Plants in the sump?

[dexman1349]

I am in the process of building a wet/dry filter for my 180 gallon. I have read in several places that live plants in an aquarium will help with the bio-load and hard chemical fluctuations, as well as any O2 vs CO2 issues.

Here is a schematic of the wet dry that I have built. Which would be better:

1) Completely submerged plants in the intake area of the sump (left box) or,

2) More of a hydroponics type set-up int the pump area (right end).

What kind of modifications would be necessary if I were to go with either? Obviously I would need a sun-lamp of some kind, but any mods to the wet/dry itself?

I will look for more info in the aquascape forums, but any help here would be appreciated.

Thanks
Keith

 

[Raul-7]

Tom Barr was an advocate of this idea, however his was more geared towards bio-filtration - he used no submerged plants. He recommended using Spathiphyllum sp. for the emerged growth seeing how they were great nutrient sponges. For your submerged growth I would recommend any Hygrophila sp. especially [SIZE=-1]difformis [/SIZE]or polysperma.

Add some Shultz Aquatic Soil to the top layer of biomedia and suspend the Spathiphyllum sp.'s roots in that media. This will also benefit the bacteria in your biomedia as well seeing that they rely on each other in nature. For the submerged area, just bury them in the same substrate. This will supply them with their micronutrients and the water will be their macronutrient supply, especially the NO3.

 

[Dr Joe]

Have you done a search here and the DIY forum?

We've gone thru several of these in the last 2 months.

Not much change to the system, just make sure the the submerged plants can't escape and the bog plant roots can't get into the pump.

Cattails for bog style plants (they're incredible filters (heavy metals too) and cheap), supported so roots hang in the water ( I don'tlet plants root in the bio-media since that would take nutrients away from the media and make it difficult to clean. . Anacharis for submerged plants, cheap and grow like the proverbial weeds (which means they really eat up the nutrients).

Dr Joe

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[dexman1349]

Ive read a couple so far. If I develop any more questions,
I'll post them.