Plant Filter

[carsona246]

They're not too hard, I just have a pair of scissors I use. So far they haven't been growing too crazy, I've just been pruning the ones that turn yellow and die off. I only have 2 axolotls in my 40 breeder, and a ton of plants, so I'm thinking there's not enough nutrients for the lilies to take off. The most growth I've seen out of them is when they flower, they basically just pop up overnight. The roots are what's growing the most.

 

[JP100]

They're not too hard, I just have a pair of scissors I use. So far they haven't been growing too crazy, I've just been pruning the ones that turn yellow and die off. I only have 2 axolotls in my 40 breeder, and a ton of plants, so I'm thinking there's not enough nutrients for the lilies to take off. The most growth I've seen out of them is when they flower, they basically just pop up overnight. The roots are what's growing the most.

Ok thanks alot for that. Are the roots tightly packed?
I had a outside pond I used for breeding and it got suffocated by a floating plant( I dont know the name) the roots got so tangled it was a huge carpet and was really hard to get rid of.

 

[carsona246]

They're not terribly packed. I mean they're still small houseplants right now, the plant filter hasn't been going too long. The roots are getting big enough so that I thought I "lost" my wildtype, and he was actually in the middle of the root system just chilling out. The roots are reaching the bottom of my 17" tall tank

 

[JP100]

Ok thanks alot for the info. Its a wonder more peaple dont do it. It looks cool seems easy and cheap to set up and has great benifits

 

[carsona246]

probably because most people don't realize how easy it is. I've always had plants in my tank to help with filtration, but I never knew how much more nutrients these plants sucked out of the tank then most aquatic plants.

 

[grius]

I just have to try this one day, it looks like the perfect filtration.

 

[Jake777]

Awesome idea!
Check out my planted bio filter this thread inspired.


ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKwZz5P69mE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[natjobe]

I also want to try this. I have a hanging waterfall filter (typical aquaclear) do I just set up the box so the waterfall flows back into the box, or are you putting roots in the aquarium? I just checked out this kids setup, it's pretty rad. It seems that you would want the plants to absorb the nutrient's before it gets to the filter? I might even try anubis the same way he did.

BensAquariums's Channel - YouTube

 

[carsona246]

what I do with my hob filters(I'm assuming thats a hanging waterfall filter) is just throw the plants in the area where the filter pads are. I take out all the filter pads, and just put a bunch of pothos/peace lilly(pothos seems to work better in the hob filters) in the empty space. It's been filtering the heck out of my ten gallon, and i have a pothos vine that wraps around my tank stand.