I have a nitrate problem in my 100 gallon tank and want to put a 10 gallon tank above it Kind of like a sump and want to do either one of two things just stuff one super nitrate sucking plant in there or make it nice with a lot of different plants into it and breed shrimp in but I only want to make a nice tank out of it if it can get rid of the same amount of nitrates as if just stuffing it
My tank is overstocked I have an Oscar 3 delhezi bichirs 3 sengal bichirs and a palmas polli and the day after my weekly water changes the waters nitrates are back up and I don't want to be changing the water every other day and other that plants or getting rid of some of the fish(Which I don't plan on doing) I don't see any other way out.
I would not rely on plants to be doing the cleaning for you. As Rb said your best choice is to up the water changes. I know you do not want to but it comes with having a tank stocked as heavily as yours. The best option would be to upgrade the tank since I highly doubt all those fish will thrive in a tank that size.
But to answer your question I've found hygrophila species to be nutrient suckers as are most floating plants which includes hornwort as well.
I would not rely on plants to be doing the cleaning for you. As Rb said your best choice is to up the water changes. I know you do not want to but it comes with having a tank stocked as heavily as yours. The best option would be to upgrade the tank since I highly doubt all those fish will thrive in a tank that size.
But to answer your question I've found hygrophila species to be nutrient suckers as are most floating plants which includes hornwort as well.
I'm still gonna do water changes but I think that a 10 gallon full of plants would bring my nitrates down from 40 ppm to at most 20 ppm in between weekly water changes
I'm still gonna do water changes but I think that a 10 gallon full of plants would bring my nitrates down from 40 ppm to at most 20 ppm in between weekly water changes
IMO, that significant of a difference would take much more volume in plant mass than a 10g could offer. It may help some, but with the way nitrates are being produced in your tank, I don't believe you'll get the change you're looking for.
There's obviously the dilution factor that plays in since you'd be adding 10 gallons or so to the system but as Jb said it would likely take more to cut NO3 in half like that...really hard to tell what will happen exactly without trying first.
it doesn't have to look like that. gunner just decided he was going to hang his plants with string... which is not necessary for pothos at all. they'll grow anywhere just about... and do it well. as well, pothos can be a beautiful plant filling out the top of a container if it's allowed to. in a 10 gallon tank hooked up to your system it's likely you could grow enough to hide most, if not all of your tank.
pothos will also eat some doc's as well as it's a better nitrate remover than any floater i know of. i read a study a few months back about its ability to consume the toxins found in newts. pretty interesting, really.
EDIT: also, it's very likely pothos will be able to knock your nitrates down the way you want whereas aquatic plants will not, most likely.
