Bruce Leyland-Jones
Fish Aficionado
All of this looks really good, but I have a horrible and persistently nagging feeling that some plant roots might be toxic.
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Alternative Nitrate Reduction Method$
- Thread starter dasaltemelosguy
- Start date
FishHobby99
Fish Gatherer
I have the same horrible and persistent nagging feeling that some plant roots might be toxic if we use concentrated acid to extract poisonous molecules. Don’t try this at home and don’t dip any important appendages into the water, lest they dissolve.
F
FF_Member146894
Guest
it might not be harmful to fish if they nibble on it a little bit, but if i was to add pothos to a certain one of my (plant-eating) puffer fish tanks, and if they ate all of the roots in one go, it would probably be harmful, right?
FishHobby99
Fish Gatherer
Could well be! Possibly hazardous to your health if you devoured the whole cow in one fell swoop.
dasaltemelosguy
New Member
I can offer a little information on this topic. In truth, almost all Epipremnum and riparian plants have that 'toxin' throughout the entire plant, Calcium Oxalate (although the greatest % is in the leaves). It actually is not toxic per se but rather, it forms caustic crystals that can damage some creatures tissues who attempt to eat it.
Calcium Oxalate remains solid in a solution where the PH is 4.5 or higher. It cannot dissolve in higher PH's such that it never goes into solution in a normal aquarium.
In fact, you can test this yourself inexpensively with most home urinalysis test strips. The "Calcium Test" on most of these test for Oxalic Acid as well as Calcium content. Calcium Oxalate can only exist in water if Oxalic Acid is present, as the latter indicates the Calcium Oxalate has begun to dissolve:
Test for Calcium Oxalate
As the above is calibrated in mmol's, it needs conversion to PPM but we don't actually need an absolute value as we're only seeking to know if any Calcium Oxalate has leeched into the water, so all you really need is a relative value. Test the water before and after the addition of the pothos after 2-3 weeks and see if any Calcium Oxalate is present. After a year, I still read 0 change on this.
Still, I feel the best approach with these plants is to do as Jenny Solano did and wash the roots vs cutting them. Even if leaching were possible, (and you can test for this as above) the probability would be much greater with cuttings than roots. That adds additional protection against leeching. But again, this cannot occur above PH=4.5.
This is entirely anecdotal but these guys (the Severums that is, the Acaras don't care!) have been eating pothos roots for over a year and all I've seen is the pothos grows a little more slowly than in my other tanks:
Calcium Oxalate remains solid in a solution where the PH is 4.5 or higher. It cannot dissolve in higher PH's such that it never goes into solution in a normal aquarium.
In fact, you can test this yourself inexpensively with most home urinalysis test strips. The "Calcium Test" on most of these test for Oxalic Acid as well as Calcium content. Calcium Oxalate can only exist in water if Oxalic Acid is present, as the latter indicates the Calcium Oxalate has begun to dissolve:
Test for Calcium Oxalate
As the above is calibrated in mmol's, it needs conversion to PPM but we don't actually need an absolute value as we're only seeking to know if any Calcium Oxalate has leeched into the water, so all you really need is a relative value. Test the water before and after the addition of the pothos after 2-3 weeks and see if any Calcium Oxalate is present. After a year, I still read 0 change on this.
Still, I feel the best approach with these plants is to do as Jenny Solano did and wash the roots vs cutting them. Even if leaching were possible, (and you can test for this as above) the probability would be much greater with cuttings than roots. That adds additional protection against leeching. But again, this cannot occur above PH=4.5.
This is entirely anecdotal but these guys (the Severums that is, the Acaras don't care!) have been eating pothos roots for over a year and all I've seen is the pothos grows a little more slowly than in my other tanks:
FishHobby99
Fish Gatherer
Interesting the Severums nibble. My goldfish ignore the pothos roots & these guys have made quick work of many aquatic plants.
This section is not entirely correct. all plant Aquatic and non-aquatic will consume ammonia, urea (CO(NH2)2, and nitrate. They only difference is that it takes little to no energy for plants to use ammonia or urea but using nitrate does require expending a little more energy to extract it. Anubis and many plants used in aquarium are actually terrestrial plants.
There is a very good reason why these big filters failed . Too Much oxygen. to insure we have enough oxygen in the water for fish we want good surface water flow. However for nitrate consuming bacteria you want low oxygen conditions. And probably the bet way to achieve that is low water flow (less than 1GPM) through a sand bead filter. When the oxygenated water from the tank enters the filter conventional bacteria will use the available oxygen to consume the organics in the water. As they do so oxygen levels will fall and CO2 level will increase. So for each in of travel through the filter oxygen levels will drop. Eventually all most all of the oxygen and has been replaced with CO2. At that point in the filter nitrate bacteria start consuming the nitrate because it is the only available source of oxygen left to break down organics. The bacteria will continue to consume nitrates and organics as long as oxygen levels remain low.
Unfortunately it might not be possible for such a low flow filter to keep up with nitrate production in the tank. With such low water flow it may take days to fully process all the water in the tank.
Note I never actually built such a filter because I simply went straight to plants and my tank was never heavily stocked. Also It should be pointed out that in heavily stocked tanks the fish waste will provide all of the 14 nutrients plants need to grow. As long as the plants are growing they will consume nitrogen. however in a lightly stocked tank there may not be enough nutrients in the water for the plants. The plant growth will then stop or the plant dies. When that happens nitrogen consumption stops.
dasaltemelosguy
New Member
I agree with what you've stated and you made me realize I misspoke on the filtration. I euphemistically referred to the "two massive 900GPH canister filters" as an indication of their massive size (each holds 25 gallons!).
I didn't realize in my clumsily phrased statement, that it implies they were flowing at 900GPh which was far from the case. I apologize for the confusion.
The two canisters used for the anaerobic cultivation were rheostatic-ally flow limited for the first month as they measured what flow rate had the greatest efficacy of anaerobic colony growth and separately for nitrate consumption. I believe they settled on a rate of 25gph for maximum efficacy of cultivating the anaerobic colonies in these two huge pond canisters.
As they are an LFS, they wanted to use commercially available media as opposed to something customized. They used BioHome Ultimate in one canister and Seachem Pond Matrix in the second. These two media supposedly have an internal architecture that favors anaerobic cultivation. Pond Matrix is a natural stone but larger and chosen for favored porosity and BioHome is a manufactured media designed to have favorable conditions for anaerobic colony cultivation.
Despite optimal conditions, the 'Catch 22' if you will is exactly as you stated previously. The flow needs to be reduced for anaerobic cultivation but reducing the flow reduces the nitrate consumption!
To that end, we were never able, by the end of the Y1 test period, to see nitrates reduced by more than 10PPM with 25L of media!
I agree also on the plants but I can add a little to it.
If a plant reduces ammonia to ammonium or uses nitrates directly, is of course species-based but largely, it's wavelength based.
Terrestrial plants will typically see more red and white light whereas submerged plants not only see subdued white light (relatively), they see a spectral change towards blue which will exhibit much less photosynthetic energy than red such that the plant may not have the available energy to directly consume nitrates and will instead convert ammonia to ammonium.
As you said, the ammonia/ammonium conversion requires much less energy which is but one reason aquatic plants tend to favor ammonia vs nitrates. This further compounded by the fact that ammonium is a cation and nitrate is an anion so ammonia is more readily processed by this metric as well.
The environmental reason however is largely spectral. The wavelengths that power nitrate consumption reach peak efficacy at about 660nm, Red, or optimal efficacy for chlorophyll and phytochromes (below is such an example but it focuses on green light absorption).
Blue light too can power nitrate consumption but it is subdued by water penetration AND in that in concert with the shorter wavelengths and the ionic charges, it is much less efficient in processing nitrates as they require more energy for reduction as opposed to the simple conversion of ammonia to ammonium as aquatic plants do.
All told, it's a lot easier for most of us to remove nitrates with plants than filters!
I didn't realize in my clumsily phrased statement, that it implies they were flowing at 900GPh which was far from the case. I apologize for the confusion.
The two canisters used for the anaerobic cultivation were rheostatic-ally flow limited for the first month as they measured what flow rate had the greatest efficacy of anaerobic colony growth and separately for nitrate consumption. I believe they settled on a rate of 25gph for maximum efficacy of cultivating the anaerobic colonies in these two huge pond canisters.
As they are an LFS, they wanted to use commercially available media as opposed to something customized. They used BioHome Ultimate in one canister and Seachem Pond Matrix in the second. These two media supposedly have an internal architecture that favors anaerobic cultivation. Pond Matrix is a natural stone but larger and chosen for favored porosity and BioHome is a manufactured media designed to have favorable conditions for anaerobic colony cultivation.
Despite optimal conditions, the 'Catch 22' if you will is exactly as you stated previously. The flow needs to be reduced for anaerobic cultivation but reducing the flow reduces the nitrate consumption!
To that end, we were never able, by the end of the Y1 test period, to see nitrates reduced by more than 10PPM with 25L of media!
I agree also on the plants but I can add a little to it.
If a plant reduces ammonia to ammonium or uses nitrates directly, is of course species-based but largely, it's wavelength based.
Terrestrial plants will typically see more red and white light whereas submerged plants not only see subdued white light (relatively), they see a spectral change towards blue which will exhibit much less photosynthetic energy than red such that the plant may not have the available energy to directly consume nitrates and will instead convert ammonia to ammonium.
As you said, the ammonia/ammonium conversion requires much less energy which is but one reason aquatic plants tend to favor ammonia vs nitrates. This further compounded by the fact that ammonium is a cation and nitrate is an anion so ammonia is more readily processed by this metric as well.
The environmental reason however is largely spectral. The wavelengths that power nitrate consumption reach peak efficacy at about 660nm, Red, or optimal efficacy for chlorophyll and phytochromes (below is such an example but it focuses on green light absorption).
Blue light too can power nitrate consumption but it is subdued by water penetration AND in that in concert with the shorter wavelengths and the ionic charges, it is much less efficient in processing nitrates as they require more energy for reduction as opposed to the simple conversion of ammonia to ammonium as aquatic plants do.
All told, it's a lot easier for most of us to remove nitrates with plants than filters!
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and some plant roots are yummy to snails, my mystery snail wrecked a plant i was trying to grow
there is one very very dangerous, risky, but effective and save method........ duckweed...
grows fast and soaks all your nitrates like a sponge, then you can compost it or let fish eat it
FishHobby99
Fish Gatherer
Hi, I added a decent sized pothos, a smallish monstera and 4 tall Lucky Bamboos to my cichlid tank. As I recall, you observed nitrate reduction from pothos 2 weeks and 4 with the “bamboo.”
Is uptake time dependent solely upon root volume? I have yet to see results. It’s been maybe 3 weeks. Would more roots increase uptake, or are other variables involved?
The primary variable is nutrients and growth. Plants will not consume nitrogen if they cannot grow. Plants use nitrogen to make DNA and other compounds involved in growth. If the plant is not growing or growing slowly nitrogen consumption will be minimal to low. Other than nitrogen 13 other elements are needed for growth. If you just run out of one growth will stop and the other nutrients such as nitrogen can build up.Is uptake time dependent solely upon root volume? I have yet to see results. It’s been maybe 3 weeks. Would more roots increase uptake, or are other variables involved?
If it has been 3 weeks and you have nnitrate levels are not seeing results you plants likely ran out of nutrients other than Nitrogen. Of corse you do need enough light for the plant to grow rapidly enough to consume the nitrogen. But that said Pothos does do well in low light so I doubt your lighting is insufficient. So it is Probably a micro nutrient deficiency, or not enough calcium or magnesium in the water. You may have to fertilize the water to reduce your nitrates. The best micro nutrient fertilizer I know of is this one.
FishHobby99
Fish Gatherer
Thanks kindly for your informative reply. The lighting should be sufficient. I suspended a grow lamp over the tank as it‘s on the dark side of the room. Someone gave me a bushel of chemicals that includes Seachem’s Flourish. I only used it once, given an aversion to adding anything to the tanks. I need to get past thIs ASAP as my terrestial & aquatic plant inventory is rapidly expanding.
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dasaltemelosguy
New Member
That looks beautiful! This is anecdotal but for example, in my 75G, I have 10, 2' stalks (originally, now 6'), an anthurium and an entire pothos plant. Each time I added one, it drooped for 2-3 weeks before coming out of 'shock' if you will. I didn't see any nitrate use until I saw the first new growth. Then it really takes off. As they grow, nitrates slowly drop until as said above, you don't have enough to maintain growth. I didn't see 0 nitrates in that tank until month-8. All I saw at that point was slower growth.
Although a good idea, I wouldn't worry about adding nutrients right now based on what happened here as your plants are still small and they will grow a great deal over the next few months. I wish I could find it but there's a 55G with pothos on reddit with 25' vines!
Although a good idea, I wouldn't worry about adding nutrients right now based on what happened here as your plants are still small and they will grow a great deal over the next few months. I wish I could find it but there's a 55G with pothos on reddit with 25' vines!
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Just a note Pothos plats are the of the same family as Anubis. I did put my one in my tank experimentally some time ago. It didn't suffer any shock at all and immediently started to grow. But at that time I was making my own fertilizer and was confident that i had all nutrients available in my tank. Based on my experience most of the shock people report seeing in aquatic plants is do too the plant adjusting from getting all its utreints from nutrient rich soil to much lower nutrients levels in aquariums.
I would recommend not using Flourish. it is basically deficient in copper, zinc, and Molybdenum and didn't work in my RO water tank. I basically confirmed that in my own tan by making my own fertilizer using the same ingredients that are used in Flourish. I basically had to use about 20 times the amount of copper and about 30 time the amount of zinc that was in the bottle. And I had to dose Molybdenum separately because I found it was not compatible with the other ingredients. What I am using now is very similar to what is in the GLA product I recommend. The ingredients GLA uses are not toxic at the recommended dry dose of 1/64 tsp per 10 gallons. But if you are still concerned I am using a dose about 1/5 of what GLA recommends in my 5 gallon shrimp tank.
FishHobby99
Fish Gatherer
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