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

[Rivermud]

Thank you for clarifying this. I was afraid that using lots of terrestrial plants would drastically reduce my established bacteria due to the plants out-competing the good bacteria for ammonia.

You are welcome. I am glad the clarification was useful to you.

 

[albertjavieraguilar]

I have tried spider plants, asparagus ferns, ivy, and another unknown vine as a emergent plant in my tank the last month. only the spider plants have thrived. (i have water lettuce, duck weed, moss and some vine grass doing well as sumberged
I broke down and bought a small pothos. I cut a couple of vines off and placed 2 nodes under water yesterday....
Rivermud... you stated you can grow pothos with just a single leaf? I thought you needed a leaf node under water for roots to form. I am a total beginner but have learned alot from this tread.

 

[Rivermud]

I have tried spider plants, asparagus ferns, ivy, and another unknown vine as a emergent plant in my tank the last month. only the spider plants have thrived. (i have water lettuce, duck weed, moss and some vine grass doing well as sumberged
I broke down and bought a small pothos. I cut a couple of vines off and placed 2 nodes under water yesterday....
Rivermud... you stated you can grow pothos with just a single leaf? I thought you needed a leaf node under water for roots to form. I am a total beginner but have learned alot from this tread.

Yes you need a node on the stem below the leaf. Sorry, I left that out. I wasn't overly detailed in the process of rooting because teh discussion was about underwater growth.

 

[aquaponicpaw]

I don't need to provide pics of rotting leaves.

Never asked you to do so, as I don't know what it would prove.

I have science backing me. Your situation has been with a grown plant that you bought at a box store and plopped into your tank. I had pothos cutting survive for over 3 months before rotting in my tank. You stated that the leaves that you've had die off get eaten. further proof that the leaves don't survive under water.


^^^flawed statement. even the leaves of aquatic plants fall off and rot. and yours only lasted for a little over "3 months", As posted above mine has been going for 5. So maybe you somehow failed to meet the needs of your clippings.

This is a full plant you are dealing with and thus is drawing from itself to keep the leaves from going away. If you'd like to prove to the world that it works, cut anything that reaches out of the water and then tell us how long the plant survives.

Why would I do that? so I can make sure that it fails? hmmmm? faulty logic.

you will find it doesn't, if it did then there would be a half million planted tank freaks with underwater pothos.. seriously go talk to the planted tank freaks and find out for yourself. til then, please don't spout personal experience from a few months as advice to others.


please show me where I advised anyone to do anything in this thread. And then tell me what qualifies you to come spout to me because your experiment failed after 3 monthes when mine has been going for 5?

If that doesn't satisfy you then you may want to research terrestrial plants, emergent plants, and immersed plants and learnt eh difference and why they do what they do.

Again show me where I have expressed any dissatifaction in this thread. I am thrilled with my results. I must be doing something right

BTW if science isn't substantiation then I don't know what to tell you. Been asking for science you have provided nothing but personal experience like me.

Here is a experiment, this will allow you to prove me wrong. If a Pothos can be grown underwater this should prove it beyond doubt. Since your experience is proven by a "pics or it didn't happen" mentallity you can document it as well.

Hypothesis: Pothos can be grown underwater

Experiement: A single pothos leaf clipping can be rooted in a glass of water. Aquaponicpaw claims a pothos can be grown underwater. Take a clipping from a pothos and plant it in your substrate. If a pothos can be grown underwater and can be rooted in water then the leaf should provide enough nutrition from the nutrients in the water to establish a root system and grow new leaves. A plant with a root system and multiple leaves to draw from can produce growth for a short period of time to try to reach a survivable state (ie the open air) thus the experiment would be flawed if we used a fully developed and rooted/potted plant. You can if you choose, pre-root a single leaf in a cup prior to putting it in your substrate as the root and plant structure will not have a large enough reserve to reach air.

Waste of time as I am achieving the results desired within my tank at this moment. and yes I have documentation for that/

Expected Results: Science states that terrestrial plants do not have the capability to absorb nutrients from a water column thus long term survival is not possible without access to a terrestrial (non submersed) environment. Pothos cannot develop leaves of the proper structure for underwater living.

So, put your money where your mouth is and take me up on it. I have some pothos in a grow bed that i can easilly pull and tossed in my 24 inch deep 100 gallon tank. I'll even tie it down as i have no substrate so that it would be growing at normal substrate depth. I hate to sacrifice a plant just to prove a point but I will so that we don't have readers of this thread going off and wasting their time and spiking their ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates due to their plant (which is supposed to remove nitrates) rotting slowly away in their tank. The only reason your plant grew was that it pulled from it's reserves enough to reach open air. That's all, it didn't "grow" it survived, and there is a big difference between growth and survival.

So which is it, growth or survival? nevermind. I'll refer you to the pics I posted. the portion of the plant in the pot is surviving, the portion in the tank is clearly growing.

thanks for the input.

 

[anarchir]

i added a pathos like 2 weeks ago an it just seems like its dying while my nitrates are like 40ppm with every other day 35% water change.
Gona add more but so far i havent seen any improvment in water quality OR plant growth, do i have to dose the water with ferts?

Nice name!


Also, what a petty discussion you guys are having on whether to have a singular plant underwater or not lol.

 

[aquaponicpaw]

Nice name!


Also, what a petty discussion you guys are having on whether to have a singular plant underwater or not lol.

I agree, It's sickening that people feel such the need to be right that it evolves into what it has.

 

[Rivermud]

thanks for the input.

You are welcome.
You have serious reading comprehension issues. The correct info regarding growing pothos (a terrestrial plant) underwater has been posted. You can choose to do the research or not, I don't honestly care about you or your setup in any way. My replies were simply to inform others, they can now read both of our posts and make an educated decision about their own tanks.

Science states that terrestrial plants do not have the capability to absorb nutrients from a water column thus long term survival is not possible without access to a terrestrial (non submersed) environment. Pothos cannot develop leaves of the proper structure for underwater living.

This alone is all anybody needs to know. Your success was due to having a large plant with enough reserves to send shoots to try to reach an environment where it can survive which is why you have leaves not in the water. If you remove those leaves and keep the plant submerged it WILL die. The leaves you have under water will all die off because they can't function under water, your plant will continue to shoot leaves above the water.

underwater photosynthesis isvital for survival of terrestrial plants during conditions of
deep floods. Even rather low light conditions already result
in increased survival. Changes in leaf morphology upon submergence, which at least partly compensate the unfavourable gas exchange conditions under water by reducingthe gas diffusion resistance, increase underwater photosynthesis rates, and also decrease photorespiration rates.
It would be particularly interesting to elucidate through
which mechanisms the morphological changes of the leaves
decrease the resistance to gas exchange. It could simply be
the larger leaf surface area to volume ratio that increases
the relative flux of carbon dioxide and oxygen from the
water column into the plant. However, if the development
of submergence-acclimated leaves is similar to heterophylly
in aquatic and amphibious plants, terrestrial plants may be
able to decrease cell wall and cuticle thickness in response
to submergence, and even change the composition of the
cuticle in order to decrease gas diffusion resistance (cf.
Frost-Christensen et al., 2003). Furthermore, acclimation
to submergence may involve not only diffusion resistance,
but also biochemical processes in the photosynthetic
apparatus.
It is not yet known how the formation of submerged leaf
types is induced in terrestrial plants. Data from aquatic and
amphibious plants suggest the hormone ABA, and possibly
ethylene, to be key players in morphological, anatomical
and photosynthetic (biochemical) changes upon submergence (e.g. Kuwabara et al., 2001, 2003; Minorsky, 2003).
Interestingly, these hormones are also essential components
of signalling cascades leading to enhanced shoot elongation
during submergence in some terrestrial species (Kende
et al., 1998; Voesenek et al., 2003). Incorporating plant
hormones into underwater photosynthesis research in terrestrial plants will be a promising avenue of research to
explore how changes in underwater gas exchange capacity
of terrestrial plants are regulated.

Pothos do not grow a submerged leaf type. Pothos is a vine plant and in the case of flooding will attempt to send a shoot up to reach a survivable state. If that does not happen the plant WILL die.

Conclusion: Terrestrial plants that cannot develop submerged leaf type or extend their stem to reach a survivable environment WILL EVENTUALLY DIE.

 

[Rivermud]

I agree, It's sickening that people feel such the need to be right that it evolves into what it has.

facepalm

 

[aquaponicpaw]

reading comprehension issues? I refer you to post #404. that sums up this whole debate.

 

[ITHURTZ]

Wow.. 39 pages and 3 hours of reading + searching up the names of plants...
Are there any plants that grow long roots underwater?
Or plants that I can just put in the tank coz my overhead filters have taken up most of the space..

My arrow heads grew over 24" of roots. Pothos can grow huge roots to. If the fish dont nip at the roots either of those 2 plants should easily hit bottom with their roots.


Rivermud, I tried, you tried. Just let nature take its course now