Good plants for a refugium?
- Thread starter Im a Pisces
- Start date
duckweed: yes. the leaves are only about 1/2 cm-1 cm across. water lettuce: can grow to a fair size of 7-8" around I think.Im a Pisces said:
if you get duckweed, you probably won't be able to have any other plants. It is notorious for taking over the entire surface of the water, shading out any other plants. see tai95's post above.
^alright seems like i have some decisions to make. duckweed is small so would do better in a small space but i'm worried about it being tiny and somehow clogging my magdrive pump.
plah831 said:
i'm not worried about not keeping being able to keep any other plants. i just want plants in the fuge to consume the nitrates caused by my messy eating predators in my tank.
nothing better than duckweed to do that. just make sure you don't get it in your main tank.Im a Pisces said:
fishcatch22 said:
DO NOT USE DUCKWEED if it gets into your main tank (and it will) you will have a very difficult time getting rid of it. I have some in one of my tanks that came from a bag of fish I bought. A few pieces got on the net i used, and it completely took over the top of the tank (55gal) in less than a month. So Again DO NOT USE DUCKWEED. Water lettuce doesn't need much light at all. If you have a spare ficture to use that will be plenty. 14gal should be plenty enough space for some. I keep it in my 5gal shrimp tank and have no problems with it. when the plants get to big just pull them out and leave the smaller plants in to grow out. If you can't find water lettuce locally let me know I'll pull some out of my tank for you if you promise not to use duckweed.
well IMO duckweed is not bad in your main tank unless you have lots of high light plants, (BTW I am speaking from personal experience here, tai, I have kept duckweed before.)but like tai95 said chances are you'll get it in your main tank, and if you don't want your main tank covered in duckweed or you have light-needy plants, i'd go with the water lettuce. it's up to you.tai95 said:
fishcatch22 said:
The original poster was talking about a sump. This means there is an overflow in the main tank. If there is a screen in the overflow to keep fish out it will get clogged with duckweed, even if there isn't a screen there is a chance of it getting plugged. What happens when an overflow gets plugged and the return pump keeps running? The tank overflows. If the overflow doesn't get plugged the sponge on the return pump will. So like I said DO NOT USE DUCKWEED.
