Plants are like natural carbon???

[Magnum Man]

So I’ve quit using carbon in my tanks, since I started growing so many terrestrial plants out of my tanks… they pull a lot of water, and seem to remove a lot of the same things carbon does…
One thing I’ve noticed lately, is they seem to remove some of the coloration on my water, that has a lot of tannins, without changing the Ph… my African tetra tank has always been difficult to photograph in, because of the current, aeration, and the dark stained water… the replacement of a couple terrestrial plants, to more aggressive growing, and heavier rooted varieties is seeming to reduce the color, in the tea stained water, without altering the Ph… this makes viewing the coloration of the fish better, as well as viewing details, like filaments, and dark colors on the fish… yesterday I added a couple more peace lilies, and if this trend continues… I may be better able to post better pictures of some of these rarely seen African Tetras, in the future…

 

[MaloK]

I would say that plants, while they have a much broader capability, they mainly target the nutrients they use in their growth.

Carbon will absorb organic compounds, medications, certain metals and a panoply of chemicals that plants don't use.

Activated carbon is a must have on hand at all time item. It's proven as an all time "Life Saver".

 

[Magnum Man]

But aggressive growing plants do draw a lot of water the tank that has a giant pothos vine growing out of it uses close to 10 gallons a week, more than similar tanks, with slower growing plants… in reality, they just make for bigger water changes, as the water they draw, is not returned to the tank… ( so less buckets to carry ) I would suspect they draw water, then use what they need out of it… I’m not sure what they do with the other compounds in the water they can’t use, but suspect they are stored in the stems… I’m a bit extreme on the plants, but have not used any carbon, in any tanks for well over a year…

 

[GaryE]

I haven't used carbon for about 40 years, except to remove meds. I've never noticed plants removing tannins. That's something to watch for.
I have peace lilies, Pothos, snake plants, ferns and various other plants in/on a lot of my tanks, and I also like tannin stained water.

 

[Magnum Man]

I should probably retitle… more like bucketless water changes… I’m probably adding 3 times the water, that I would with evaporation, and buck water changing alone… of course that will reduce tannins

 

[MaloK]

Yes I agree that plants use tannin to a certain degree for sure, or something else does, I have a shrimp tank that is very low on water changes and the tint in the water always vanish without using carbon.

So I'm not really fighting it and the water in the tank is limpid. I use catappa leaves and they don't stain the water for long. I also tried alder cones, they stain the water a lot more, But the shrimps didn't like it at all.

I also have a concentrated powdered catappa leaf extract, It gives a beautiful color and is easy to dose to maintain a nice tint... The shrimps hates it to death.

In opposition to everything you can find about tannin being beneficial for cherry shrimps, It simply doesn't work for me in that setup.

I completely stopped trying and everything is marvelous now. I try to compensate by lowering the light intensity. loll.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have used several things to make stained water which include alder cones, catappa leaves and rooibos tea. I used these for Altum angels, But I also use RO/DI water in the the tank. The tank has no live plants. Mostly what I see in vids shot in stained water in the wild doesn't have live aquatic plants. It has algae and in the rainy season when the rivers overflow their banks I see submerged land plants.

However, there are some plants which can do OK in blackwater. Have a read here, https://houseplantalley.com/plants-for-blackwater-aquarium/ However, this is about these plants in a blackwater aquarium. I do not know that in the wild they are found in such water.

Hopefully, somebody with more experience and knowledge will chime in with better info than I have.

While I do have cherry shrimp and the blue variety as well, they are not in black water, only softish water with a neutral pH. But I did have snails in my altims tank. Unfortunately, as part of my down sizing, I sold my altums yesterday.