Suggestions on low-light bog/pond plants

wataugachicken

wataugachicken

The Dancing Banana
Jul 14, 2005
5,451
1
0
Charlotte, NC
I'm looking into making a sort of refugium for one of my tanks, but it'll be in reverse - on top of the tank (above the lights) rather than underneath. I'd like to use pond plants because it'll make the whole thing look nicer and i won't have easy access to it, so i need something that i can plant and leave alone and preferably is a total nitrate-hog without many other needs. Any thoughts?
 
Hornwort is the old standby. How low light are you talking? Just ambient room light? And is this going to be open-topped? If so, I would consider a low-light houseplant that can grow hydroponically, e.g. vining Philodendron. Most plants sold for bogs need a good bit of light.
 
This is the beautiful picture i drew. water is going to be pumped up from the tank, drops onto a bright pink sponge as mechanical filtration, trickles through the bioballs and passes through a perforated wall into the refugium part. substrate on the bottom so plants can grow, then comes out the other side and falls back into the tank. i don't want it full of water because it will be sitting directly on top of the tank.

the tank uses a shoplight, which is on top of the tank and will be right in front of the refugium. it does give off a lot of stray light.

i bought some hornwort thinking it would do well in this tank, but it died pretty quickly, less than a month. i don't know what the problem was as i've kept it in other tanks previously.
 

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oh. my beautiful picture did not appear as i desired.
 
It would really open up your options if you could put a second light on the refugium. I know that might be getting more complicated and expensive than you wanted, but it would allow you to grow things like parrot feather, salvinia, or water lettuce that would be powerful nitrate sponges.
 
hmmm. well, not what i wanted to hear, but thanks anyway. the tank is just a spare old acrylic eclipse tank that doesn't have a top for it any more, so i don't think i could put another light up there in a way that still looks nice. i guess i'll have to work on it some more. it could just be like a sump, but that would be kinda (very) ugly, and i thought having plants in it would make it look nicer since it's going to be in plain view.
 
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I just started growing watercress inside in preparation to put it in a section of my pond. I got a bunch of it at the grocery store for like 3 bucks. Its over a foot tall now, I just have it in a north-facing window, so it gets a decent amount of light but not a ton. The nice thing about it is that since it grows emersed, it won't be restricted by carbon in teh water column since it can pull CO2 out of the air. Its nothing special, just a green leafy plant, but may be another option for a fuge nitrate sponge.
 
Good idea, Sploke. Watercress is also delicious (if you don't mind eating something grown in your tank water).
 
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