Ivy as a denitrifying device

[rhickman]

I've read a few articles recently on keeping house plants in your Sump or in the hob filters we use to help reduce nitrate levels. I don't know how effective it is or if anyone is doing it in their trophs tank. But anyone has any input or experience with it I'd be interested in hearing about it.

The reason I said ivy, is because I believe one of the top plants listed was devils ivy.

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Interesting. I don't see ay reason why any plant that has sunlight wouldn't work.

Any plant in the water should absorb the nitrates and phosphates. I've considered an indoor aquaponics system for water change longevity. Growing some Romaine lettuce or some other short veggie plant would be pretty neat.

[...]

In theory it could work but once again the high pH water (as mentioned on another thread) makes the nutrients present "unavailable" to the plants through nutrient lockout. When I worked in a 30,000sq.ft indoor farm growing lettuce, basil and micro-greens (i was the lead grower & hydroponics system specialist) we reduced the pH of the water to 5.8-6.0 so the plants could readily use the nutrients we used. Once the pH goes beyond 7.5, unless the plant is tolerant of high pH's (most aren't) they gradually starve even though the nutrients are present.
To make it work in our tang tanks you would have to research plants that can use nutrients in the pH range of your tank water.
Hope this helps.
Danny

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Ah that's right.

So I read a while ago when research stuff for our Garden Boxes that Higher Ph yields a sweeter Vegetable and Lower Ph yields more of a tart/ sour taste. So these vegetable plants are obviously the type of plant that would be able to tolerate the Higher or lower Ph.

So how does the nutrient lockout not happen with plants that can tolerate a higher ph? Is there a reaction that happens between the plant and higher ph, unlocking the nutrients?

This is interesting stuff! This would make a great article.

[...]

I need to premise this comment by saying I don't wanna give the impression that I am an expert in plant chemistry. The company I worked for employed the services of consultants (PhD's) to guide us in the plant & nutrient chemistry knowledge & understanding we needed to fine tune production and produce good tasting crops.
With lettuce at least fine tuning the potassium/nitrate ratio, in addition to having all the other essential nutrients available in the right amount, is how we increased the brix level (sweetness) in the crop. Again, we manipulated the nutrient pH target range, added CO2 generators, and appropriate sole source lighting into the growing space to maximize nutrient uptake. Calcium uptake also being a critical element tide to nutrient uptake. The chemistry behind it is pretty complex actually when it comes to maximizing food production and requires a lot of water testing & tweaking metered nutrient inputs into the system.
Plants that can tolerate higher pH solutions (in my Theistic worldview) are simply that way by design. The root structure, filaments, etc by design enable them to take up the necessary nut's to grow & thrive in a higher pH environment.
It's a lot more complicated than that, but I hope that sheds a little light. The deeper chemistry knowledge and how it all works together is actually way beyond my knowledge base also.
Blessings friends!

[Nootrophic]

I know this thread is from a while ago, but thought I'd share my experiences - I've grown both the peace lily and pothos plants in my cichlid aquarium (~pH 8.0), and I am also running a separate aquaponics system.

Both the peace lily and pothos plants will certainly grow in a cichlid tank with high pH, but the speed of their growth is really slow, and you will not see a difference in nitrates unless you have a massive amount of those plants. The peace lily seems to grow quite a bit better than the pothos plant, even though the pothos plant is inherently a faster growing plant. I surmise the peace lily is better at thriving at a higher pH.

One thing you might want to try is a plant like asparagus which grows in high pH and I believe can deal with permanently submerged roots.

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Awesome! Thanks for the input! And don't ever be afraid to resurrect an old thread to put forth some input from experience or to ask a question.

This is Exactly what forums are for! And it's so much better than social sites to be able to search, find and add to existing info in a thread on a forum. I really don't like facebook that much at all. To hectic and chaotic in it's nature. It's not focused except in groups. And then it's "look at me" posts instead of actual discussions like on forums. Nothing wrong with sharing your life but it's easier to have conversations on forums. Plus there is a sense of "etiquette" and people typically are more kind and willing to help on forums.

End Rant. ha ha!

[thefishdaddy]

If you have a sump grow duck weeds in it what I've done is place a fine mesh basket attached pieces of styrofoam as floatation device and put a pendant light on it, it works great just make sure it does not escape because it will wreck havoc in the tank, clogs everything and some people even tried feeding it to their fish but mine does not eat this , duck weed multiplies on a daily bases and will lower nitrates but it will also take up calcium and other minerals if your tank has minimal buffering capacity your Ph will drop.

Chuck