My Pothos Plant, Hornwort And Sunset Gouramie

[julielynn47]

First let me say that I am not sure I spelled gouramie correctly.  Anyway, you all know what I am talking about.    LOL
 
Anyway, when I first put the Pothos plants roots in my tank I thought it was the ugliest thing I have ever had in there.  And it is still not that pretty, lol, but my little sunset gouramie loves those roots!!!    Not only does he love them, my snails and several of my other fish really seem to enjoy picking around at the roots. And the roots are getting whiter, which actually helps them look my appealing.
 
 I had some hornwort floating around. It started as 6 little stalks and about 6 inches long and turned into6 stands of  6 foot long ball of floating plant mass.  The fish loved it, but I had to pretty much throw it all out due to the black algae on it,.  I have very little of it left, but I figure it will grow into a massive ball again.  Anyway, I guess my point of this is, the fish were pretty sad when the hornwort mass was gone, but the roots of the pothos has kinda made up for it.   

 

[Aquarian58]

Any chance you could post some pics?
 
I've been finding some interesting clips on Youtube about the benefits of Pothos plants in aquariums

 

[julielynn47]

I will post a pic later today.  I have some running around to do this morning and this afternoon

 

[ginaekdal]

I'd be interested in a picture, too. I love Pothos plants and have several in pots around my flat. Out of interest how did you go about putting the roots in the tank? The only Pothos plants I find around here are sold grown and potted in soil meaning I don't want to risk trying to adjust them to water... I have read soil rooted Pothos plants take the change to water badly, and vice versa, so I currently have cuttings from my soil rooted original plants in water to see if I can transfer one to a future tank at a later date.
 
Has anyone tried and found the above to be reliably inaccurate?

 

[julielynn47]

I bought it potted and rinsed it really good. Cut a hole out of the plastic strip along the back of my glass top and stuck the roots in.  It is doing great! The roots are already longer and the leaves are trying to grow up the wall. They aren't  big enough to be seen behind the top of the tank yet, but they are working on it.
 
I just took some pictures with my iPhone. As soon as they download into the "cloud" I will post them

 

[julielynn47]

Why they are taking so long to upload I do not know. But when they get to where I can post them I will post them

 

[BettaBettas]

 

[julielynn47]

 Here is a picture of my 55 gallon.  I am working on getting more plants in it. It used to have more but the black algae, when it was at its worse, killed most of them.  I have more that I am going to put in it later on today.   I built the canopy myself

 
 
Here are the roots to the Pothos plant. They have already grown since I put it in.  I really don't much like the look of it, but the fish, especially the Sunset Gourmie that you see in the pic love the roots.  They are getting more white colored. Probably due to the fish pecking on them. I think it as they grow longer the will grow on me as well. ( at least I hope they do lol )
 
 
This is the plant that is not in the water.  It is starting to grow out the back of the canopy. It is doing great. My mother told me the other day that it would grow up the wall if I let it...and I think I will. It would be better than having it all in the way of water changes and such under the canopy.
 
 
 
 

 

[Aquarian58]

Thanks Julie.
 
I love the natural look of your tank and it will just get better as your plants become established and thicken up.
 
And well done on the canopy too

 

 

[julielynn47]

Thank you

 I am always building something.  Porches, tables, decks, canopies, stands, whatever strikes my fancy at the time.
 
And thank you on the tank.  I had a big Colosseum in it at one time, right in the center, with 2 gigantic amazon swords on either side of it.  If I say so myself, it was impressive. For some reason 2 of them died and I replaced them with other plants, which a school of Golden Barbs ate.... Then the black algae bloom of the century hit and most all the plants died. I took the Colosseum out, it was black...The 2 little amazon swords that you see on one side of the tank are what is left from the massively huge ones that were there. I still have the  algae issue but not nearly as bad...as you can see from the pics. 
 
I have ordered plants online several times and the only ones that did good were the Hornwort. I have a couple of other species in there that I ordered, but they have not done as well, and the rest died everytime.  So I started buying what I could get a petco, like I used too, and they are living and doing great.  Guess I will just stick with Petco plants.  I have a water wistera in my now cycling 10 and it is doing so well. It started out so tiny, and I didn't know if it would do well or not, but it too is getting very beautiful. And I just planted a water wistera in this tank today. I hope it does as well as the other one.