Are these jobe's plant spikes OK?

Matak · 12-03-2002, 1:24 PM

Got these at Wal-Mart for $1.23 Cdn which is alright by me because not only am I poor, I am also cheap. :p

Jobes plant food spikes 16 - 2 - 6

2% Nitrate Nitrogen
10.5 % Water Insoluble Nitrogen
3.5 % Urea Nitrogen

Available Phosphoric Acid (P2O5) 2%
Soluble Potash (K2O) 6%
Derived from Ureaformaldehyde Nitrogen,
Triple Superphosphate, Potassium Nitrate

keely · 12-03-2002, 2:05 PM

I have those... same price, from Walmart

The 16-2-6 is for Lush Ferns and Palms; it's the best one of the Jobe's since it has the least phosphate and not too much urea (which is, I believe, just ammonia, as far as the fish are concerned)

I used just a very small piece in a stand of crypts, buried deep in the substrate.... I'm sort of paranoid about fertilizers for houseplants but everything seems fine.

RTR · 12-03-2002, 5:14 PM

That is the best one - most of us end up using the one with 4% P, twice as much as the fern format. I'll have to check Wal-Mart here. I'd feel better with that formulation. Thanks

keely · 12-03-2002, 6:30 PM

Robert, I have about 24 sticks left, if you can't find them and really want them I would mail them to you

Maybe they aren't hot sellers because they had just the one dusty packet at Wal Mart here, and they haven't restocked them, several months later.

TwoTankAmin · 12-03-2002, 11:56 PM

RobertH at AquaBotanic sells the fern Spikes as well as nice plants and other goodies.

http://www.aquabotanic.com/

djlen · 12-04-2002, 11:26 AM

From the sounds of it, these Jobe Spikes are really good in-substrate fertilizers? I didn't know you could use regular fertilizer, of any kind, in an aquarium.
Can someone please explain....
Len

wetmanNY · 12-04-2002, 1:59 PM

If you need more N, it's more amusing to add more fish. Their N contribution is excreted in the form of ammonia, which water plants eat up before they touch nitrate, like a mixed plateful of Oreos and brussels sprouts I suppose...

Fish! the entertaining fertilizer, also boosts CO2!

Are any aquarium plants starving for phosphate? How? "Add more flakes" says St. Diana Walstad, and it seems right to me. The phosphate from fish meal passes right through the fish, because animals can't use PO4 til it's been taken up by plants.

The potassium is nice, though...