so... I was heavy into fish 15-20 years ago, had lots of tanks, & in our living room, in the house we lived in, at that time, we had 2 walls in the living room, that were 1/2 windows, on the east, & south sides... bear in mind, this was a long time ago, but we had a lot of house plants, because of the windows, & it wasn't much of a stretch to combine them... maybe the philodendron vine crossed one of my tanks, & then drooped or grew into the waters surface, & started rooting... I don't remember how it started, but I began putting them into my hang on tank filters, & sometimes just sticking them inside the tank covers & letting them root in the aquarium water... when we moved, we had to chop up some of the vines that were 50 -75 feet long, so we could move them...
fast forward to today... I started up into fish, after a 15 year break, & I'm thinking plants again... most of my aquariums are in the basement now, so any house plants would need to stay small, to keep below my LED plant strips I've been using for tank lights, most of which are hung 12-18" above the tanks... so I'm thinking about looking at some dwarf plants for the tanks running right now... ( suggestions )
in the next 6 months or so, I'm going to start setting up a 120 ish gallon tank in our living room, that would easily be viewed by guests ( I don't usually have guests in the basement where all the other tanks are )... so I don't live in the glass house anymore, but I do have a set of sliding glass patio doors, on the east side, close to where I want to set up the new tank... so I'm back thinking bigger plants, as we already have many growing in that area...
I've watched a couple videos, & apparently the practice of putting house plants in aquariums has gotten popular... one thing I noticed in the videos, is many of the plants roots were taking over the tanks, I also noted that back when I used to do it, which is why I started putting them in the "hang on the back" waterfall style filters... at that point I modified the filter cartridges , so they wouldn't clog, & would hold the roots back from the impeller, & from going into the aquarium... there was maintenance involved, but having them really allowed me to cut back on water changes... in fact, on the one that had the long vines in, I no longer did water changes, I only refilled...
was just wondering how many of you guys are doing the house plant thing???
to restart, & with the bigger tank, I'm thinking about some ornamental plastic vases, that I would drill holes into, to root the plants into, then put the vases into the tanks in higher water flow areas, I may even run a hose or tube from the filter into the vase... with the goal of somewhat containing the roots from overtaking the tanks, & improve the water flow across the roots... to start with, I'm thinking clear plastic containers for the plants, but really anything would work... if I could find a plastic container that looked like rocks, it would look more natural...
I think in reality, any plant you can cut off & root in a vase of water will work... there were several for one reason or another rooted, but didn't work out as well ( I didn't like the purple velvety vines, & I think they called them wandering jews??? but the issues I had with them, may have been lighting or they got icky if actually exposed to the water... we have a hoya vine already growing around the Livingroom, & used to have a few other varieties ( curly leaf, & variegated, that we have since lost, from lack of a regular watering schedule... may want to try those again, but this time as tank grown house plants... also would like to do a nice Monstera
fast forward to today... I started up into fish, after a 15 year break, & I'm thinking plants again... most of my aquariums are in the basement now, so any house plants would need to stay small, to keep below my LED plant strips I've been using for tank lights, most of which are hung 12-18" above the tanks... so I'm thinking about looking at some dwarf plants for the tanks running right now... ( suggestions )
in the next 6 months or so, I'm going to start setting up a 120 ish gallon tank in our living room, that would easily be viewed by guests ( I don't usually have guests in the basement where all the other tanks are )... so I don't live in the glass house anymore, but I do have a set of sliding glass patio doors, on the east side, close to where I want to set up the new tank... so I'm back thinking bigger plants, as we already have many growing in that area...
I've watched a couple videos, & apparently the practice of putting house plants in aquariums has gotten popular... one thing I noticed in the videos, is many of the plants roots were taking over the tanks, I also noted that back when I used to do it, which is why I started putting them in the "hang on the back" waterfall style filters... at that point I modified the filter cartridges , so they wouldn't clog, & would hold the roots back from the impeller, & from going into the aquarium... there was maintenance involved, but having them really allowed me to cut back on water changes... in fact, on the one that had the long vines in, I no longer did water changes, I only refilled...
was just wondering how many of you guys are doing the house plant thing???
to restart, & with the bigger tank, I'm thinking about some ornamental plastic vases, that I would drill holes into, to root the plants into, then put the vases into the tanks in higher water flow areas, I may even run a hose or tube from the filter into the vase... with the goal of somewhat containing the roots from overtaking the tanks, & improve the water flow across the roots... to start with, I'm thinking clear plastic containers for the plants, but really anything would work... if I could find a plastic container that looked like rocks, it would look more natural...
I think in reality, any plant you can cut off & root in a vase of water will work... there were several for one reason or another rooted, but didn't work out as well ( I didn't like the purple velvety vines, & I think they called them wandering jews??? but the issues I had with them, may have been lighting or they got icky if actually exposed to the water... we have a hoya vine already growing around the Livingroom, & used to have a few other varieties ( curly leaf, & variegated, that we have since lost, from lack of a regular watering schedule... may want to try those again, but this time as tank grown house plants... also would like to do a nice Monstera
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