Plant only filtration (why not popular in the hobby???)

[ITHURTZ]

I'm quite interested in trying out this arrow head plant.. Not too sure where to get them though..
But I have got plenty of potho plants in the garden.. I might clip some to put in my tank.. Can I just drop them directly in the water?
Will they float or submerge?

I can usually pick up arrowheads at homedepot or any place that sells house plants.


You can clip them ya, just make sure that each clipping has a root stub. The roots and vine can be underwater, leaves up above. The plant itself will sink so you need to find some kind of way to keep it up above. If you have a lid you can move the lid over a bit or lift it up and stick it under.

Has anyone ever determined the # of plants/bamboo to reach a result of very low nitrates ? You would think if plants make such a great filtration that it would be a top study/practice. I'm unexperienced with plants but the ones I tried out didn't do squat. I remember seeing a video where a guy had a bucket of like 100's of bamboo only and the nitrates were zero. Guess you need a ton of plants to make it work, is it worth it ?

You can get a idea. I can almost guarantee you go out and buy 20 pots of pothos and you wont have nitrates. It also depends on tank size, stock, under stocked, over stocked etc. Page 1 post #1 jk had all those leaves for ONE animal and he didnt go crazy on feeding it. To that same first post, I have WAAAAY more plants and if I feed lightly Ill hit a 0-5ppm for the week. Otherwise I sit at around 10ppm per week with these plants. If we had the entire same tank, stock and number of leaves, my tank might be at 0 and yours 15.

Im not going to rip out my plants to test my "natural" nitrate reading, but I know for a fact what I have right now consumes 20+ppm on nitrates a week in a 160gallon.




Bella I hate you haha. I dont know about going 100% verticle for me, but I can go up and at a angle! Hmmm. Once I figured out WHAT I am going to build, you show me this. Back to the drawing board!
Man the wheels are spinning a mile a minute. Wait I think something just popped into my head

 

[plecostic]

I can almost guarantee you go out and buy 20 pots of pothos and you wont have nitrates.

I tried pothos in a 10 gallon and I had quite a bit I thought, lots of pothos and a few aquatic plants that were so small and kept falling apart and getting stuck into the filter intake. It was a mess but nitrates were high, had some small fish in there too. Maybe I didn't have enough, some were submerged too. I have difficult time keeping leaves above water. I also had like 5 lucky bamboo in there. 20 pots of pothos seems like a lot. I wonder if you could factor it based on number of clippings vs pots ? I think I had at least 10 clippings with roots.

 

[H]-[H]

I can usually pick up arrowheads at homedepot or any place that sells house plants.


You can clip them ya, just make sure that each clipping has a root stub. The roots and vine can be underwater, leaves up above. The plant itself will sink so you need to find some kind of way to keep it up above. If you have a lid you can move the lid over a bit or lift it up and stick it under.

Thanks for the info.. Does it matter which potho plants to use? I saw a few posts regarding different types of pothos but didn't know how to differentiate them..

 

[Rivermud]

I think it is important to point out that if you have any die off of any kind ammonia and nitrates will spike. If you have aquatic plants in your aquarium and they die they begin the decaying process which introduces ammonia to the tank. This is why it is important to prune and clean up any aquatic decay regularly. I mention this because plecostics situation sounds like it may have been due to plant decay rather than the lack of filtration they provided.

 

[DariusAmurdarja]

You guys should try Lupinus. No other plant eats up so much nitrogen. She even creates little knots at her roots to save it and she has special bacteria inside her to consume even more nitrate.

 

[ITHURTZ]

And Lupinus are poisonous and grow pretty big!

Thanks for the info.. Does it matter which potho plants to use? I saw a few posts regarding different types of pothos but didn't know how to differentiate them..

Doesnt matter

Golden Pothos are green leaves with yellow
Marbled are green leaves with white
Jade the leaves are all green.


From looking at all mine just now, seems I have all golden pothos.

 

[H]-[H]

And Lupinus are poisonous and grow pretty big!





Doesnt matter

Golden Pothos are green leaves with yellow
Marbled are green leaves with white
Jade the leaves are all green.


From looking at all mine just now, seems I have all golden pothos.

Thanks again..

 

[albertjavieraguilar]

I added creeping charlie to the mix on the back of my tank three days ago. I just have the roots submerged, looks like its growing great. Was wondering if anyone else had experience with growing creeping charlie.

 

[Good_Times]

I added creeping charlie to the mix on the back of my tank three days ago. Was wondering if anyone else had experience with growing creeping charlie.

Yea, that guy is really weird he keeps stalking people.

 

[ITHURTZ]

Nope but you can eat it!