Heres something i have thought about for sometime but have never tried it as I am unsure as to if it will work??? so give me your thoughts please.. I have a 150g tank that sits in my livingroom. behind the wall where it sits is my garage, so i was thinking, if i setup my spare 50g tank in the garage, fill it full of plants(ram Packed, no fish) and then plumb it into my 150g(like a sump) will it have a big effect on nitrates.will the plants remove enough to make it worth the trouble?? I have tried plants in my 150g tank but the fish said NO Thanks and threw them out..So what do you all think? will it be a wast of time?

very weird, I was thinking about doing this a while ago. If you have enough plants, then yes, you could probably keep the nitrates very low.just remember that you have to keep the plants in good condition for them to work properly. This would mean plenty of light all the time, quite expensive, I would bear that in mind before you think about doing it. You'd probably be better off using some hardy pond plants, instead of very delicate tropical plants.

You must also did remember that just because you may be able to keep your nitrates down, that doesn't mean you don't do any water changes, I would still recommend doing one every couple of weeks, you still need to remove any crap. However, do this with some really excellent powerful filtration, and you might find that you don't have a lots of crap left in the tank. Worth thinking about. Why didn't it because I didn't want to be left with an indoor pond if I decided to change things.

This works in theory but the practice is something different

Firstly as OFL said you will need a light on the plants for 8 hours a day
Also plants use oxygen at night when the lights are off so you have to watch oxygen levels
The biggest problem is the number of plants needed. For a community tank it might work but oscars are very messy and you would need a massive tank full of plants. The sump tank would have to be bigger than the display tank. Just not worth the effort or cost

Then there is the cost of the plants, they would cost a fortune!!!!!

If you did manage to get the balance of plants to fish right it would be good for the fish as it would be more like in the wild where fish and plants balance each other

I have too contemplated this. I think the most expensive part would be the lighting. The plant of my choice is dirt cheap. Water lettuce. I wouldn't set it up as a refugium with nice plants. It would be be more like a water lettuce factory. Water lettuce sounds good because once it gets going i have to harvest it from my pond every other week. Harvesting the plants is actually removing the nitrogen from the system. If i were serious about doing this. I'd use lots of light (My pond gets 15 hours direct sun per day at this latitude)and a shallow tank with lots of surface area. I'm with delboybully though. It sounds too good too be true.

So its, try it and see.. Hmmm As its going to be in the garage lighting will be expensive and i'll have to think whats going to work out best in the long term.. i do a 50g water change about every 5 days or so as i am a little overstocked but love them all. I am also on a water meter so i'll look at the bill and see what its costing per gallon. But the main reason I am thinking of this is to keep the water conditions low in nitrates. At the mo I keep them below 30% ... most of the time i would say 20%ish as the tap nitrates are 10% to start with, I then lower this to nil with a nitragone but its a slow process....Anyone wish to try it 1st ))

delboybully wrote:


Please correct me if I am mistaken but, don't plants use Co2 at night and release a steady stream of o2 into the water?

Yes, plants do release oxygen by day.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time and money using plants to control nitrate levels. Stocking a fish tank sensibly, not overfeeding fish, and regular tank maintenance/water changes is more than enough to control nitrate levels.

Plants release oxygen by day and use co2. However i have been told that at night they release co2 and use oxygen. Over a 24 hour period plants overall release o2 and use co2