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

[aquaponicpaw]

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

Tried what? show me the post where I said that it was an aquatic plant. I'll wait

and you said it was a no no as far being placed in tanks. So to what detriment has it been a no no in my tank?

If there were any I would have the pics to provide it, thanks for your input.

 

[ITHURTZ]

aqua I am 27 years old, I dont have time to baby sit you or to convince you to not jump off the ledge. I watch and when it happens walk away. This thread does NOT need to be cluttered with your immature "IM RIGHT YOUR WRONG" attitude and people do not need to see 5 pages of you bickering and crying. Keep it up and Ill have you removed from this thread.

 

[aquaponicpaw]

aqua I am 27 years old, I dont have time to baby sit you or to convince you to not jump off the ledge. I watch and when it happens walk away. This thread does NOT need to be cluttered with your immature "IM RIGHT YOUR WRONG" attitude and people do not need to see 5 pages of you bickering and crying. Keep it up and Ill have you removed from this thread.

babysit? please show me where I have been immature, cried or told anyone that they were wrong. and I will never post in this thread again.

 

[H]-[H]

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.

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?

 

[Bellawitz]

This thread was absolutely fabulous...up until the massive derailment...Agree to disagree.

*Clears throat* Moving on...

I just may have to try this on my tank one of these days...Great read, very informative. Rivermud, that's a great set up. I love the fill and drain idea. Once it's all finished up, could you post a fresh video? I'm wondering how much quieter it'll be. Have you considered a spray bar instead (to tame down the tank filling roar)?...I also hope the rocks take down a considerable amount of gurgling noise. If so, I'll probably do something similar.

 

[Rivermud]

This thread was absolutely fabulous...up until the massive derailment...Agree to disagree.

*Clears throat* Moving on...

I just may have to try this on my tank one of these days...Great read, very informative. Rivermud, that's a great set up. I love the fill and drain idea. Once it's all finished up, could you post a fresh video? I'm wondering how much quieter it'll be. Have you considered a spray bar instead (to tame down the tank filling roar)?...I also hope the rocks take down a considerable amount of gurgling noise. If so, I'll probably do something similar.

The fill and drain setup is not quiet, it can't be quiet due to the fact that it requires a siphon effect to work properly. there are ways to get it quieter than my first video. I will post on that later today. As far as the rest of the derail, I only posted information to keep people from doing something that may cause issues with their tank. I apologize if people were turned away from this thread for tat part of the discussion but I feel I have a duty to people to educate them since I have posted my tank and advocated the use of plants.

 

[Bellawitz]

No worries, it's just a little frustrating reading a thread for 2 hours to hit a back and forth thing at the end. aquaponicpaw, keep us updated on your little science experiment...maybe in another thread or something? I'm curious to see how long you can keep that thing completely submerged and alive. Maybe weekly/monthly pictures or something? The deal breaker is though...gotta keep the growth from breaking the surface water. Otherwise it's cheating.

 

[Rivermud]

So, to update with info regarding the fill and drain system. The system as I have it set up uses what they call a Bell siphon to drain the grow bed. There are other options for draining the grow bed. You can use a durso style standpipe with a small hole drilled in the bottom and a pump on a timed cycle. The idea here is that you run the pump long enough to fill the bed while the standpipe prevents you from overfilling the bed and losing water. Once the bed is full the pump shuts off and the water drains slowly back in to the tank via the small hole/holes drilled in to the bottom of the standpipe.

You can use a timer on a drain valve as well. Simply use a standpipe to prevent overfilling of the growbed like before but then add another bulkhead to the growbed (protected of course with a pvc shield to prevent media from getting to it. On the underside of the bulkhead connect a valve that can be opened and closed via a timer or a float trip switch (similar to a toilet). The problem with a float switch is getting it to fully open and to properly close at the right time. You can address the float switch issue by using an electric valve controller that opens the valve when turned on by the float switch and shuts it off after however long you determine.

Both of these methods allow you to use a spraybar return or whatever type of return you like as they don't depend on a siphon to work. Generally the bell siphon approach is more of an outdoors/aquaponics setup due to the noise it produces (for most people anyway). I used it in the initial build because it was the most simplistic solution to drain my growbed. In my future build when i finally finish this tank off (money is tight) I plan to use a valve on a separate bulkhead attached to a spraybar.

I also plan on adding a sump for water height control. I don't like the tank water fluctuating up and down with the fill and drain system. Introducing a sump will remove this from the equation. It also gives you a place to grow out smaller generations of fish. (I'm thinking in terms of aquaponics here where they raise the fish for food, generally trout, jade perch, silver perch, or tilapia)

 

[anarekist]

Can you take a photo?

This may be due to the plant acclimating itself to the change. Similar to when you re-pot a plant they can sometimes get shocked and will cut themselves back. A picture and a little background would help to answer you problem.

so yeah, about 2 to 3 weeks ago i hacked most of the root ball, only way to remove the dirt and just stuck it in there. in the morning and afternoon it gets light on the side that's draping down .

here some pics of the leaves turning black, not such a good pic sorry

 

[Rivermud]

I think your problem has to do with the hacking of the root ball, the plant is still in shock. I don't think you have issue with bio-load because it looks like you have a fair amount of africans in there.

Tip for others trying to clean a potted plant for use in the tank. Washing the roots in a 5 gallon bucket of water works wonders. Fill a bucket with room temp water, gently remove the plant (soil and all) from the pot and immerse in the bucket. With a little gentle rubbing of the roots the soil will release into the bucket and you can then place the plants in the tank. Do not use hot or cold water as it can shock the plant as well.

View attachment pothos.jpg

If you look at this picture you can see that the plant is actually several cuttings that were started then planted in a bundle. When you cut the roots you may have damaged one cut more than another which would be why you are seeing the die-off on some stems and not others. Make sure each stem that you have in the water has a few good roots or a root node. This should make the transition from soil to water much easier on you and the plant.