# Aquaponics



## Mandy&Gal (Jan 13, 2004)

I was checking out a few websites online that say using house plants as a bio filter is an effective way to reduce ammonia and nitrates in an aquarium. I was wondering has anyone here actually tried this and if you did what kind of plants did you use, is it really effective and what kind of substrate to hold the plants.

i found a real pic of an aquaponic setup. water is pumped from the tank into a box or in this case a pipe and runs through and then gravity fed returned to the tank.
View attachment 89218


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## "qickshot" (Apr 19, 2005)

the pic didnt work for me but it sounds intresting... i never heard of it before


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## RB 32 (Mar 2, 2005)

yea the pic don't work.


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## Sheppard (Jul 8, 2004)

Pic worked fine for me...
I have never seen that before ever!

Seems very interesting. I'd like to know how it works
if it works at all..


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## Mandy&Gal (Jan 13, 2004)

yea i got rid of my crappy drawing and found an actual picture.

From what I understand of the whole process is, water pumped into a holding tank where the plants roots are, there can be a substrate to hold the plant or you can have them just dangling in there. Well the house plants just suck up the ammonia and nitrates in the water and then return clean ammonia and nitrate free water. I have seen some people just stick plants in there HOB filter. 
I would assume those plants that need wet soil all the time are probably ideal otherwise the plant would drown.


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## jiggy (Jun 27, 2004)

use perlite to hold the plant.. thats what i use


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

looks very interesting and easy, knowing nothing of plants i wonder what kind could handle a constant water supply being pumped toward their roots.

seems like something i might try, i mean really 14 buck powerhead, hose/clamps, big pvc pipe, probably a long flower pot with holes for the tubing drilled (to hide the pvc pipe in and improve the look, not actualy hold water) and as stated a gravity return, i guess if the return tubing was bigger the roots wouldnt get as drowned, either way very interesting.


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

That looks really cool and is pleasing to the eye, too. Neat way to decorate and fancy up the place.

Though the problems I see with it are finding the right type of plant and the plants getting enough light. Because we all know fish tanks shouldn't get direct sunlight and most plants that I know of need some light. Maybe not direct, but still...

Thinking about plant types, a lot of aquarium plants are actually bog plants and many an be conditioned to live out of water. They're also heavy root feeders so they'd probably work, too.

Though... If you have fish in the tank that tolerated live plants you'd be better off just sticking them in there instead.


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## JD7.62 (Apr 7, 2005)

That would be cool to build somthing like that. Maybe pack it with lava rocks which could also help in filtration and give the plants somthing to grip then add hostas. Hostas are a very common house plant. You have probablly seen it before, its a vine with light green leaves and a little white on them and they grow well with their feet wet and dont require much light. Imagine having a nice looking set up built with a mass of vines overflowing the back and sides of the tank!

*puts thinking cap on*


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## Hemi (Nov 13, 2005)

ROFL 
make it a hydro set up for weed man

LMAO


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## rocker (Aug 12, 2005)

i seen that before at this little fish store.

In canad we use that to near this highway. Don Valley river;ppl were once able to swim in it now it looks like sh*t. So we developed these giant flowerpots that look like teeth and 3 per station and they are on an angle. Water flows through eahc on of those "teeth" whihc is filled wiht plants and trees and released back into the river, and it should be clean pure water. I think its the same concept as the pic.


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## boontje (Mar 27, 2005)

I have a plant filter like this. Doesn't look as nice as the one in your pic, but it's quite effective. It reduced my nitrate (and I guess phosphate) levels significantly. Before I had some algae, but now theyre all gone.

The plant I use is Tradescantia and I have no substrate the plants are hanging in a plastic net.

other plants that are supposed to work well (but I haven't tried myself) are philodendron and Spathiphyllum

Oh and at the moment during the dark winter months I put a light on it during the night (same kind of fluo lights as I use for my aquatic plants)


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## SAFETYpin (Feb 1, 2004)

I ve also heard Pothos work great for this and are easy to find. I ve kicked around the idea of building one to help with my nitrates. There was a huge disscusion on this on www.cichlid-forum.com I will see if I can find a link.

This is the good write up.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtop...t=76070&start=0

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtop...ighlight=pothos


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## 2rbps (Dec 30, 2005)

hemis thinking like me







thats the place where i saw something like this done


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

http://homepage.mac.com/jabaro/Hydroponics.html


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## H4N (Nov 10, 2005)

wow.. very interesting.. hm..


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## EZmoney (May 13, 2004)

Wow that's a great find!

I posted a link to this thread in the Plants Forum. Maybe some of the plant guys could shed some light on this! I'd like to know some of the pros and cons to this kind of setup.
It looks worth trying.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2006)

Just stick a few roots in your overflows..worked for me


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## Husky_Jim (May 26, 2003)

This type of filtration is very good since there are certain types of plant that eliminate nitrates/ammonia.
On the other hand you cannot use it on planted tanks because they will consume all nessecary nutriens that your 'underwater' plants need....


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## Mandy&Gal (Jan 13, 2004)

well i was also thinking that it would suck up the nutrients that the underwater plants need but for my tank with cichlids and catfish there can be no plants in it. they either uproot them all or just eat them when i have them tied down to driftwood.


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## kingsnar (Nov 17, 2005)

why would you use this method on a planted tank anyways? aquatic plants also suck up ammonia and nitrates. I highly doubt land plants suck up ammonia or nitrates and if they did it would be real hard to get the plants roots to grow in flowing, unsoiled, water.


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## boontje (Mar 27, 2005)

kingsnar said:


> why would you use this method on a planted tank anyways? aquatic plants also suck up ammonia and nitrates. I highly doubt land plants suck up ammonia or nitrates and if they did it would be real hard to get the plants roots to grow in flowing, unsoiled, water.


If you have a very heavily planted tank, and add CO2 and have lots of lighting, this has no use. 
But by using the aquaponics you can remove lots of ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates from the water without extra CO2 and even with low light if you put the plant filter in front of a window.

My houseplants just hang in the water and grow like crazy. Of course you need to use a powerhead with a very low flow rate

It's true though that my aquatic plants aren't growing that fast anymore.


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## Mandy&Gal (Jan 13, 2004)

For a planted tank this would prolly be a bad idea, but the tank i want to try this on is a 210 in my dining room that has no plants just driftwood and rocks cause my fish just destroy plants. So this is going to serve 2 functions, making the tank more appealing and becoming a bio filter.


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## boontje (Mar 27, 2005)

Mandy&Gal said:


> For a planted tank this would prolly be a bad idea, but the tank i want to try this on is a 210 in my dining room that has no plants just driftwood and rocks cause my fish just destroy plants. So this is going to serve 2 functions, making the tank more appealing and becoming a bio filter.


Do you intend to use other filtration or only the plant filter?


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

boontje said:


> For a planted tank this would prolly be a bad idea, but the tank i want to try this on is a 210 in my dining room that has no plants just driftwood and rocks cause my fish just destroy plants. So this is going to serve 2 functions, making the tank more appealing and becoming a bio filter.


Do you intend to use other filtration or only the plant filter?
[/quote]

i highly doubt this person has a 210 running without filtration in their dining room waiting on a would be "aquaponics" plant filter......


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## b_ack51 (Feb 11, 2003)

Actually a coworker and I were talking about this last week. He just got a house that has a koi pond and he wanted to add plants to do some extra filtration. I wondered if it would work inside. The hard thing people say is getting the correct flow of water to go past the plants. If it goes by too fast, its useless.


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## MR.FREEZ (Jan 26, 2004)

sh*t just make some boxes and hang em in the tank,

no pump or anything :laugh:


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## Mandy&Gal (Jan 13, 2004)

i have filtration in my tank haha. i was just looking for a way to decorate the exterior of the tank and maybe work double duty as a filter of some kind. i could hang a box with the plants in the tank but the only place it could be without obstructing the view of the fish would be in the back of the tank and then you be able to see them over the canopy.


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## boontje (Mar 27, 2005)

P-22 said:


> For a planted tank this would prolly be a bad idea, but the tank i want to try this on is a 210 in my dining room that has no plants just driftwood and rocks cause my fish just destroy plants. So this is going to serve 2 functions, making the tank more appealing and becoming a bio filter.


Do you intend to use other filtration or only the plant filter?
[/quote]

i highly doubt this person has a 210 running without filtration in their dining room waiting on a would be "aquaponics" plant filter......








[/quote]
I didn't think I asked if he *is* running a tank without filtration? As far as I know the word intend means something you have in mind to do in the future. You can always replace one filter with another.


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## P-22 (Oct 5, 2005)

boontje said:


> For a planted tank this would prolly be a bad idea, but the tank i want to try this on is a 210 in my dining room that has no plants just driftwood and rocks cause my fish just destroy plants. So this is going to serve 2 functions, making the tank more appealing and becoming a bio filter.


Do you intend to use other filtration or only the plant filter?
[/quote]

i highly doubt this person has a 210 running without filtration in their dining room waiting on a would be "aquaponics" plant filter......








[/quote]
I didn't think I asked if he *is* running a tank without filtration? As far as I know the word intend means something you have in mind to do in the future. You can always replace one filter with another.
[/quote]

pick hairs all you want, my point was that it was obvious that the persons intentions where not for this to be the only form of filtration


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## jblewis (Nov 9, 2005)

from what i know about hydroponic growing you need sufficent n-p-k values nitrogen-phosphate -patassium i dont think fish produce all thease and you would have to add some sort of fertilizer in your tank to kep a plant healthy and kill all your fish


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## boontje (Mar 27, 2005)

jblewis said:


> from what i know about hydroponic growing you need sufficent n-p-k values nitrogen-phosphate -patassium i dont think fish produce all thease and you would have to add some sort of fertilizer in your tank to kep a plant healthy and kill all your fish


don't know about the potassium, but by feeding you'll put plenty of phosphates in the tank. And there's also enough nitrogen available (nitrates and ammonia). Just some plain liquid aquarium plant fertilizer will provide everything else you need.


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## (((JKD))) (Aug 14, 2005)

This same method is used for those fighting fish kit thingies.

The ones where they have a beta fish in an oversized vase with a plant of some sort on top...


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