Hey UNC-CH, I took some photos of my Arrowhead roots. The longer white colored ones sticking out the bottom and the short spiky ones are growth from the last week. Nitrates are doing better again, thankfully. Have a small garden growing out of two AC110's in addition to this though.

Wow - that's a lot of new underwater root growth ... beats anything I have. And those are from an arrowhead plant that you uprooted. The plants that I uprooted have the least amount of underwater root growth (almost none). The clippings, on the other hand, have around an inch of root growth. Based on these results, I'd say the arrowhead plant grows roots significantly faster than pothos, water lilly, or moonshine snake tongue.

Weren't some others going to try pothos in their hob filters? How are things coming along?

I am having trouble sourcing pothos here, I plan to get some next time I go out of town. In the mean time I do have some "lucky bamboo" and I have read a lot of people use it in the same way as pothos. It does not grow very fast from what I have seen so I doubt how effective or efficient it will be. Have you had any experience using lucky bamboo to reduce nitrates?

I have put 2 stems of it in a roughly 25 gallon (100 L) tank with Endler's live bearers. The roots are below water and the stems and leaves are above the water. Do you think it will make any noticeable difference?

The box that the elive aquaponics filter came in actually lists lucky bamboo as one of four plants recommended for use in the filter. The other three are pothos (devils ivy), arrowhead, and peace lilly. I don't think you'll get results like with the other three plants, but people have used lucky bamboo to reduce nitrate. The cuttings of lucky bamboo that I've made have taken a long time to root and start growing. If possible, I'd uproot the plant (or one main stalk) and place that in the filter with the roots already edtablished.

I just got back from the grocery store tonight and they had some pothos there. I bought a pretty big one. I haven't checked but I'd think they would have them at lowes, home depot, walmart, target or grocery stores. I'll post some pictures so you'll be sure what to look for. Some people call them philodendrun although that's a different plant that looks very very similar.

This is the plant I bought tonight at the local large grocery store.


Notice where the stem looks like it's been cut open and has the brown marking. This is the easiest way to tell the difference between pothos and philodendrun. Philodendrun stems are round and have no markings like this.


Here's a picture of a jade pothos plant.

I use lucky bamboo in a flower pot with made-for-plants substrate in the pot. Five bamboo stick out of the pot and the leaves come out of the water (or they die). I also have a couple of pothos plants running in filters. This is my 125 and that tank barely gets to 10ppm by weeks end. Not sure if it is the bamboo, pothos, biohome or some combination of the three, but that tank rarely has nitrate issues even with a significant bio-load (foot long pleco, oscar and severum).

Bamboo is a super fast growing plant that is very absorbent. It's roots are small by comparison to pothos and arrowhead, but it still can pull it's weight and then some.

Update: 02/16/15

The structure I made to tie the pothos onto gave way. Luckily, it fell onto the wall instead of falling off and taking some of the plants with it.


The double-sided tape wasn't sufficient to secure the four corners, so I cut two strips of soft pine the width of the aquarium (10 1/8") and chiseled slots for the four struts to slide into.


The wood is secured to both sides of the tank at the rim with double-sided tape.



I received the pump that I'll use in the large pothos filter that will sit beside my 75 gallon. I decided to go with a 320gph powerhead pump that will also oxygenate the plant filter/sump. It should be ready soon and I'll post pictures of the build and final result.

Three months have gone by, how are things looking now? How are the water parameters?