What aquarium plant is best at sucking off nitrates?

Rass

Aimara
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Oct 3, 2005
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What works well for me has been fast growing stem plants like rotala, dwarf sagitarria, floating hornwort, water lettuce, pothos varietals, and tradescantia zebrina. Crypts work well also but are slower growing without additional fertilizers.

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Arthur11

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 23, 2021
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The aquarium plant that absorbs the most nitrates is the duckweed. This is why most low-tech aquarium hobbyists use this plant to keep their non-filtered, non-oxygenated aquariums thriving. Other great nitrate-filtering plants include frogbits, marimo moss balls, water lettuce, water sprites, and others.
 

duanes

MFK Moderators
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Jun 7, 2007
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Isla Taboga Panama via Milwaukee
Its not so much the species, but amount of plants compared to fish..
I have used duckweed, Pothos, Papyrus, and now have just replaced Papyrus with, and comparing nitrate consumption with Hydrocotyl.
Experiment replacing Papyrus w Hydrcoyl as a nitrate sponge
In the past duckweed, and salvinia
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In some water remediation facilities, Salvinia is showing a lot of promise soaking up nutrients
Salvinia is similar to duckweed, but larger, sometimes called "giant suckweed
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I like to heavily plant sumps turning them "from" nitrate production factories into nitrate sponges, and have had success using common plants like vallisneria.
Uncleaned filters like seldom cleaned or maintained canisters tend to spew nitrate
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Last time I checked the tank/sump above (the one I'm now experimenting with Hydrocotyl on), nitrate was undetectable..
D8CA7278-2FD9-40F1-B922-8F93002F34A7_1_201_a.jpeg.
 
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