miracle grow?

[Guest]

this is mostly curiosity, but i was looking over some posts from another site, and someone used miracle grow potting soil for a plant in their tank. i never heard of this and it made me wonder if it is possible to use regular garden ferts for a planted tank. i am not aware of anyone using anything such as shultzes or miracle grow, etc, in an aquatic setting, but i figured i would ask.

btw, i do not have any desire to try it out, but i compared labels of shultzes bloom plant food and seachems flourish and found some similarities;

shultzes ---------------------- seachems
nitrogen 10% ------------------------.07%
ammonical (N) 10% -------------------water soluable (N) .07%
phosphate 54% -----------------------.01%
iron .10% -----------------------.32%
maganese .05% ----------------------.11%
zinc .05% ------------------------.0007%

and of course, a lot more, such as seachems adds chlorine 1.15%. i know the numbers vary greatly, they are for different purposes.

 

[JDogg]

i would not try it...plant might be ok, but would probaly kill any fish

 

[Purrbox]

Actually this has been done as far as the root tabs, but you have to be very cautious. Since most garden ferts contain Ammonia, you have to make sure that they are well buried and don't get disturbed. Otherwise you can hurt your fish and cause a major algae outbreak. Personally I don't think it's worth the risk.

The liquid ferts aren't balanced the way that we would need for a planted tank. They are missing many of the traces and are an all in one solution, so you can't adjust the ratios if you find your tank needs more or less of one of the macros. Definately not worth it, especially as inexpensive as dry ferts are.

 

[malkore]

terrestrial ferts are SO much stronger than aquatic ferts....that's the main issue.

 

[czcz]

For this concept with root tabs, search for Jobe's Fern Sticks, which were desireable because of their relatively low P content. ("Bloom" or flowering ferts are avoided because of their very high P content, as your Schultz percentages show.)

As Purrbox said, the issue with terrestrial ferts is the ammonia/ammonium, and in a stem plant setup the leeching of such during uprooting leads to greenwater and in some cases fish death. Many have sworn off Jobe's while others still love it in slow growth/low uprooting tanks.

Also, the soils often used in a Walstad-inspired natural tank are low/unfertilized topsoil to avoid the high ammonia/ammonium of fertilized and enriched soils.