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

[DammitKhoa]

The leaves are not actually sucking the water directly. The water enters the plants through the roots, and then through transpiration (a process I won't go into) the water is sucked up into the leaves where the nutrients are used (nitrates, phosphates, etc.). So the correlation between the number of leaves and the amount of nitrates is really a correlation between the number of leaves and the amount of nitrates used when making food. The process is pretty much the same for submerged plants. I do not know whether fully submerged plants use more nitrates per leaf, but usually it can be hard to get enough submerged plants in the tank to make much of a difference depending on your stock.

Hope that helps.

It sure does! Thank you. I'll be "dipping my feet in the water" by trying out a couple anubias and amazon sword first. If all goes well, I plan on filling the tank up with submersible plants. My nitrates are already pretty low, less than 10 ppm after each weekly water change but wouldn't hurt to shrink that down a bit more

From what I've read from most people here growing their plants out of the tank, it is MUCH less effective than growing submerged plants. Everyone keeps getting excited when their nitrates only get to 10ppm in a week, while in my tanks I have to add about 40 ppm of nitrate week just to keep it from staying at 0. And that's with a modest amount of vals, some bolbitis, a tiger lotus, and a small amount of hygro. And the tank is VERY heavily stocked with large carnivorous fish.
As to your questions Dammit, plants like fine substrates. Most plants in the wild are in fine sands and clays. The plants actually transport oxygen through their roots from the plant. Keeping the rock wool or similar substance on them won't do anything but restrict their growth. If you have vigorous plant growth, you will likely need to add ferts of some sort eventually. Indirect light won't do anything for the plants either. Even direct sunlight is filtered through glass which is very good at filtering out a lot of the light. Think what happens when you take a house plant and put it outside in the sun. All the leaves bleach due to the light being too strong for what they're used to.

So it was not a typing (or my reading) mistake and indeed is a fact that fully submerged plants are more effective? I appreciate the feedback.. light is definitely a large factor to consider.

 

[ITHURTZ]

I would say emerged plants are more effective than submerged. Ceiling and other rooms are the limit as where submerged the tank and kind of fish is your limit. If my fish didnt eat the plants and I put all the plants in the tank my fish would have very little swimming room. Plants on top look cooler to if you are handy and make it look good.

 

[JamesF]

ithurtz, that just doesn't seem to be the case going by what people report here. Most of the people who are growing emmersed plants are still having moderate levels of nitrate building up every week.
My 130 is fairly heavily planted, but the eight 11-18" fish have no troubles moving, and nitrates are constantly 0, even with me adding them regularly. Granted, when growing plant out of the tank you can grow them everywhere, but that hardly makes it more efficient, just slightly more effective if you use all the space possible.
I've seen several setups that had an African cichlid tank with a planted aquarium underneath that acted as a sump. The plant tank was high light, CO2 injected, and the nitrates were constantly 0.
The emmersed setup does have the advantage of allowing for easier keeping of the plants (no CO2 required, less light needed since there is no water to go through) as well as keeping them with herbivores, and the display can be very attractive if done right as you mentioned.
It would be interesting to see what the amount of plant mass of different types were required to remove a set amount of nitrates from a system.

 

[Rivermud]

Submerged plants do absorb nitrates, however they do it via many methods including via the cell wall structure of the leaf and stems not just roots. The major difference in nitrate reduction is the plants harvest. That is to say the amount he plant draws for growth. In a submerged environment the plants must be harvested less they naturally shed their foliage. When they shed this foliage they release whatever they harvested from the water column. This means you must prune and harvest/trim your submersed plants regularly to keep on top of the issue.

When people see results from both styles it may be natural to conclude that one is better at the job than the other. This isn't completely true as most planted aquariums have a far larger number of plants drawing from the water column due to natural aquascaping tendencies. The benefit of having plants grown outside of the aquarium is that you can prune and harvest them at your leisure because they have removed the nitrates etc from the water column and when they shed they do not release it back to the water column. Both styles are wonderful and fun to work with. I had a low tech fully planted tank setup for over a year, not once did i need to fertilize and never did i see any parameters that alarmed me. The plants grew like mad and it was very beautiful.. being low tech though did not mean it was low work.

 

[ITHURTZ]

James do you have a current picture of your 130?

 

[JamesF]

Great post Rivermud. I've noticed that there is a huge difference between types of plants and how fast they shed leaves. Plants like vals loose them very slowly and irregularly, while a lot of stem plants can lose large numbers over short periods. Keeping up on maintenance is a definite must.
ITHURTZ, here's a link to my photo thread of 2 of my tanks. The first pics are from January, there should be more later in the thread that are more recent.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?455453-Update-pics&highlight=Update+pics

 

[ITHURTZ]

wow james very nice. You have atleast double the plant area that I do.



On a side note I got a leak going on somewhere now. Lost 3/4" over night. carpet is damp. Shut down the plant container to start eliminating where its comming from. I hope its not the tank

 

[JamesF]

Thanks ITHURTZ. I'm just hoping my 18" ornate bichir doesn't decide to try and dig.
Leaks suck! I've had a few. Good luck with it.

My newest setup I'm working on is a 65 gallon paulidarium. I'll have a few plants growing out of the water, but rooted in the tank. I'll post pics as I build it up.

 

[ITHURTZ]

I think the tank is shot, drips 1/2 gallon a hr. Ugh and its raining outside. I guess this new plant container I built will never be finished. Now gotta go and fab up a tank in the DETACHED garage and swap everyone over. Water changes will NOT be fun.

 

[JamesF]

That sucks.