Bichirs in a planted paludarium?

[Bad Kitty]

DO NOT DO DUCKWEED! not even once you will regret it. Frogbit would be the smallest I would suggest but it depends on the fish you keep. Most fish will eat true floaters like frogbit, water lettuce, red root floaters, etc. water hyancinthe is the only true floater i can think of that fish tend to leave alone. Now if you are looking for nutrient sponges hornwort and water wisteris are the 2 best free floating stem plants. Again your fish may snack on it. Almost any stem plant can free float though. I planned on reinforcing the sword roots with rock wool and weight them down. This will work with almost all diggers and movers. Just try to keep away from herbivorous fish and make sure the plant is appropriate sized for the fish.

With vals they are very sensitive to carbon supplements like excel or co2 boosters. They will die off and not bounce back. They also will only thrive when the waters gh is 6-10 or higher. You have to actually manually supplement gh booster like seachims equilibriums be cause it will strip it out of the water. You also cannot run carbon in the filter when it comes to vals on a long term basis.

Rootabs can change water chemistry if they dissolve too fast. Api's are terrible and can actually kill plants from root burn. Seachems tabs are the best commercial tab but there ae alot of diy solutions that perform much better. Hell even modeling clay from Georgia or Alabama can be used as tabs.

 

[jaws7777]

DO NOT DO DUCKWEED! not even once you will regret it. Frogbit would be the smallest I would suggest but it depends on the fish you keep. Most fish will eat true floaters like frogbit, water lettuce, red root floaters, etc. water hyancinthe is the only true floater i can think of that fish tend to leave alone. Now if you are looking for nutrient sponges hornwort and water wisteris are the 2 best free floating stem plants. Again your fish may snack on it. Almost any stem plant can free float though. I planned on reinforcing the sword roots with rock wool and weight them down. This will work with almost all diggers and movers. Just try to keep away from herbivorous fish and make sure the plant is appropriate sized for the fish.

With vals they are very sensitive to carbon supplements like excel or co2 boosters. They will die off and not bounce back. They also will only thrive when the waters gh is 6-10 or higher. You have to actually manually supplement gh booster like seachims equilibriums be cause it will strip it out of the water. You also cannot run carbon in the filter when it comes to vals on a long term basis.

Rootabs can change water chemistry if they dissolve too fast. Api's are terrible and can actually kill plants from root burn. Seachems tabs are the best commercial tab but there ae alot of diy solutions that perform much better. Hell even modeling clay from Georgia or Alabama can be used as tabs.

How do you think water lettuce stands up against hornwort in terms of nitrate absorption? I just added some to my sump for tjis purpose

 

[Bad Kitty]

With nutrient uptake in plants it comes down to 2 things. Lighting and Nutrients available. First there has to be ample lighting for any plant to vacuum up nutrients, Floater almost always beat out anyother plant for nutrient uptake because of their closeness to the sun compared to a stem plant that in nature is rooted in the ground.

Second plants require 3 macro nutrients and a variety of trace elements. It can only perform for how healthy it is. The 3 macros are nitrogen(nitrates) potassium and phosphates. Thes will always be present in some way in your tank. If all three are high then the plant will consume as much as it can during photosynthesis and store nutrients for later eliminating them from the water column. If you have alot of nitrogen and not a lot of phosphates then it will slow its consumption of the nitrogen. If you have an over abundance of one and a deficient supply of another you would have algae though.

 

[Bad Kitty]

So if I do 3-4 upperjaws around 15-16" max could I do reed fish(ropefish) and the BGK and rehome the BGK when it grows to large. Also I looked up the pink tail characin and thats a good fish do they have to be kept in schools? Also I was looking up complete fw archerfish and there is only one(toxotes blythii) and I was pretty interested but they only grow to 6" and I would only want maybe 2. Since archers stay near the top would they be okay with Upperjaws? They are pretty expensive ($70) and dont want to pay that much for a snack. It has an oddshaped body so I shouldnt fit in their mouth and are fast darters, but don't want the poor thing getting killed.

 

[jaws7777]

With nutrient uptake in plants it comes down to 2 things. Lighting and Nutrients available. First there has to be ample lighting for any plant to vacuum up nutrients, Floater almost always beat out anyother plant for nutrient uptake because of their closeness to the sun compared to a stem plant that in nature is rooted in the ground.

Second plants require 3 macro nutrients and a variety of trace elements. It can only perform for how healthy it is. The 3 macros are nitrogen(nitrates) potassium and phosphates. Thes will always be present in some way in your tank. If all three are high then the plant will consume as much as it can during photosynthesis and store nutrients for later eliminating them from the water column. If you have alot of nitrogen and not a lot of phosphates then it will slow its consumption of the nitrogen. If you have an over abundance of one and a deficient supply of another you would have algae though.

Sorry to derail your thread with all the questions but this subject has really interested me lately.

I think im covered with lights just not sure how many hrs a day they need. My nitrates get pretty high im basically doing wc's every ither day to keep them in check. Granted all of the fish and plants are moving to a larger tank but from what i read and my minimal understansing of the subject doesnt it have something to do with new growth ? Like an adult plant can only absorb soo much nutrients. So would the smaller growing plants actually do a better job ? Would removing adult plants and leaving the smaller sister plants behind do a better job of absorbing nitrates ?

 

[Bad Kitty]

Oh your good, I study and experiment on plants. Dwarf Lettuce grows rapidly (or should), it will grow to its max size and also it will shoot off runners creating new plants. 1 will turn to 2, 2 to 4, so on and so on. Mature plants would be better vacuums as they are producing more and more runners. Also its in a sump so this shouldn't apply but getting water on the tops of floaters typical kills them after 24 hours or so.

If your just worried about nitrates get some of this. no personal experience but have heard good things
http://www.seachem.com/denitrate.php

Also no plant start its max uptake right away. There is a establishment period. floaters are typically 3-5 days because of their growth rate but slow growers can take up too 3 weeks like some crypts.

 

[Bad Kitty]

Also nitrates are typically an abundance of decaying biological material. This can mean anything from a dead fish to poop. when was the last time you cleaned your first stage scrubbers/sponge?

 

[Bad Kitty]

also depending on wattage and nutrients, lights have to be on no less than 6 hours and no more than 16 typically 10 hours is a good start. I have a 23 watt cfl on my frogbit grow out tote and have it on for 12 hours with good results

 

[jaws7777]

Also nitrates are typically an abundance of decaying biological material. This can mean anything from a dead fish to poop. when was the last time you cleaned your first stage scrubbers/sponge?

My nitrates are mainly produced from fish waste too many fish and to small of a tank. Im not concerned with the current set up as the upgrade is sitting in my garage but more looking at long term ease of maintenance on the new tank. Nothing really has time to decay in my system as the filter socks get changed twice a week and i have an ac110 on my sump running poret foam and purigen.
Thx for the tip on the mature plants. I dont remember the wattage on the bulb its a full spectrum led. Will check

 

[Polyaddict86]

So if I do 3-4 upperjaws around 15-16" max could I do reed fish(ropefish) and the BGK and rehome the BGK when it grows to large. Also I looked up the pink tail characin and thats a good fish do they have to be kept in schools? Also I was looking up complete fw archerfish and there is only one(toxotes blythii) and I was pretty interested but they only grow to 6" and I would only want maybe 2. Since archers stay near the top would they be okay with Upperjaws? They are pretty expensive ($70) and dont want to pay that much for a snack. It has an oddshaped body so I shouldnt fit in their mouth and are fast darters, but don't want the poor thing getting killed.

It really depends on the species, there are few question need to be asked if the poly can reach its max size.
1. Is it a captive breed?
2. Is it young wild caught?
3. Is it wild caught?
kno4te can provide a chart of the size range for this question(i tried to look for it but cant find it).

Here's a good example, most senegal being sold in the lfs are captive breed, some people will claime that their sen grew 1' and some will say their's only grew 5"-7". I grew my sen 6"-8", biggest one i saw was a 10" in my lfs. Genetics play a big part on captive breed specimen, you wont know if they will big or short or gonna have diffects. Vancouver_98683 kno4te moe214 J jaws7777 Hao they can tell you where they mass produce this fish and the quality of the fish.