Pothos and Mbuna

[Nick Park]

I bought a couple of pothos plants as I understand they can be great at keeping nitrates down. I know some people put them in HOB filters, but I have two canister filters instead, so my plan is to have the plants on the top cover of the tank with their roots hanging down the inside of the back panel into the water.

Has anyone here experience of using pothos with cichlids. Are the mbuna likely to eat the roots? At a push I could always rig up a couple of little mesh spawning boxes to contain the roots, but would prefer not to.

 

[tlindsey]

Yes that will work. I have the stem down behind the overflow.

 

[Nick Park]

So I broke up one of the pothos plant's rootball and managed to get five cuttings with suitably long roots and a few leaves to put in my cichlid tank. I'll keep up my usual tank maintenance and see what happens to the nitrates. At present, even with regular water changes, I can't get them below 40 ppm.

 

[markstrimaran]

They will probably leave it alone, enouph for it to grow well.
I had a similar plants," Iowa violets, but my large pleco eats at it. It is in a hob with the over growth in the tank.

 

[stempy]

Once it gets established and starts growing it will lower nitrates. Mine actually started dying off once it grew to match the food source then deleted the nitrates and had nothing left to feed on. Now my nitrates are minimal and the pothos have minimal growth matching the organics in the tank. If that makes any sense at all

 

[J. H.]

Once it gets established and starts growing it will lower nitrates. Mine actually started dying off once it grew to match the food source then deleted the nitrates and had nothing left to feed on. Now my nitrates are minimal and the pothos have minimal growth matching the organics in the tank. If that makes any sense at all

Same here, except I am now using ivy and coleus instead of pothos. When the nitrate drops, the plants grow slow.