# Growing plants without substrate....Just fertilizer??



## sean (Mar 26, 2003)

I was thinking about setting up a tank for Amazon Swords. I would like to have them grow in a fishless tank using only fertilizers, CO2 and lighting.

Has anyone here done this/doing this? What fertilizers would I use?

Thanks,

Sean.


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## Rex Grigg (Dec 10, 2002)

Swords are heavy root feeders. And besides how would you hold them down? In any case you would have tons of roots everywhere in the tank. You might want to at least put them in pots.


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## vfish2003 (Apr 7, 2003)

i think you mean no substrate enhancers? if so jobesplant spikes can bu burried in the gravel, but never expose them in the water colum it'll cause an algea breakout


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## sean (Mar 26, 2003)

No, I mean NO substrate...like a hydroponic setup fully immersed in water. I want to use fertilizers to grow plants very quickly so I can populate my tanks quickly.

My thought is to grow them as quickly as possble.

Thanks,

Sean.


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## GDominy (Jul 30, 2002)

The best way of doing this is to root the plants in Rock wool and soak the wool in fertilizer. Don't fertilize the water column directly or you will have an outrageous algae bloom. You may want to pot the rock wool as well. If you leave teh roots exposed the plant will suffer.


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## sean (Mar 26, 2003)

How often would I soak the rock wool? Should I use a liquid fert or a granular?

Thanks for the help!!!


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## GulfCoastAquarian (Jul 30, 2002)

If you're interested in growing plants hydroponically, with sword leaves emersed, just to stock your tanks quickly, you'll be disappointed. Most of the leaves grown out of the water will be lost when you submerge them. The plants will go through several months of recovery and may never look the way they did when grown emersed.


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## sean (Mar 26, 2003)

Right! I want to use a full aquarium - immersed not emersed. I thought I was using the proper terminology. I want to use hydroponic ferts to achieve the best possible situation to accomplish my goal.

Full aquarium of water + no substrate + proper ferts + co2 + lighting

Is this possible. Rockwool,cool how often to soak rockwool?

Thanks,

Sean.


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## GDominy (Jul 30, 2002)

sean said:


> Right! I want to use a full aquarium - immersed not emersed. I thought I was using the proper terminology.


What you mean is "submerged". This really isnt a good way to go, you'll find you will have better results in aquarium substrate. its very difficult to "turbo grow" plants underwater without setting it up as a planted tank from the start.

I have been trying to engineer a way to do it the way you are describing for over 2 years and have had little sucsess.


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## Rex Grigg (Dec 10, 2002)

sean,

I'm pretty sure this idea will not work. Why would a plant grow faster in no substrate vs in the substrate? It doesn't make a damn bit of difference how much fertilizer you pour into the water the plant will only grow so fast. Some plants grow faster than others and nothing you do will change this. At best you would be fighting constant algae problems. Rockwool in the case would basically be a substrate. And in the example given it was assumed you were going to try and grow them emersed. 

There is no way to hurry sucess. But many ways to hurry failure.


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## sean (Mar 26, 2003)

Thanks for all the replies!


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## ksimdjembe (Dec 19, 2013)

Maybe you could grow the plants in pots which could be set into the tank, with root tabs for plants, but super clean bottom for you?


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## babystarz (Sep 25, 2012)

I am not sure this would work with Amazon swords. I have managed to successfully grow water lettuce, anubias, java moss, and subwassertang with no substrate or ferts. There are fish and shrimp in the tanks. The water lettuce and java moss are doing better in this setup than I've had with substrate tanks. The tanks have been going strong for over a year now.

As far as rooted plants, I've also started a pothos experiment but the stems and leaves are not submerged. That is going well so far.


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