos tonight. I neglected the tank since my last post on 5/20 and there was a very slight film of algae on the glass that came right off with the magnetic scrubber.

No plant deaths, no fish deaths! I'll do a full water analysis tonight and post the results along with some close up shots of leaves and plants.

Per my guidelines, I will dose with the next round of Total pellet ferts the first weekend of the month, so next Saturday I'll give the tank it's first round of ferts since May 2nd. I am pretty happy thus far!

 

[brutus]

Looking very nice.

 

[dinokath]

Thanks!

New pics are uploaded to my album:

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/members/21964-albums573.html

I have been pretty much sticking with my 25% water change weekly for the most part. A couple weeks there we were out of town on the weekend and the water was changed on Tuesday instead of Saturday, but other than that, I have been pretty religious about keeping up with it.

Algae, again, has not been a problem. I neglected the tank for about a week and half and there was an ever so slight film evenly covering the glass that came off quickly with minimal scrubbing. Brown algae is all gone, spot algae is all gone.

Water parameters are as follows:

Nitrite - .00
Nitrate - 5ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm
Phosphate - 1ppm
KH - 4
GH - 7
pH - 6.7 (regulated by the CO2)
CO2 - 21ppm (per a test kit)

I am still not calling this product a winner, but I am pretty happy with the results!

Please look closely at the Java Fern and tell me what you think. It is not in substrate so it gets all of the nutrients from the water.

Thanks for following!

 

[mom2reds]

The Java fern looks great I did not see any of the typical black spots and it has really grown. Your whole tank looks amazing, you should be trading or selling trimmings before long if you are not already.

 

[dinokath]

Did my second round of pellet ferts today and had to another major trim on the plants. They were out of control again! The Tiger Lotus' leaves were blocking out most of the light to the lower plants, so I was noticing some issues with plants directly under them, which prompted the radical trimming of not only the Tiger Lotus but the ludwigia, which was past the top level of the tank.

I have to admit that I am pretty happy with the product thus far. The concern about the Java Fern seemed rational, but it seems to be doing just fine. There must be 20 baby ferns attached to the leaves at this time!

I'll keep you all updated! Later.

 

[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]

aquariumplants.com pellets

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