Planted 4,4 gallon attempt.

[asukabetta]

Been thinking of making a planted 4,4 gallon, tell me if this would be correct though, since I do not want my gravel to go to waste, I've been thinking of placing a lower layer underneath the gravel with soil where I would plant the plants and put gravel on top.

Would it work?

[twolovers101]

should work fine :) many people use gravel as a cap for their soil

[Fasht]

Gravel will work only if you don't want to plant any carpeting plants as they won't be ale to root properly. Also, if you're going to use regular soil, it'll release tannins if you'll use gravel.

[asukabetta]

Originally Posted by Fasht

Gravel will work only if you don't want to plant any carpeting plants as they won't be ale to root properly. Also, if you're going to use regular soil, it'll release tannins if you'll use gravel.

So basically, I should keep them in little pots since the roots will not be able to extract nurtrients. How does one keep them fertilized and how long does one QT plants to make sure there are no "hitch hikers"

[babystarz]

Originally Posted by asukabetta

So basically, I should keep them in little pots since the roots will not be able to extract nurtrients. How does one keep them fertilized and how long does one QT plants to make sure there are no "hitch hikers"

~2 weeks is standard for plant quarantine. If they're hardy plants you can put them in water that has not had the chlorine removed to help kill any uninvited guests.

I use Flourish fertilizer and root tabs in tanks without substrate/soil and that works quite well. The combination of both is important because some plants primarily get their nutrition through roots, while others pull them out of the water column through their leaves. Also, they don't have the same nutrients in them. Root tabs have things like iron that Flourish doesn't, and vice versa.

Make sure not to confuse Flourish and Flourish Excel. Very different things

[kfryman]

No need to quarantine usually. Only if your plants come from a place where they are in terrible conditions, but for some reason you buy them anyways. Only thing useful for QT is if there are pest snails. If you don't over feed snails will die down naturally.

Flourish is a micro supplement, not macro. Plants rely more on macro to grow. I would suggest getting Seachem Potassium, Nitrogen, and Flourish.

http://www.amazon.com/Seachem-513-Fl...achem+flourish
http://www.amazon.com/Seachem-463-Fl...achem+flourish
http://www.amazon.com/Seachem-623-Fl...achem+flourish

You can switch them to 250 mL if you want, but you will use the potassium and nitrogen more than the Flourish, so it may be better to just buy those in 500mL and the Flourish in 250mL