Plant Suggestions - Fast Growing

[ezrk]

Need a fast growing plant that can grow without CO2 and preferably can be happy growing emersed (which should help with the lack of CO2).

We are considering planting a chamber in one of our sumps to soak up some nitrates and possibly house some fry/shrimp. Yes we will keep changing water, but want to reduce the weekly nitrate swings we are seeing. We are also curious to see if this can work and meaningfully reduce nitrates.

Vals would be one choice, but I don't think they will grow emersed. Any thoughts?

Oh and they also have to survive in African Cichlid water...but being in the sump they don't have to worry about getting eaten...

 

[verbal]

For fast growing plants it is hard to beat horn wort. It also would be pretty good shrimp cover. It wouldn't grow out of the water, but you
could remove nitrates by removing the plant and allowing new growth.

I have a good amount in one of my tanks, so feel free to pick some up when you need it.

Need a fast growing plant that can grow without CO2 and preferably can be happy growing emersed (which should help with the lack of CO2).

We are considering planting a chamber in one of our sumps to soak up some nitrates and possibly house some fry/shrimp. Yes we will keep changing water, but want to reduce the weekly nitrate swings we are seeing. We are also curious to see if this can work and meaningfully reduce nitrates.

Vals would be one choice, but I don't think they will grow emersed. Any thoughts?

Oh and they also have to survive in African Cichlid water...but being in the sump they don't have to worry about getting eaten...

 

[Avatar]

Am sure there are ohers

Water sprite, anacharis, hornwort, guppy grass, limnobium (floating) all do well with low light. WC can be rooted, but seems to do better on the surface. Since tank conditions and hence propagation rates vary so much, I'd be inclined to start with some of each and see what thrives although I've yet to see any tanks where guppy grass doesn't try and take over the water column or water sprite/iimnobium the surface.

Might also try something really useful like Java/Christmas moss and/or a little sexier like myriophillum or cabomba. The mosses will actually crank if they get the right conditions, as will the latter, and it would be fantastic for CCA to have a regular source for any of these.

 

[mab]

I have many plants that meet your needs available very inexpensively in my fish room. Liquidating everything - soon they'll go to the compost pile.

 

[ezrk]

Thanks Michael, are you available this evening? I will be happy to come over and take some off your hands.

 

[ezrk]

It wouldn't grow out of the water, but you
could remove nitrates by removing the plant and allowing new growth

That is the plan. Growing emersed was for two reasons. First, to help with CO2 and second because the water level in the sump is relatively low, 9" or so, so if they will grow out of the water that would give them more room.

 

[ddavila06]

anacharis is known to be used in other countries to take contaminants off pools of water...cant beat that.

im assuming ur providing a good light right?

 

[JasonC]

Ugh... and to think of the almost soccer ball sized quantities of Java Moss that I have thrown away in the past thinking no one would want that weed..

Might also try something really useful like Java/Christmas moss and/or a little sexier like myriophillum or cabomba. The mosses will actually crank if they get the right conditions, as will the latter, and it would be fantastic for CCA to have a regular source for any of these.

 

[ezrk]

anacharis is known to be used in other countries to take contaminants off pools of water...cant beat that.

im assuming ur providing a good light right?

Yeah, we can do lighting based on what we plant, we want to avoid CO2.

 

[ezrk]

Ugh... and to think of the almost soccer ball sized quantities of Java Moss that I have thrown away in the past thinking no one would want that weed..

I probably would avoid java moss as it is too messy, we need to be able to keep the sump reasonably cleana nd really, really don't want any risk of clogging the return pump....that would be bad.

 

[Avatar]

You don't say

I probably would avoid java moss as it is too messy, we need to be able to keep the sump reasonably cleana nd really, really don't want any risk of clogging the return pump....that would be bad.

Well if you get any more of them I'd be grateful for a hand-off. Water sprite grows up out of the water and shows some fantastic foliage adaptation/expression while doing so.

 

[WendyFish]

Thanks for the advice, Sam and others.

Ethan will be able to speak better to what Michael passed on to us, swords and some other things -- thanks Michael!

 

[chriscoli]

I'm a bit late with my two-cents worth....

It might not be what you're looking for, but my Hygrophila angustifolia is a nitrate hog. One of my tanks where I have a bunch of it growing, tends to be around zero nitrate, and considering that my tap is around 10, that's pretty good.

I've got it under medium light, seems ok in hard water as long as the fish don't eat it, and I've heard that if you can achieve aerial growth, it has nice purple flowers.

 

[ezrk]

Thanks Chris, we may take you up on that. I think this will require some experimentation to find something that works.

 

[WendyFish]

The plant experiment has officially begun...

 

[WendyFish]

I'm necroing this thread because Tony asked how it was going, and I didn't want to hijack the log thread.

We planted the mbuna sump to a mix of wisteria and something else I don't remember now -- it is overrun with wisteria now. It's funny since it's not necessarily a hard water plant -- although we aren't buffering up the water to full mbuna levels.

We planted the tropheus sump (same water chemistry) with a mix of swords and some valls we got cheap at an auction at some point. The swords took a long time to get going and they're sort of ok-ish now. The valls are good. Strangely, we put some of the wisteria overrun from the mbuna sump into the tropheus sump and it withered. We don't treat the water any differently.

We gave up on the pond-ish plants (i.e. water hyacinth) mainly for logistics of keeping them under control. We have been growing out a pothos in the house and may yet give that a try.

We ended up planting in 2-3" of plant substrate over a thin layer of poret. We have automated lighting that alternates on 4hrs / off 4hrs (based on recommendation from Walstad "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" low tech solution).

I have not yet gotten a clean read on whether it's really mattering to the nitrates or not. I have taken a few runs at the intraweek testing and have never been satisfied that my experimental conditions are good enough.

I've actually staged it for this week. On last weekend's water change I vacuumed poop (I do not do this every week in the big tanks, sometimes just drain). This weekend I will vacuum again with 80% water change. Then I will hack back the wisteria to give it room to grow and test throughout the week as it grows and eats. I can share results.

 

[Tony]

Really interesting Wendy. I've always been under the assumption that heavy planting will drop your nitrates. Sounds like you've definitely got a lot of green going on in there. Experiments like this are great for the hobby. They have potential to impact the way a lot of folks plan/maintain their tanks. Thanks for doing it.

Funny how the wisteria just didn't like the tropheus tank. Is your temperature different or something?

 

[ezrk]

Really interesting Wendy. I've always been under the assumption that heavy planting will drop your nitrates. Sounds like you've definitely got a lot of green going on in there. Experiments like this are great for the hobby. They have potential to impact the way a lot of folks plan/maintain their tanks. Thanks for doing it.

Funny how the wisteria just didn't like the tropheus tank. Is your temperature different or something?

Nope those two tanks are as close as tanks can be. The only real difference is the type of rocks. Maybe they don't like holey rock?

 

[WendyFish]

Well, there are a couple things I wonder about since I have thought about it some more.

The mbuna tank has historically generated more nitrates -- significantly more -- than the tropheus tank. (This may no longer be the case given that the tropheus are now positively overrun with fry, gotta be 40 fish in there; will have to deal with that before they get too much bigger.) I wonder if that was a growth driver in the mbuna tank that the troph tank did not have.

There could also be some kind of random effects from ferts. We stuck root tabs in and among the plants in both tanks, but there is more Poret in the bottom layer in the troph tank than in the mbuna; plus there could just be random impacts of proximity.