plants?

[keith]

Do live plants tent to help nitrate levels or hurt? Help the cycle or not? Any info on how live plants can effect the eco, help or hurt would be great!

Thanks,

Keith

 

[Sasha the breen]

i am no expert but i've read they use nitrate as fertalizer so i hope that answers your question

 

[keith]

but I'm getting alot of dead material so i thought this may be counteracting the bennefits?

 

[Daz]

You may find that if you have different kinds of plant, that they may require different water properties. That might explain why you are having some problems with dead material.

 

[Adrinal]

plants feed of the last product in the poo cycle... I always get confused which is which.. amonia - nitrAte - NitrIte-... ya not sure anyhow what ever the bacteria convert poo into the plants like...
The only problem with plants is it is hard to clean up their dead leaves. If you have a green thumb plants add to the tank. If you just have fat fingers then plants will destroy the tank.

I wish to learn more about bamboo for FW and Mangrove for SW... I hear they suck up the nitr(something) very well. They ovcourse need a nice light for plants to grow fast.

 

[bogusmove]

Also no expert, but... plants will use nitrate, so they certainly won't cause you more of a problem in that area, more importantly maybe they will also consume ammonia, in preference to nitrate I think in fact. Nitrite i'm not so sure about, but the more ammonia is consumed the less is left to be converted to nitrite by your aerobic bacteria

As for dead matter, don't know...

 

[Tempestuousfury]

They help use up nitrates, which is the last part of the cycle that adrinal was telling you about. Nitrates are harmful for fish in high doses, so plants should help you out with that (as should regular water changes). You shouldn't add plants just to remove those nitrates by the way. People are told not to add catfish to clean up the tank, so the same goes for plants.

Anyways, they're beneficial in removing nitrates, they add beauty to the tank, some of them reproduce quickly and readily. They don't really add that much O2 to the tank. Research shows that they do almost nothing to add O2 to the water (agitating the water surface does this).