Are plant tabs used with a UGF and liquid ferts wasted money?

[Tanked]

I'm a firm believer in the under gravel filters, but I can't help wondering if regular use of plant tabs in combination with the EG liquid and an under gravel filter is wasted money. 

[lefty o]

with an UGF, i dont think you gain anything from a root tab.

[JoeQ]

I use liquid ferts in my 15g with an UGF. Plant growth (equphites) is certainly better with LF. As for plants in the substrate not so much, even tho I have new aquasoil mixed with eco complete it (yes I only planted 1 crypt to expirament, the others are in terracada pots) it doesn't seem to be doing well.

Edited September 20 by JoeQ

[Pepere]

 

UGF plates, water column fertilization only.. no root tabs…

[Tanked]

The question arises after another trip to the LFS for a fourth attempt to grow some Italian Val., and to try something new.  As expected the associate's advice was more bioload and root tabs.

@lefty o @JoeQ Long ago in one of his videos Cory said that the UGF was the best of both worlds, which makes perfect sense. I only use the tabs on a new or struggling plants.  Even then I cannot help thinking that this makes no sense if the UGF was working correctly.  My first Crypt was planted with a tab, and it took a few months for it to show improvement.  Only the leaves that were already damaged melted.  I was expecting much worse.  Three years later there is a second plant next to it without additional tabs.

@Pepere First, the tanks look great. This brings up a second related question.  Is there a minimum depth for gravel in a planted tank?  The average depth in my 29 is 1.5".

 

[JoeQ]

On 9/21/2024 at 11:07 AM, Tanked said:

The question arises after another trip to the LFS for a fourth attempt to grow some Italian Val., and to try something new.  As expected the associate's advice was more bioload and root tabs.

@lefty o @JoeQ Long ago in one of his videos Cory said that the UGF was the best of both worlds, which makes perfect sense. I only use the tabs on a new or struggling plants.  Even then I cannot help thinking that this makes no sense if the UGF was working correctly.  My first Crypt was planted with a tab, and it took a few months for it to show improvement.  Only the leaves that were already damaged melted.  I was expecting much worse.  Three years later there is a second plant next to it without additional tabs.

@Pepere First, the tanks look great. This brings up a second related question.  Is there a minimum depth for gravel in a planted tank?  The average depth in my 29 is 1.5".

 

I believe I read somewhere that growing in a barebones air powered ugf without co2 was difficult because of the water flowing past plant roots which maybe plants have to adapt to? Without co2 this will take sometime. 

I think there is confusion with the new high tech way of using an under gravel filter which is more technically using ugf plates to make a plenum (a void under the substrate) that is being powered by a canister filter with co2 greatly speeding up the process. 

Edit:

I dont know if these 2 methods grow plants different (im pretty sure they do). My point in my ramblings was people lump the 2 methods together and say they have a ugf.

Edited September 21 by JoeQ
Noted

[Pepere]

On 9/21/2024 at 11:29 AM, JoeQ said:

believe I read somewhere that growing in a barebones air powered ugf without co2 was difficult because of the water flowing past plant roots which maybe plants have to adapt to? Without co2 this will take sometime

This 17 gallon bowl has both a modified ugf plate under the BDBS substrate and a Box filter with polyfill for mechanical filtration, both air driven with Easy Flow kits….  No co2…    I do have a couple mesh bags of amazonia aquasoil under the BDBS…

 

I have not had an issue with plants having a hard time to thrive…  granted no supplemented CO2 means slow growth, but it is healthy growth…

 

On 9/21/2024 at 11:07 AM, Tanked said:

First, the tanks look great. This brings up a second related question.  Is there a minimum depth for gravel in a planted tank?  The average depth in my 29 is 1.5".

Personally I like a good 2 inches of substrate over any mesh bags as I find it so much easier to reliably get stems to stay put when planted in to that depth…

[JoeQ]

On 9/21/2024 at 11:43 AM, Pepere said:

This 17 gallon bowl has both a modified ugf plate under the BDBS substrate and a Box filter with polyfill for mechanical filtration, both air driven with Easy Flow kits….  No co2…    I do have a couple mesh bags of amazonia aquasoil under the BDBS…

 

I have not had an issue with plants having a hard time to thrive…  granted no supplemented CO2 means slow growth, but it is healthy growth…

Could be the extra flow, or the additional filtration that makes the difference. I was talking about bare bones unmodified ugf setups. Love that tank btw, but im looking foward to seeing an updated picture without the window reflection blocking the view! 🤣

[Pepere]

On 9/21/2024 at 12:11 PM, JoeQ said:

Love that tank btw, but im looking foward to seeing an updated picture without the window reflection blocking the view! 🤣

Heading over to where it is soon.  I will see what I can do…

 

Spherical bowls are awfully tough to get a good photo from…. Reflections, glare distortions and such…. They are however ideal for housing Nano fish in given their magnification….

[Tanked]

On 9/21/2024 at 11:29 AM, JoeQ said:

I believe I read somewhere that growing in a barebones air powered ugf without co2 was difficult because of the water flowing past plant roots which maybe plants have to adapt to? Without co2 this will take sometime. 

I think there is confusion with the new high tech way of using an under gravel filter which is more technically using ugf plates to make a plenum (a void under the substrate) that is being powered by a canister filter with co2 greatly speeding up the process. 

Edit:

I dont know if these 2 methods grow plants different (im pretty sure they do). My point in my ramblings was people lump the 2 methods together and say they have a ugf.

One of my large tanks employs powerheads on the UGF.  I don't really trust air driven because I like to have some idea as to how much water is moving through the filter. Both methods are pulling new water and nutrients past the already wet roots.  Obviously the powered method is pulling more water, faster.  My 29 which later became my planted tank became an air driven system when I started keeping smaller fish.  Both tanks are significantly different, so I have no way of comparing which method works best for the plants.

I only know two ways to determine how well a UGF is working: look through the bottom glass, or tear the tank down.

[JoeQ]

On 9/21/2024 at 12:27 PM, Pepere said:

Heading over to where it is soon.  I will see what I can do…

 

Spherical bowls are awfully tough to get a good photo from…. Reflections, glare distortions and such…. They are however ideal for housing Nano fish in given their magnification….

I know what you mean, the simple curvature of my bowfront is a bear to get a good picture of. And thats after putting up black out curtains, moving led lights some adapters come with, moving electronics with screens, & turning off the fish tank light next to it..... There always seems to be a glare that gets in. 

[JoeQ]

On 9/21/2024 at 12:34 PM, Tanked said:

One of my large tanks employs powerheads on the UGF.  I don't really trust air driven because I like to have some idea as to how much water is moving through the filter. Both methods are pulling new water and nutrients past the already wet roots.  Obviously the powered method is pulling more water, faster.  My 29 which later became my planted tank became an air driven system when I started keeping smaller fish.  Both tanks are significantly different, so I have no way of comparing which method works best for the plants.

I only know two ways to determine how well a UGF is working: look through the bottom glass, or tear the tank down.

I was actually just wondering how many gph it was moving!! Not that it matters much, its mostly a shrimp, snail & guppy grow out tank. With the main purpose of experiencing fish keeping filtration methods of yesteryear. 

[HelplessNewbie]

I was thinking about your question @Tankedfor quite a while. It seems reasonable to conclude that in a standard ugf setup (gravel only) that root tabs will just release fertilizer in the water column anyway. I wonder if the slow-releasing aspect of the tabs and the speed of water movement are factors that might allow the fertilizer to linger longer in the gravel, and make it possible for root-secured plants to take advantage.

Even though my ugf substrate is not plain gravel (Safe-T-Sorb; thanks to @Pepere for the tips), I still only rely on liquid fertilizer for plants in the ugf. I save the root tabs for the non-ugf areas. I have observed that this was enough to keep the ugf plants (especially crypts and val that creeped over to that side) happy (no co2, so slow growth, but am okay with this).

Edited September 21 by HelplessNewbie

[Tanked]

On 9/21/2024 at 1:03 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

I wonder if the slow-releasing aspect of the tabs and the speed of water movement are factors that might allow the fertilizer to linger longer in the gravel, and make it possible for root-secured plants to take advantage.

I've considered that and it is the reason I will occasionally put one in with a new or struggling plant. Considering all of the unknowns, I think the only real advantage, is that root tab brand A can sometimes be be used to supplement Liquid fert brand B until the plant gets established.  Of course that is still mostly guesswork on my part.🤔

[HelplessNewbie]

On 9/21/2024 at 1:47 PM, Tanked said:

Of course that is still mostly guesswork on my part.🤔

Same here! 😁

[JoeQ]

Has anyone messured the amount of leaching that happens? 

[JoeQ]

Check it out

A rotating bowl!!
@Pepere

 

[Pepere]

On 9/21/2024 at 12:34 PM, Tanked said:

One of my large tanks employs powerheads on the UGF.  I don't really trust air driven because I like to have some idea as to how much water is moving through the filter. Both methods are pulling new water and nutrients past the already wet roots. 

As far as biofiltration, going with powerheads do not increase the biofiltration nearly so much as one would think…. But it does increase flow through the tank which is a good thing… better transport of nutrients to the plants…

 

on my air driven UGF I use Easyflow kits that dramatically increases flow thrugh the ugf compared to standard air risers…

[Pepere]

On 9/21/2024 at 12:11 PM, JoeQ said:

Love that tank btw, but im looking foward to seeing an updated picture without the window reflection blocking the view!

 

i need to get a black cloth to lay over the tablecloth….

[JoeQ]

On 9/21/2024 at 6:04 PM, Pepere said:

 

i need to get a black cloth to lay over the tablecloth….

I forgot all about it till we started talking reflections. Android also has a photo tool called remove reflections. You can access it by quickly swiping up on the photo

 

On your original bowl picture I removed reflections then added the auto correct filter.

What do ya think!

As for the new pic for some reason I couldn't remove reflections. But here it is with the auto correct filter

 

 

With a black table cloth that would be (as the kids say) buss~in!

[Tanked]

On 9/21/2024 at 6:53 PM, JoeQ said:

I forgot all about it till we started talking reflections. Android also has a photo tool called remove reflections. You can access it by quickly swiping up on the photo

 

On your original bowl picture I removed reflections then added the auto correct filter.

What do ya think!

As for the new pic for some reason I couldn't remove reflections. But here it is with the auto correct filter

 

 

With a black table cloth that would be (as the kids say) buss~in!

I'll have to see if my Android will do that.

[JoeQ]

On 9/22/2024 at 12:11 AM, Tanked said:

I'll have to see if my Android will do that.

Try taking a look in photos and videos under tips in your main menu... I usually found features by mis-swiping, but evidently they are all explained in tips.

Man do I miss printed instruction manuals. The animated gif are better than nothing, but they don't hit as hard as the For Dummies instruction books/pamplets from the 90s

Edited September 22 by JoeQ

[Tanked]

On 9/22/2024 at 6:36 AM, JoeQ said:

Try taking a look in photos and videos under tips in your main menu... I usually found features by mis-swiping, but evidently they are all explained in tips.

Man do I miss printed instruction manuals. The animated gif are better than nothing, but they don't hit as hard as the For Dummies instruction books/pamplets from the 90s

The reflection remover seems to be available only on Samsung phones.

I did find a feature resembling the artificial horizon on an airplane.  Its purpose is to tell me that I'm not holding the phone level. It is backwards, so if it were on an aircraft, it would not end well.