any pothos cutting for salee

I tried tomatoes once, but the roots got algae'd/nibbled.

I have a peace lily and spider plant growing above my native tank:

Is your spider plant in the water?

Got some cuttings of pothos in the weekend - looking forward to getting them to work in my Malawi tank!

Is your spider plant in the water?

Yes

from last week, most of the long bits are out of shot either to the left or over the lights

I don't know if it does any good at removing nitrates

Surely it's got to be removing some. How much is the question.

Great. I wanted to get a spider plant in my room and do that with it.

Thanks for posting that!

I used to have spider plants, now I have them again.

They're currently rootles should I just hang one in the water?

Nice moss log cave. Is it regular java moss?

Nice moss log cave. Is it regular java moss?

cough, cough...

um, no. lets just call it fissidens rigidulus. cough, cough...

cough, cough...

um, no. lets just call it fissidens rigidulus. cough, cough...

:slfg: have a read of blueethers native thread in his sig....

I have a peace lily and spider plant growing above my native tank:

How's the peace lily doing and what method have you used to hold it up?

How's the peace lily doing and what method have you used to hold it up?

Doing ok, the spider plant goes mad, and needs another good trim. The Spider plant is in a plastic planter box that runs from the front of the tank to 3/4 of the way back, the lilly is in a clay pot above that with a drip feed off one of the powerheads to keep it watered

Sept 2014

Today (forgive the glass)

Doing ok, the spider plant goes mad, and needs another good trim. The Spider plant is in a plastic planter box that runs from the front of the tank to 3/4 of the way back, the lilly is in a clay pot above that with a drip feed off one of the powerheads to keep it watered

Sept 2014

Today (forgive the glass)

Thanks,I might try the spider plant.

Do you think I could just dangle the roots in the water like the pothos?

Doing ok, the spider plant goes mad, and needs another good trim. The Spider plant is in a plastic planter box that runs from the front of the tank to 3/4 of the way back, the lilly is in a clay pot above that with a drip feed off one of the powerheads to keep it watered

Sept 2014

Today (forgive the glass)

Oooo is that a flamingo plant behind the spider plant? How well does it tend to do and how far is it submerged?

Oooo is that a flamingo plant behind the spider plant? How well does it tend to do and how far is it submerged?

Is it? It's roots arn't submerged at all, just a small flow through an airline.

Just thought I'd show an update of how the Pothos is doing now. It has grown down the length of the tank then I bent it around and it has grown back towards the pot again.

The Tropheus do eat the roots but it's still going strong.

Looking good! I hack about half the root mass off mine every so often as it gets so long it starts going over the weir to the next chamber of the sump, doesn't seem to bother it too much.

I have mine growing out a window and running wild along a tree outside. Must be 3m+ by now. This way it gets all the light it needs and I don't have to worry about it taking up space inside. Will be interesting to see how it copes with winter. I suspect it will do ok. Great plant!

I have a cutting in my troph tank its a decent size and had a lot of roots when i put it in the tank but over time the roots were munched by my trophs. I have since put the roots in a piece of fx5 tubing to see if they will come back. I'm struggling to keep my nitrates under control. I change about 60-70% every week with a good gravel vac, run 2 filters a fx5 and a cf1200. The tank is 350L and has about 40 fish max.

I do a wc every tues night and my nitrate readings were I would guess about 60ppm as it is so hard to tell between 40-80 on the colour card. I miss a feeding on weds and tested my water tonight (thurs) and they are around 20ppm already and i have only fed them twice since tues. I feed pretty light twice a day and enough food that it is all gone in about 40 secs per feed.

So i guess my question is that because of the lack of root system on my pothos plant could that be the reason I am not really seeing any benefit in nitrate reduction since I introduced it to the tank?

Good day Nige,

It could also be the lack of water flow over the roots. I dont know what the layout of the roots in the pipe is. The key to the plants doing well is plenty of light and an lots of oxygen around the roots.

We are fortunate to be able to place the root structure behind the HMF sections of our tanks. This is wicked as the fish cant get to it and the roots grow into the Poret foam and action the nitrates there.

In some of our tank we use a piece of foam around 150.100.50mm slice it down the middle. Lay the root structure within the foam and let the foam sit in the tank. Direction water flow on the Poret foam and your roots are protected and get the nutrients.

If you want to increase the Nitrate removal you could light the pothos. This photo shows an 105liter aquarium with around 100 tetras, and 5 adults breeding whiptails. Even with the heavy feedings, lots of fish and no water change since Feb. Nitrate sits around 5ppm. The Strawberry , Pothos and Spathiphyllum are devastatingly effective.

So i guess my question is that because of the lack of root system on my pothos plant could that be the reason I am not really seeing any benefit in nitrate reduction since I introduced it to the tank?

I'd say that has something to do with it, the roots are what allows the plant to absorb nutrients from the water, so I'd guess a bigger root mass will increase/speed up nitrate absorption. What would be ideal is a sump, or some other separate chamber (maybe screen off a corner with some Poret foam?) where the plant can grow without being pruned by the trophs.

I think I need to increase the lighting for mine, they're growing slowly, but the nitrate is well under control...

I think I just need a bigger tank, that'll fix it

Surely it's got to be removing some. How much is the question.

• - Weigh the plant material you remove when trimming.
  - To make it easier lets go with that the plants contain 80% water or have a dry matter (DM) of 20%.
  - Typical nitrogen content of plants in their DM is 2% to keep it simple.
  - How often do you cut your plants? Every four weeks?
  - How big is your tank? 100ltr?

Example:

• - Weight of the removed plant material = 100g (which is a lot but lets go with it because it's easy to calculate)
  - Equals 20g DM
  - Nitrogen is 20g DM / 100 * 2 = 0.4g or 400mg
  - 0.4g / 28 days = 0.014g or 14mg extraction per day
  - 14mg / 100ltr = 0.14mg removed per day and ltr (=1.4ppm)

So next time you cut your plants back, grab the digital kitchen scales and see how much growth you had = extracted nutrients 8)

Why do I love to have lots of duck weed (35% protein = 2.24% nitrogen in DM) in my fishroom?

• - Removal per week = 600g
  - DM is only 8% = 48g
  - 48g DM / 100 * 2.24 = 1.075g or 1075mg nitrogen
  - 1.075 / 7 days = Extraction of 0.153g or 153mg nitrogen per day
  - 153mg / 1200 ltr = 0.127mg per day and ltr (equals 1.27ppm)

Cheers,

JaSa

I did not realise mine had gotten so long, they had started to grow behind my tank without me seeing it.