The Effects of Plants on Filtration.

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Cliff519

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 13, 2010
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Just thinking about how I want to set-up my currently empty 55 gallon tank and what I want for plants. This got me thinking about the effects plants may have on your water quality and filtration. By that I mean the plants that get their nutrients from the water will take some of the stuff (like ammonia produced by fish) out of the water which your BB would also need to grow and feed on. These types of plants would become a part of the tank’s overall filtration system just as algae would.

For example, if you have a heavily planted tank with plants that take their nutrients from the water combined with a moderate stocking level of fish for that size of tank, and you remove all the plants, would you get a mini cycle? I think it would stand to reason that you would have a mini cycle as you have just removed a part of filtration system.

Would anyone agree / disagree ?
 
agree.

Plants do the same thing as your BB. They are just prettier and not as efficient.
 
Also agree. It would be like turning off one of your filters.
 
in a way, plants can be more effective than the BB in your filter . . . when your filter breaks down ammonia/nitrites, they create nitrate as a by-product

with plants, because they consume ammonia without producing nitrates, I find they actually do a better job
 
+1 sab_fan.

Some plants do better jobs than others...and the "mini-cycle" would depend on how many plants, how densely stocked, what kind of filtration you were using...but long story short, yes. :D
 
Thanks everyone.

I’ve been thinking about trying some different plants in my 55 gallon tank when I set it up. I’ve been checking out a lot of the plants at one of our LFS. They look really good now, but I’m not 100% sure about them should they grow. I was thinking that if I didn’t like them, I could always take them out as they are really cheap. But then that got me thinking about how that would affect the tank.

I guess I’ll just wait until I find plants that I really like and are different from my current tanks.
 
another thing that plants can do that aerobic BB cannot is remove nitrates, the end product of the nitrogen cycle. When you prune your aquarium plants, it has the same effect as an algae scrubber. However the complete removal of plants will spike up eventually spike up your nitrate levels.
 
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