# root tabs with ada soil



## radioman (Oct 29, 2007)

Could I use root tabs with ADA soil?


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## Centromochlus (May 19, 2008)

Of course!


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## antbug (May 28, 2010)

why?


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

Yeah definitely, they use them as well but call ten different things, like Multi Bottom ^^


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## thewife (Jan 26, 2011)

I used ADA multi-bottoms with mine and it worked great. Been going for over 6 months though, so I'm getting a bit depleted. I still have some multi-bottoms left, but I've been itching to try root medic. You can probably get by without it if you dose a lot in the column, but I prefer going the substrate route.


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## audioaficionado (Apr 19, 2011)

Don't get the gel caps with the little resin membrane mini balls in them. They will eventually come back up to haunt you at the surface.

Won't look good on ADA substrates. Go with the clay or peat tabs instead. There's also the DIY ice cube substrate delivery method using your own clay/peat/ferts formulas.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Having tested ADA AS(new and over 18 months of usage), I see no reason as a plant Physiologist to use anything else.

The only nutrient that decreases is NH4.

The rest are likely fine for the next decade or so.

So the real question is why add them?

You are not going to get more if the sediment is already non limiting for the nutrients in question.

I suppose you could add some NO3 etc, but this will dissipate rapidly.
NH4 is trickier to add.

so most just keep fish and then dose some KNO3.......


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## Centromochlus (May 19, 2008)

plantbrain said:


> Having tested ADA AS(new and over 18 months of usage), I see no reason as a plant Physiologist to use anything else.
> 
> The only nutrient that decreases is NH4.
> 
> ...


What about iron?


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

AzFishKid said:


> What about iron?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Same essentially, maybe 10 years from now...........:redface:

Powersand...... all that other manure they sell and hock?
It's not going to help plants at all, it will not harm or hurt plants..........but there's no factual basis for them to HELP submersed aquatic plant growth.

Powersand has mostly NO3.........which is fine, but KNO3 is a lot cheaper and simpler to add, and the NO3 does not stay bound up at all......it'll move, which is why NO3 ends up in some drinking water supplies.

NH4 will stay bound, or consumed by bacteria, one of the two........ or plant uptake.

ADA markets stuff that is non essential, peopole buy it because they think everything the brand sells is somehow critical or useful, part of a system yada yada........

This same hokey rational was used in exactly the same manner 25 years ago, a Dupla company from Germany claimed all sorts oif whack stuff about heating cables, and other productions.

Some turned out to be good, eg, CO2 gas tank systems and such.....others like heating cables have gone the way of the dodo. Dennerle does a similar thing, they sell 101 bottles of stuff......... We know soil can grow plants and using this alone reproduces the same results with and without PS or the other products. Same with using heat cables with and without.

The clay we use for experiments on aquatic plants is very very similar to ADA's aqua soil.

You could add jobes plant sticks etc, osmocoat etc. I see no harm in this, but it's not likely to help growth, and adding ferts to the water column more would likely help improve growth more.

This assumes something rather large: that light and CO2 are in good shape and independent of nutrients. This is not always the case. And folks just love to blame nutrients for all their woes.


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