Banana plants and root tabs

[smm333]

2 quick plant questions.

1. I have never had a banana plant. Is it supposed to root ? I thought they just sat on the bottom but mine is definitely sending roots down. I attached a photo of it.

2. I have only had plants requiring liquid fertilizer,  but my new tank has several that I think may need root tabs. I'm really intimidated by root tabs. Are they shrimp safe? How do you know how many and how often to dose them? I love easy green because it's so simple. How can I do "easy root tabs"? 

[Mmiller2001]

Plants don't need root tabs and yes they send roots out.

[smm333]

On 6/11/2023 at 6:56 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

Plants don't need root tabs and yes they send roots out.

Just banana plants don't need root tabs or all plants? I have a bulb plant and lots of stem plants as well. 

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/11/2023 at 7:59 PM, smm333 said:

Just banana plants don't need root tabs or all plants? I have a bulb plant and lots of stem plants as well. 

Just about all of them. Just dose the water correctly and you should be good to go.

[Mmiller2001]

They are not needed if you just fertilize the water column to proper amounts. 

Aqua Soils provide great benefits, but also not needed. There are some plants that will do better with aqua soil of course. Erio and a few other species come to mind that might fall into the need category, but these represent the true difficult plants with other needs that most people won't provide.

You will often see people say "heavy root feeders, use tabs". There's also very few "heavy root feeders". Swords are not heavy root feeders, they are simply heavy feeders. They don't care where it comes from, they just want larger amounts of nutrients. 

One of the benefits from aqua soils is its ability to drive down pH, especially down at the root zone. S. Belem is a great example of benefiting from aqua soil driving down pH. It does so much better with the low root zone pH. 

[lefty o]

ill jump in, sometimes i like to localize the ferts, but the fact is  everything inside the tank is in the water column. if it is wet, its in the water column, so if you fertilize the water, everything in the water can feed from it.

[JoeQ]

Just a comment from the peanut gallery, from my experience poor flow is reason why people believe in the 'root tabs are necessary' mantra. Poor flow results in not all plants receiving water colum nutrients. In this scenario it's probably wise to root tab the plants in question.

Edit: that or improve flow.....

Edited June 12, 2023 by JoeQ
Noted

[smm333]

On 6/12/2023 at 2:44 AM, Pepere said:

Fwiw, I had banana plants in an all gravel substrate as a child in the 70s. I never used root tabs back then and never dosed water column fertilizers.  I also seldom did water changes and had a hood with a flourescent bulb and never changed the bulb. I forget what sort of photoperiod I used, but I suspect it wasnt along the lines of 8-10 hours.  Likely much shorter. I forget what other plants I had.  Not many for sure..,  I also had duckweed on top…Filtration was a box filter, polyfill and activated carbon.  I would put in a wondershell and replace it once dissolved.

I remember having frustration with having to clean the glass from algae growth regularly, but I don’t remember being frustrated with algae growth on the banana plants.

To the best of my recollection, the Banana plants always did just fine despite receiving less than wonderful care…

Likely that and duckweed are pretty bulletproof…

I read that banana plants are pretty easy. My main concern is the stems and bulbs as far as root tabs. Aquatic plants are expensive so I just want to be sure I'm going to keep them alive, lol! I have a plant light and am dosing easy green. Hopefully that will be enough.

On 6/12/2023 at 6:58 AM, JoeQ said:

Just a comment from the peanut gallery, from my experience poor flow is reason why people believe in the 'root tabs are necessary' mantra. Poor flow results in not all plants receiving water colum nutrients. In this scenario it's probably wise to root tab the plants in question.

Edit: that or improve flow.....

Good to know! The filter seems to do a great job with agitation and water flow. Hopefully that will keep them all happily engulfed in easy green!

[JoeQ]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:15 AM, smm333 said:

Good to know! The filter seems to do a great job with agitation and water flow. Hopefully that will keep them all happily engulfed in easy green!

Banana plants tend to gravitate to low flow areas. It wouldn't hurt to add a root tab to the area it settles in just to supplement. But that doesn't mean to slack off your fert schedule or your other plants may suffer.