# Pothos with aquatic plants



## glickster89 (Aug 1, 2018)

Whats up everyone. I have a 55 gallon freshwater tank with 15 Mbuna cichlids & 3 Synodontis petricola catfish. I have pool filter sand as my substrate. I have about 10 aquatic plants currently- Java fern, various swords, vallisneria, and various anubias. I am wanting a natural way to lower the nitrates in my tank. I do frequent water changes but am having a hard time keeping the nitrates below 40 ppm. I have read all over the internet about adding pothos cuttings to the tank to lower nitrates by just having the roots submerged and letting the leaves hang outside of the tank. I would do this right away, but I have also read that pothos will out compete my current plants for all the nutrients. 
Is this accurate? I have a pretty small bioload right now, as all 18 fish are juvies. The aquatic plants were also put in the tank about a week ago, if that makes a difference.
Thanks for the help!


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## Tyrant46290 (Jul 21, 2018)

To be completely honest.....plants really don't consume as much nitrates as people think/wish.....With nitrates being that high and a problem you need to either do more water changes or find out what is causing it and change it. Only other suggestion I have is to build an algae scrubber somewhere. But it will use a lot of nutrients too.....


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## glickster89 (Aug 1, 2018)

Tyrant46290 said:


> To be completely honest.....plants really don't consume as much nitrates as people think/wish.....With nitrates being that high and a problem you need to either do more water changes or find out what is causing it and change it. Only other suggestion I have is to build an algae scrubber somewhere. But it will use a lot of nutrients too.....


Thanks for the response. My tank is fairly new and finished fully cycling about 2 weeks ago, and I've read that newly cycled tanks tend to have higher nitrates than those that have been established for longer.
I have a large pothos in the house that I can easily take cuttings from if it will make as big of a difference than people claim on the internet...


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

You can add pothos to any planted tank. Trickiest part is just finding the best way to secure it. I use a bag clip because I have not taken the time to make a nifty bent metal loop holder out of a coathanger.

I trim the roots occasionally to leep the pothos from burrowing down into the substrate.

How much fertilizer does it take away from the tank? Probably not as much as we think/hope it does, but the more plants the merrier as they suck down the EI soup of tank water.


My form of algae control it to "let" algae have an entire pane of glass to itself that I don't ever clean. I feel like every tank has algae. Mine always have a little even though I blast it with co2. But my anecdotal story is that when I let algae run free in one place - it doesn't grow anywhere else in the tank. Kind of like the concept of those algae scrubber things that blast light in one small spot and creates one concentrated algae super grow area - it all grows in the best spot it can grow and nowhere else.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I have pothos on some of my tanks. I also usually keep sweet potato vine and/or coleus cuttings on my window tank. When I first put the pothos cuttings on, it didn't make much difference for a week or so. Then I noticed one day the nitrates had dropped significantly- they used to always be 20-30ppm at end of week, now it was suddenly less than 10. It was the same week the pothos had sprouted new roots. After the sweet potato vine got established, the nitrates dropped to zero. It stayed at zero for months. (I know my test kit wasn't faulty because other tanks had normal readings). And yes, some of my other plants started to suffer- windelov fern constantly had leaves turning yellow and dying off. I only had undemanding plants in that tank, I don't think I could keep any that required more nutrients.


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## glickster89 (Aug 1, 2018)

JJ09 said:


> I have pothos on some of my tanks. I also usually keep sweet potato vine and/or coleus cuttings on my window tank. When I first put the pothos cuttings on, it didn't make much difference for a week or so. Then I noticed one day the nitrates had dropped significantly- they used to always be 20-30ppm at end of week, now it was suddenly less than 10. It was the same week the pothos had sprouted new roots. After the sweet potato vine got established, the nitrates dropped to zero. It stayed at zero for months. (I know my test kit wasn't faulty because other tanks had normal readings). And yes, some of my other plants started to suffer- windelov fern constantly had leaves turning yellow and dying off. I only had undemanding plants in that tank, I don't think I could keep any that required more nutrients.


Very interesting. So you traded reducing your nitrates significantly to losing some other plants. I almost think I would just rather do more aggressive water changes (50% instead of 20-30%) than risk losing some of my plants by adding pothos. They are all doing super well right now. Thanks for the response.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

glickster89 said:


> Very interesting. So you traded reducing your nitrates significantly to losing some other plants....


More or less. That tank of mine was _very_ low tech (no light on the tank, no ferts added, no heater- on purpose) so the plant choice was quite limited anyway- and the pothos helped in my case. Almost no algae. I did put many pothos and sweet potato stems on there- all across the back of the tank, and it was a relatively small tank (20g). For a larger tank with a higher nutrient load (more, bigger fish) I think just using one or two pothos stem would not seriously reduce your nitrates but just lower it a bit. It's worth a try and you can always remove the plant if it is taking up too much.


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## glickster89 (Aug 1, 2018)

JJ09 said:


> More or less. That tank of mine was _very_ low tech (no light on the tank, no ferts added, no heater- on purpose) so the plant choice was quite limited anyway- and the pothos helped in my case. Almost no algae. I did put many pothos and sweet potato stems on there- all across the back of the tank, and it was a relatively small tank (20g). For a larger tank with a higher nutrient load (more, bigger fish) I think just using one or two pothos stem would not seriously reduce your nitrates but just lower it a bit. It's worth a try and you can always remove the plant if it is taking up too much.


Good point. I also have no algae yet. Ill stick a couple stems in there and see what it does. I dont have much of a bioload right now given that all 18 fish are juveniles (1" in size). I am putting some root tabs under my current plants tomorrow as well. I dropped the ball on that when I planted them a week or so ago.


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## varanidguy (Sep 8, 2017)

I would consider 40 ppm only kinda high, not crazy like I've seen on some tanks. I'd say use more ferns in the tank rather than adding pothos, get a dense mat of it going. I've found that java fern, once established, can have decent growth speed. Coupled with a larger water change every week (providing your source water is nitrate-free), you should be able to get your nitrates down.


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## MultiTankGuy (Jan 8, 2018)

*Nitrogen Removal*

glick...


Pothos isn't effective at removing forms of nitrogen. The root system isn't large enough to be effective, especially in larger tanks like your 55 G. If you want to seriously reduce all forms of nitrogen, then you have to use larger plants with large root systems. I use Chinese evergreens in my tanks. The plant uses ammonia so quickly, there isn't time for the bacteria in the tank to use it to produce nitrite, so there's very little nitrate produced in tanks with these plants in them. If you need specific information, please let me know.


M


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

When it comes to nitrates there are only 3 sources. Your tap water, fish, and fertilizer. You can eliminate tap water by testing it. Most people will see zero while others will always see some in their tap. If you stop fertilizing and the nitrate level doesn't go down with your weekly water changes then your fish are the primary cause. In my experience if there is no nutrient deficiency plants can easily use up excess nitrate from fish. The faster the plant growth the faster it removes nutrients. 

My experience with Pothos is that a cutting with no roots will quickly create a root and it will grow to about a foot long in about a week. Once the roots are long enough it will start growing new leaves. However if you have a nutrient deficiency the best you can get is slow growth to no growth and it may have no effect on your high nitrate level.


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## glickster89 (Aug 1, 2018)

Thank you for all the responses. I appreciate it. Im going to just stick with the plants I have and forgo the pothos. 
I am yet to add any type of fertilizer to the tank. I picked up some Seachem flourish root tabs to stick in the substrate. 
I just want to be sure....these are safe for fish- specifically mbuna cichlids? I am surprised the packaging doesnt state anything about them being fish safe.
Thanks


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I use root tabs. I think it's important to insert them at least 2 or 3" into the substrate- basically as deep as it can go, without letting too much of the tab dissolve into the water column, so it doesn't cause an ammonia or nitrate spike, in my experience.


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