A Question About Plants.

[Lazerus]

Hi all,

Bought some lovely plants the other day.

2 bunches of Amazon Swordplants
2 bunches Twisted Vellis
1 Purple leaved Crypto coryne

Now....they are not planted in my tank yet, just resting there in my 37.5L until my 84L has its gravel in. So it should be only a few days or so before they are properly planted in the new tank.

Now, I question dawned on me during the night....Is my filter under strain because these plants are in there? Ie will it 'mini cycle' Or do plants give off ammonia & nitrite like fish do?

(I currently have two mature running filters and one large 'young' sponge media belonging to my new 84l filter wedged in between them so it can be seeded. Its been in there about a week. So either there's lots of filter media in the tank for bacteria to reproduce onto...)

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no they don't, they actually take some strain off the filter because the favourite food for aquatic plants is ammonia and if they can't get ammonia they will use up nitrate. so they actually help with the filtration although you have to have a whole lot of plants before you see any tangible difference.

 

[blueliz]

read up about removing snails etc from the plants before you put them in, people recommend dipping them in bleach or potassium something or other to kill any unwanted hitch hikers! I didn't realise and just planted mine and then wondered where the snails had come from!

 

[Lazerus]

Phew!!! Well that's great news then!!! I thought I'd blown it there for a minute because I'd added all the plants to the tank in one go!! ha,ha!

Also another question, if in the future some of the fish nibble at the plants and bits of leaves fall off and die on the gravel...will that possibly cause ammonia to go up then? Similar to fish waste I suppose?

Edited to reply to latest post:

Hi Blueliz, yes, I soaked them for a day first in de-chlorinated water to see if anything came off them visually Ie snails etc, then I gave them a 15min bath in potassium permanganate and rinsed them in off de-chlorinated water before putting them near my tank. So they should be okay....I hope!!!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes rotting plant matter can produce ammonia. don't fret over the odd leaf falling off but just have a clean up of any dead plant material when you do your weekly water change.

 

[Lazerus]

Coola bula...happy enough with that!

 

[Dave Spencer]

As MW says, plants will relieve any strain on the filtration. High growth planted tanks run with bacteria colonies at reduced numbers compared to slow growth and non planted tanks.

MW is also pretty accurate in saying that ability of plants to clear the water column shouldn`t be over estimated. In a high light, high growth tank with added ferts, I can clear nitrates at about 5ppm per day, and phosphates at 1ppm per day. Any ammonia from waste processes is used by the plants first, in preference to the nitrates as a source of N. Nitrite sequester by plants is negligible, if it happens at all, but the rapid depletion of the ammonia by either the plants or the filter will hopefully make this irrelevant.

As for soaking plants in Potassium permanganate for 15 mins....I hope you are right.

Dave.