jamesbarr Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 Hey just seeing if anyone on here is keeping this in their tanks. Its supposed to be great for reducing nitrates in the water and be low maintenance. Im thinking about it for when I fill my dsm npt to help monitor my cycle as I havent got a lot of high demand in substrate plants to do the job really well. I was given some water sprite by another member and like how it makes my walstad look, but being that my dsm will be set up very close to my walstad I trying to avoid them looking too much alike. Being an npt, I will not be dosing any ferts. The lighting will be more than adequate as its a 5 gal with a cfl over top. Curious about people experiences with this plant. Is it a rapid grower? Is it finicky? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingin' It Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 grows super fast...blocks out the light though so if you have other light demanding plants you won't like this one. It's a pleasant plant though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madagascariensis Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 In my 65 gallon tank, about 2/3 of the water's surface need to be cleared of frogbit every 5 days or so. Blankets the tank so that without thinning every few days, high light plants won't be able to grow. If all conditions are right and it is thriving, it is an extremely good remover of nitrates. I have 21 white clouds, 10 panda cories, 7 bolivian rams, 15 endlers, 7 otos and one honey gourami in the mentioned tank, and once when I tried not changing the water for 3 weeks nitrates still read 0 at the end of that time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesbarr Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 cool good to know. Being that this dsm is in a 5 gallon, i think I will have to avoid something that grows so fast. Have you guys got any recommendations for a plant that would eat up nitrates but not grow so fast I cant keep up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geleen Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 Any of the floating plants do well with nitrates. I have a 65 filtered with a houseplant bed I circulate the water through...works very well J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesbarr Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 Any of the floating plants do well with nitrates. I have a 65 filtered with a houseplant bed I circulate the water through...works very well J That cool. Ive thought of doing something like this too. What are you using for substrate for your house plants? Some folks use hydroton, or lava or rocks. Are you using a flood and drain set up with a bell syphon or just running it through and back down into the tank? Just curious about what you are having success with. Ive thought about using a system like this to grow vegetables Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geleen Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 I use stuff I bought from a hydroponics store on the south side; a clay ball from Germany. This is flood and drain pumped with an XP3 For vegetables you would need high performance lights and perhaps more fertilizers than is good for your fish.TDS in hydroponics runs 2000ppm. With a reasonable bio load the nitrates run < 10 J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesbarr Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 So you pull water through the xp3 and then send it up to the grow bed and drain that down into the tank? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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