When I set-up my tanks I did not know what I do know. I now understand the imortance of substrate fertilizer. Is there a way to add Laterite to a tank that's already set-up?
Yes there is, but trust me when I say you are in for a lot of work and not so happy results for quite a while.
Take wax paper, make little sandwich size packets, pierce the wax paper wrapped laterite, and gently place it in the tank. Slowly, I mean slowly, wiggle them under sections of gravel where you have made holes in the substrate. Bury the packet and make a similar space next to it, and continue the process.
Ultimately you will have overturned all of your gravel, and buried about an inch of wax paper wrapped laterite in the substrate, plant your plants normally, and the wax paper will eventually decompose. With this operation, you will uncover a lot of yuck, so make sure the water level is low to do this. The laterite is dusty as well, so the water column will be a little murky for a day or so, don't worry about it, the fish don't really care.
It is a time consuming job, however, it precludes having to cycle a tank all over again and the fish will survive the process rather easily. Have fun with that project, and give yourself a lot of time to do this as well.
An option I have heard of but never tried is to take a small, say two inch wide, plastic pipe that is long enough to reach from the bottom to a few inches out the top of your tank. You place one end under the gravel and slowly poor the laterite down the pipe which is theory should cause less of a dust cloud in the tank and makes it land where you want.
Are you using root tabs? That might do the trick for you if you feel you need more nutrients down under. I would think Laterite is best mixed in with the base substrate. Since it is nothing more than an iron rich clay you may loose quite a bit during mulm patrol :D
But If you are doing the EI thing you might not need to worry about laterite since you would already be adding Iron. I dunno, Just some ideas ;)
You could always try some for a specific plant in a small pot and see how it goes.
Quote from: dan2x38 on May 30, 2007, 10:18:33 PM
I use Seachem Flourish tabs but they are expensive. I mix the week's doses of Trace & PKN in a bottle with tank water then each day add some. I just want to try some difficult plants and figure laterite would help that.
There is a school of thought , that does not recommend mixing trace & phosphate together - (phosphate causes the iron in the trace to precipitate out of solution )how true this is . i don`t know but it is widely preached by some of the gurus of the hobby.
A while ago, i read where someone made laterite ice cubes ( DI water) & slowly added the cubes to the bottom of the substrate( so as to avoid over chilling the tank), but as others have suggested you might be better off just adding root tabs under the heavy root feeding plants ( seachem tabs last aprox. 3 mths) , you only need the tabs under the root feeders.This is my 2 cents ;)
Regards
Quote from: dan2x38 on May 31, 2007, 10:36:11 AM
Wow that seems like a great idea the cubes. Would you do it just like the fert. tabs? Would the ice bother the roots until it melt? What about using plain geliton?
I really don`t know, i`ve never tried it.
Regards
Freezing laterite sounds amusing, however, I cannot begin to imagine why on earth you would want to stick pig's feet in your aquarium, yes, I mean gelatin, made from the hooves of pigs. I can't imagine that the roots of the plants would mind too much as the ice will melt pretty quickly.
Here you go Dan, for your reading pleasure.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/substrate/44916-can-i-should-i-add-laterite.html?highlight=adding+laterite
Regards