Loving this. My fav plant is the extremely fast growing coleus qith hundreds of varieties. They root very well in water also and need minimal light to grow huge fast. I will now be adding them to my setups tnx to this thread and will report on how well they work. Keeping monster catfish nitrates are always an issue. This might just be a solution. I will posts pics in a few weeks when i get this going on my 100 for starters.
haha now i can combine my fav fish and fav plants. Sweet
Thx for keeping us in the loop, its always interesting exploring new ways and techniques to keep n03 low!
My willow cutting has taken off! I might add a larger one this weekend. And in autumn I will try a banana plant in my 60g indoors
This sounds equally interesting. I kind of want to try a tomato plant eventually.?
Not sure if anyone posted this already, but this link shows how the plant takes in nutrients in the water and keeps the fish healthy. Seemingly these plants would do better with no biological filtration at all and could eliminate water changes all together.
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Plants_and_Biological_Filtration
This can be true but the need to replace natural minerals in the water is priceless and with an overstocked and overfed tank I don't see the plant keeping up.
post some pics. I'm on hunt for some willow branches too.
Very good read. How would you setup a tank without biological filtration and still keep the water clear? I'm guessing you'd run an undersized filter so there wouldnt be enough beneficial bacteria and youd have a lot of ammonia left over? I have a ton of water lettuce in my pond so I'm excited about this idea.
Yes mechanical filtration would be hard to keep up on, one would need to wash/replace the pads atleast weekly and keep the substrate/glass clean as well to prevent anaerobic bb from growing.
Question is: can the plant consume the waste before it stresses the fish? Fish are always secreting ammonia and after a big feeding it would spike imo, however a well desired idea!
I found the perfect spot for them. Right outside that window in the last pic. After 11:30-12:00 the sun is on that side of the house the rest of the day.
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That's awesome, one heck of a vine!
the article info about which plants preferentially use ammonium (& some, also nitrite) are worth exploring. Interestingly enough, the lowly Anacharis & Duckweed use ammonium first.
Water lettuce isn't feasible in the limited top space of my acrylic tanks.
Very true for many of us, I guess a sump with a big enough footprint might work given the tank size and stock.?
Well no more pothos for a while. Here's my mistake you can learn from.
Keep the lighting away from the root system, and on the plants themselves.
My t5 hos kept growing algae on the roots and ruined the growth and root system. But keeping my tank lit is more important to me right now. Another day I will do a really cool potho sump.
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My light is somewhat close to the roots and I've never had this problem, perhaps you got stressed plant because the pothos should help eliminate algae. the roots could have also died, both situations would have looked similar.
Good info and updates guys keep em coming!
Here's my mighty plant:
ATM I'm really just topping off the tank weekly and levels never exceed 20-25ppm, given the fact that I have 6 adult red belly piranha in a 125gal I think that's pretty damn good, loving life :beer:
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Cheap way to decrease nitrates and keep your fish healthy:
http://monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=504763 
