Signs of healthy plants

[KingK]

Sorry just a couple of more questions,
I feed my plants with daily JBL ferropol 24, weekly JBL ferropol and today I just put 4 JBL kugeln balls I have dug them into the gravel next to the roots,
The guy in the aquatic store has told me I need to removed my media filter because it won't help the plants grow and it will remove the fertiliser liquid that I add?,
My media filter consists of active carbon filter (sponge), zeolite,clean water,Colombo active alumina and norit active carbon (all together see attached photo) is he correct I need to remove all the media and just leave the sponge And remove the active Carbon from it? Because that what the plants are actually for? Also the balls have made the tank slightly cloudy will it disappear eventually?

Thanks

 

[Byron]

I do not have experience with the JBL line of products, and searching their website I was unable to find the nutrients included in the products mentioned. This always scares me, when manufacturers won't list ingredients. I will say that it seems to take a lot of these products (the ml per liters dosing), and that is not good for fish.

To the filter media and nutrient question. Yes, carbon and similar products do remove substances which will provide nutrients to plants. Organic carbons like dissolved organic carbons are good for plant growth. I use no filter media aside from sponges (in my smaller tanks which have only a sponge filter) or pads and biological media (in my canister filters on the two largest tanks).

Carbon is useful if one has had to dose medication, but otherwise it should not be necessary, and certainly not in planted tanks. The amount of nutrients it may remove might be minimal, but sometimes every little bit counts. Provided the tank is biologically balanced in terms of its fish load, there should be no need for chemical filtration. In fact, aside from movement of the tank water, a filter should not even be necessary in a planted tank. I have had tanks with fish and live plants and no filter of any sort. Looked at from that perspective, chemical filtration has no purpose, unless there is a problem.

Byron.

 

[KingK]

I'm in the UK btw
Yeah I'm also unsure what are the full amount of ingredients used, but I must say since adding the JBL balls in the gravel I've already noticed air bubbles on some of the leaves and I'm not injecting CO2

 

[Byron]

I'm in the UK btw
Yeah I'm also unsure what are the full amount of ingredients used, but I must say since adding the JBL balls in the gravel I've already noticed air bubbles on some of the leaves and I'm not injecting CO2

Substrate fertilizers are generally better overall, provided plants are substrate rooted obviously. This is because the nutrients get taken up by the plant roots and not dispersed into the water column, so not only are they more direct but algae is somewhat thwarted when the nutrients are not directly added to the water.

The pearling is a sign that those plants have sufficient nutrients (all of them) in balance with the light intensity. CO2 is usually considered the cause, because unless one is using diffused CO2 it will tend to be the nutrient in least supply. But there will be more natural CO2 in an established tank than some realize. I notice pearling after most water changes, caused by the additional CO2 entering via the tap water. Respiration of fish, plants and some species of bacteria produce CO2, but the bulk occurs from the breakdown of organics in the substrate. The JBL pellets may increase this, a bit anyway, I don't know. But here is another reason for removing carbon and similar chemical filtration media that robs the tank of some of this carbon.

Byron.

 

[KingK]

Yeah I'll see if there's any improvement over the next week or so, also I've just noticed before I adding the JBL pellets, on two of my plants, 3 leaves have some brown type algae? It can be easy removed with my fingers with gentle care, and I had some on my ornaments (the zebra small have seemed to cleaned it up) what could be the cause of it?