Best nitrate removers

[African_Fever]

Besides those having terrestrial plants hanging out of their tanks in some form or another, is anyone using aquatic plants in some sort of sump or 'refugium' as nitrate/ammonia removers? I'm thinking about somehow plumbing a 20 gallon (or even larger) into my new ray tank and having it just full of plants. Where the tank is to be located there is no room for a sump, but I was thinking about having a 20 above the ray tank full of plants, and an overflow from this going back into the ray tank, with the outflow from one of my canisters (either a 2217 or FX5) going into the plant tank. For plants I was either thinking java moss or hornwort, with a light on possibly 24 hours a day, or a reverse daylight cycle.

If anyone has tried this or seen this done, I'd love to hear your input. With rays producing so much waste I was thinking this would be a way to increase the water quality naturally and help remove some of the waste they produce.

[Sam Chicklets]

Hornwort likes nitrate and low to medium lighting.

[jvision]

I started using terrestrials because I had the same idea - a planted refugium. I posted this same question to a bunch of plant gurus on APD, and they suggested using terrestrials because they have a much higher bioneed. Because they need to support their own weight, terrestrial plants use a lot more nutrients than aquatics.

That being said, a long shallow tub with floaters (duckweed, frogbit, salvinia) would be great. They all suck up nutrients like mad.

[bottomdweller_fan]

We have Koi and shunbunkin goldfish (lovely waste producers). My husband is setting up an aquaponics system to use their waste to grow fresh herbs.

There are lots of sites out there (search aquaponics) that have great ideas. The plus is that you can eat the food (apparently things like lettuce and tomatoes do well with the right lighting).