# Root Tabs from nurseries



## ddavila06 (Jan 31, 2009)

hi all, i have read at least a few times that you can buy cheaper root tabs at the nursery or big stores like the home depot. can someone give me a name/brand/upc? i went to the home depot and they had root spikes that were like 10 inches long lol! tree-size


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## Andy Ritter (Nov 26, 2008)

Hello,

I've heard mention of people using Osmocote pellets, but I've never used them myself. I have used Seachem's Flourish Tabs for years, but am wondering myself whether I should continue using them or start doing something else (different brand, terrestrial plant fertilizers, DIY, etc.). I did a quick search for Osmocote and found that they have one product called PotShots Plant Food Nuggets which looks pretty interesting. The fertilizer analysis is listed as "15-8-11 plus 6 other essential nutrients". I have no idea if this mixture would be good for an aquarium or not. I definitely wouldn't want to do anything that would cause problems such as an algae explosion, plant deaths, or even worse, fish deaths.

Good luck.

Andy


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## JERP (Feb 4, 2003)

I've used Jobe's sticks before. I think it's a poor substitute for a good substrate. You can end up with serious algae problems if it gets in the water or you disturb it. You need to stick them in deep, well under the roots or reach of a gravel vac. Root tabs are meant to be a "slow release" kind of fert, but it doesn't seem to work that way underwater. I don't think it's meant to be submerged. It broke up pretty quickly in my tank.

It may help on a new tank using a gravel substrate for vals, crypts, or other heavy root feeder's.

You can also use pond plant root tabs but I haven't used them.

You can search "Jobe's spikes" on the forum for more info.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/gsearch.php?cx=partner-pub-7333084625577995%3Az88xk1vslky&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Jobe%27s+spikes+&sa=Search&siteurl=www.aquaticplantcentral.com%252Fforumapc%252Ffertilizing%252F#1509


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## ddavila06 (Jan 31, 2009)

thank you for the responses, i actually found out that the sticks are calle Jobes, and know a few local members who are having good feed back on them, thanks again


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## trag (Jan 9, 2008)

Aquatic Plant Tabs

I have tried some of the 20-5-10 tabs at the above site (scroll way down), but have not been using them long enough to have an opinion yet. I was not using any fertilizers at all on a 30 gallon tank with 2 X 30 watt fluorescent lights. After a two or three months of good growth my water wisteria and banana plants started losing all their leaves. The banana plants seem to have perked up in concert with using these tabs, but the wisteria is still reduced to little sprigs at the top of big stems and the stems are starting to whither through now. The java fern just sails blithely through it all doing great.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw that site out there in case anyone is interested. They also have a 10-20-10 tab on their "Aquatic Tabs" page and some "throw tabs" which are meant to dissolve slowly into the water column. They're all really meant for pond plants, but I can't see why a pond tab meant to go in a lilly's bucket can't go in my aquarium substrate. But I'm not sure they're doing all that much good either.

They claim that all these tabs include iron and trace elements.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

ddavila06 said:


> thank you for the responses, i actually found out that the sticks are calle Jobes, and know a few local members who are having good feed back on them, thanks again


The questions that I would ask is:

Have you been using this method for more than a year? What were your results? Exactly what did you do?


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