# Anyone used clay root sticks?



## PedroB (16 Jan 2018)

I've bought easy-life root sticks to bury in several areas of my tank. 

I have a space in my tank on top of a wood branch where I would like to grow a bush of stem plants, but there is no soil. 
I was thinking of bunching the stem plants and tying them to a couple of root sticks as an anchor/source of nutrition. 

Has anyone else used them? 
Is there any problem with having root sticks in direct contact with the water column?

Thank you


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## zozo (16 Jan 2018)

I never used the Easy life sticks, but i assume they are the same as the round laterite clayballs i got from another unbranded vendor or the TerraCaps claycones from HSaqua. These are all dried clay, they will get very soft, mushy and finaly fall apart by the slightest movement around it. It's more something to enrich the soil near the plant roots. Depending on your setup and plant spieces, if the water column is fertilized enough it could be to grow with simple roots in the water. In low tech this is more difficult depending on spp. to get a high enough fert concentration. In high tech this usualy has enough ferts and no problem with most of the plants.


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## PedroB (16 Jan 2018)

They are a bit harder than laterite, almost like baked clay, I'm not sure they will get soft.

How long does it take for laterite to disolve? 

I think I'm going to try and put one in a glass of water and see if it get mushy.


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## zozo (17 Jan 2018)

My laterite balls are rather brittle can cush them easily, the sticks i have are other brown type of clay and much harder, also had blue clay balls wchich are also pretty hard. But non were backed, if i poke in the substrate where clay is added a cloud of clay commes up..

You can try and bake them a little yourself.. This you can do in an oven at the highest available temp. If you don't have an oven it also works in a old discarded pan on the stove. Than take a piece of aluminium foil, fold it a few times and bend down the corners, like creating a liittle table. Put this on the pans bottom and the clay sticks on top of the foil table. That way hot air can vent around it. Put the lid on the pan and fire it up for a 15 minutes or so. The time needed is trail and error. It works pretty good, i tried this with Clay Peat Compost pondsoil mix one time, made little balls of it and baket them in a pan like that. After putting them in the aqaurium soil they were still the same shape and color months later.

But truely i have no idea in how far and what all is rendered inert in this baking process if heated to long.


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