Keeping plants alive over break

[BlazerFRS]

In about two weeks I head home for christmas break for 3 weeks. I'm bringing my fish home and setting it up in my old 6 gallon temporarily- so that's taken care of. The problem now is the plants. With no fish in the tank, there's obviously not going to be any NO3 produced for the plants, not to mention potassium, phosphate.....

Now there's not going to be any fish in the tank, so I was thinking I might just dump a bunch of food in there to rot and hopefully provide enough NO3 for three weeks.
My lighting is a 2x 13w over a 10 gallon; I'm also planning to unplug one of the lamps to drop my lighting to 1.3 WPG, to conserve some nutrients.

Does this sound like it will be enough? Any suggestions on what else I could to to avoid coming back to a tank full of dead plants and/or algae?

 

[travis simonson]

Hmmm . . . I like the idea of dropping the lighting but I'm not sure about dumping all of the food in. I suspect it will go a long way toward producing PO4 but am not sure about its NO3 potential. In such a low light situation I would guess that NO3 would remain high enough to keep your plants healthy for a few weeks but I don't want to lead you wrong here. Sorry to sound so non-commital, but if anyone else has done this without fish hopefully they will be able to advise. Best of luck

 

[BlazerFRS]

Thanks Travis, I guess this will just have to be a bit of an experiment; I'll be sure to post my outcome in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation.

I recently purchased some dry ferts from Greg Watson, a bag each of KNO3, K2SO4, and KPO4... since there's no fish in there I was also considering dosing enough KNO3 to get me to 30-40 ppm of nitrates. However, I'm sure things will be completely out of balance by the time I return no matter what I do, and I'm worried adding a bunch of NO3 will only fuel and inevitable algae outbreak.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[czcz]

I like your KNO3 with reduced light idea and do not think such levels will induce algae. Dumping a bunch of food in is a bad idea to me. I think ~30ppm NO3 will be fine for your plants and would prune down the anacharis before leaving.

 

[workfortheman]

What if you rolled your own ball of nutrients, like a subrate fertilizer. Then stick it in your filter and let it dissolve slowly, but more quickly than it does in the substrate? I'm just thinking along the lines of slow-release. . ..

 

[wobbles]

What if you rolled your own ball of nutrients, like a subrate fertilizer. Then stick it in your filter and let it dissolve slowly, but more quickly than it does in the substrate? I'm just thinking along the lines of slow-release. . ..

Can you suggest any particular products?

Im kind of in the same situation

 

[travis simonson]

I make my own fert pellets with art clay, ferts, and a very tiny bit of water (it takes a lot less than you might think). I've got a little press that condenses them to a very hard pellet but I've heard that if you roll them into little balls and let them dry it works about as well. I suspect they will dissolve quite quickly in your filter though. To test this just drop one in a glass of water and see if it's still there the next morning. I imagine it will dissolve entirely. *digging out my fert pellets and finding out for myself*

 

[coolchinchilla]

What about a couple of those fish feeder blocks? People tend to not like them for fish, but I've never had a problem. (My snails just LOVE them.) But since it's not for your fish I think it would be perfectly safe. They release food very slowly and when you get back you can test your water parameters to make sure everything is ok for your fish again.

HTH.

 

[travis simonson]

What about a couple of those fish feeder blocks? People tend to not like them for fish, but I've never had a problem. (My snails just LOVE them.) But since it's not for your fish I think it would be perfectly safe. They release food very slowly and when you get back you can test your water parameters to make sure everything is ok for your fish again.

HTH.

That's an excellent idea. I'm not sure how well it will work, but if you're looking for timed-release it sounds like a great ticket