Potted Plants in a grow out tank

[bikhu]

HI,
I am a newbie in this wonderful world of DIscus. Right now I have a 55 gal with 6 Discus between 2.5 and 3.5 inches each. They seem to be doing very well at this point. The tank is bare bottom with 3 nice pieces of driftwood to soften the water and add tannins. I am filtering with an Aquaclear 500, an Aquaclear 300 and 2 foam filters. On each of the Aquaclears I am using half of an Aquaclear foam block as a pre-filter on the end of the intake valves. My son and wife hate the looks of these blocks and have threatened to dress them up like Spongebob Squarepants! :-[ I am thinking that if I were to put some potted amazon swords or something in front of them it might appease my family. Cananyone offer some advice about this?
Thanks,
Peter

Peter, potted plants can be problematic as they are difficult to keep clean. IMO, an Aquaclear 500 and 300 on a 55 gallon tank is way overkill. The 300 by itself would be fine, especially with the two sponge filters. The two filters will give too much surface agitation knocking the fish around and scattering the food throughout the tank. HTH ;) Joe

[Ralph]

We just had a thread with a similar question

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index.php?board=7;action=display;threadid=5788

The potted plants offer the ease of a bare bottom tank and still gives some of the aesthetics of a planted tank (or at least they can hide some of the machinery). The plants also give the discus a hiding place and remove nitrogen from the water. You can clean around the pots and periodically pull the pots and flush out the gravel.
We are working on coming up with a planted tank with no substrate in the Show Tank Section. Basically it is driftwood with plants attached to it (several species of aquatic plants don't require a substrate to grow).

I agree with Joe about pulling a filter or two.

Ralph, Anubias and philodendroms --any rhizome plant including java fern Joe

[Ralph]

Not only those, Joe, but to my knowledge, most of the "stem" plants don't need to be rooted in the substrate. They can be weighted down or attached to driftwood or possibly even attached directly to tank "machinery."
I also have three different bulb plants that are sitting on the bottom of a bare bottom tank and are growing like crazy. It goes against accepted practice but so far, they are doing fine.
I've also attached some regular root plants to driftwood, and they are doing fine too.

[brewmaster15]

Hi Peter! ;)

Not to disagree with Joe and Ralph here, but I have reputation for having a "little extra filtration", and am really happy with it.

I run 2 aquaclear 500's and 2 hydro 5s on my 55's and 75 gals. i find that this combination works very well to keep the water very clean. and allows for heavy feeding. It also gives you a little latitude should you miss a wc. I also put prefilters on my acquaclears ... which is where Peter saw them when he visited last week.! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I have never noticed any water currents problems with the set up.

I also believe that potted amazon swords can be great in a tank....., but at this time only have one tank with them.

hth,
al

ps... I'll answer that email tonight! :)

[bikhu]

Thanks for the nput everyone. Al is right that is where I got the idea for the pre filters, At this point the currentdoesn't seem to be a problem at all. The H2o is crystal clear and the fish are eating like pigs! ;D
If I plant an Amazon sword in a pot what would I use for growing medium? Flouride?

[brewmaster15]

Hi Peter,

They are relatively easy to set up. Take a 6-8inch unglazed claypot, line it with a piece of paper coffee filter, then pour 1 " fine to medium gravel on top of this.

Add 1 Inch wet peatmoss, fill the remainder with gravel. Add the amazon sword and thats it.

For fertilzer, I don't add any to the tank. But monthly I will take a ferrous sulfate Iron suppliment (found at any drug store as usually for women) and one calcium citrate pill (again at a drug storeas a calcium suppliment.) These I bury in the substrate monthly for the roots to absorb.

Hope this gives you some ideas,
Take care, al