Bamboo Filtration Questions

[digger]

If I were to setup a 120 with the main filtration being Bamboo plant roots submerged to take in the nitrates, how much Bamboo would be needed? The plant filtration methods really have been taking my interest lately.

 

[HackJob]

tons, depending on what your bio load looks like, if you are talking a few guppies or a couple of oscars there is a big difference...and you will still need to do water changes, they just help keep the ammonia down.

 

[digger]

I would still be running a ton of bio and doing water changes. I've seen people on here with 0 nitrates and essentually that is what I would like to accomplish.

 

[pshtex]

yeah i was sorta wondering this too cause i am wanting to put a bamboo forest in my tank. i think it would look really cool but i also want it to be functional

 

[Inglorious]

Just remember that for lucky bamboo to survive the leaves can't be submerged. I've seen them survive for a few months completely underwater, but eventually they will down. I've always wanted to set up a fuge using bamboo and pothos in a deep sand bed to see if I can eliminate my nitrates.

 

[Khemul]

It is possible but all depends on the scale you want or can do. If you have anything but a very light bioload, then you probably won't see 0 nitrates with Lucky Bamboo (not really a bamboo, but we'll let that go for now) alone. Pothos is pretty good at that, but again depends on scale. Pothos does scale much better for this type of thing, since you can just keep growing it into whatever shape/size you want to keep it at. With Lucky Bamboo you tend to scale up by adding new plants (eventually ending up with a miniature forest if you scale up enough).

 

[HackJob]

I have dracena (lucky bamboo) in a clay pot in a 10g with some guppies, but it also has a ton of watersprite and duckweed. Pothos is nice because it can grow up and out. it's readily available and pretty hardy, but you can get a tangle of roots. As for the levels of nitrates, beats me, I never check them.