Amazon Sword & Root Tabs

[RyanR]

I’m not new to plants. I mostly have Anubias and stem plants. I have a new Amazon Sword fromACO and I’ve heard they can be root tab hogs. Currently in my 40 breeder to keep my nitrates at about 25, I use Easy Green every 3 days or so. How often do you think I should I be putting in root tabs?

[macdaddy36]

Do you have sand, aquasoil, gravel?

I currently have 2 amazon sword in different tanks growing in fluval stratum in meshed bags, capped with sand. They grow really well. The older one was has been growing out of the same aquasoil for 2 years. 

[tolstoy21]

On 4/16/2024 at 9:17 PM, RyanR said:

I’m not new to plants. I mostly have Anubias and stem plants. I have a new Amazon Sword fromACO and I’ve heard they can be root tab hogs. Currently in my 40 breeder to keep my nitrates at about 25, I use Easy Green every 3 days or so. How often do you think I should I be putting in root tabs?

I'd put them in like every 3 months. if it's a new plant, just bury three or four tabs in the substrate underneath it. As swords grow, they can create quite extensive root systems so you'll want to increase the number of tabs at that point, and position them all around the plant, not directly under it.

Edited April 17 by tolstoy21

[RyanR]

On 4/16/2024 at 8:38 PM, macdaddy36 said:

Do you have sand, aquasoil, gravel?

I currently have 2 amazon sword in different tanks growing in fluval stratum in meshed bags, capped with sand. They grow really well. The older one was has been growing out of the same aquasoil for 2 years. 

It is in Eco Complete. 

[doktor zhivago]

I just wait until mine starts pulling back some leaves and then feed it again 

[TJ _isme]

I have an Amazon sword, it is fairly large I don’t have any root tabs but I want to get some because it’s leaves are getting wrinkly 

[knee]

If you're dosing liquid ferts, you don't really need root tabs since all plants feed through the water column. 

I stopped using root tabs because when I was using flourish tabs before and I broke down the tank after a year, the tabs were still there, still a bit hard and didn't break down as much. Figured that it didn't really do anything for the plants so I focused more on dosing the water and I still got the same growth. I do have some very old aquasoil in mesh bags that I have on the bottom of the tank. I'm not sure if it's helping because I'm certain that the aquasoil has been depleted of nutrients but I like to think it helps in other ways.

[macdaddy36]

On 4/17/2024 at 3:01 PM, knee said:

 I'm not sure if it's helping because I'm certain that the aquasoil has been depleted of nutrients but I like to think it helps in other ways.

I think that as it breaks down the fish poop and plant waste replenishes it, unless its in an environment where not much waste is created (like a shrimp tank, or a tank with just chili rasbora for example)