planted filters??

Do you mean a tank that is filled with plants to filter out water in the main tank?

I think that would be pretty ineffective, as you would need lighting and stuff like that. If not, please explain more!

Word up, AA. There are such setups, but I'm not sure why you would use one on a regular aquarium. People do have special "plant tanks" to help with the bio load in ponds, and you could probably have a "plant filter" tank acting like a sump to soak up the fish waste, but why do that when you could have an actual planted tank?

You could certainly use duckweed or anacharis or some other annoying pest plant to suck up the waste, but it is kind of like reinventing the wheel.

They do this in saltwater tanks because its a lot harder to do water changes for saltwater tanks than freshwater tanks. Its not really needed for freshwater as water changes are easy to do....

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/plants/46010-best-plant-refugium-plant-filter.html

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/w...lowing-old-barr-article-building-emersed.html

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/g...ssion/42095-plant-filter-discus-breeding.html

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/water-parameters/39876-anyone-have-tried-plant-filter-fish.html

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/general-planted-tank-discussion/22901-plant-filter-refugium.html

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/plants/35150-plants-plant-filter.html

ValorG said:

They do this in saltwater tanks because its a lot harder to do water changes for saltwater tanks than freshwater tanks. Its not really needed for freshwater as water changes are easy to do....

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Water changes are not harder to do, just more costy.

$50 for 200 gallons for your own salt mix. Plus the cost of water. Cheaper from RODI, or 25-35 cents a gallon from a LFS...but no, not harder to do.

Makes me wonder why I own a SW tank. =/

I had a 100 reef for years.. Loved it. I only did top offs after the first 3 yrs and it was self contained, ie fed itself.. Auto timers on the lights, all I had to do was top off the water once a month and feed liquid coral food 3 times a month.

fshfanatic said:

I had a 100 reef for years.. Loved it. I only did top offs after the first 3 yrs and it was self contained, ie fed itself.. Auto timers on the lights, all I had to do was top off the water once a month and feed liquid coral food 3 times a month.

Click to expand...

No water changes? Nitrate and phosphate levels?!

Not absolutely no h20 changes, I did change some every few months. Other than that it wasnt necessary.

fshfanatic said:

Not absolutely no h20 changes, I did change some every few months. Other than that it wasnt necessary.

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Hm. I wish I had space for 100 gallons...I'm doing 30% WCs every week on my 20g display + 10g sump setup. =/

I think it might be useful to have a separate sump that is lit up with say a tone of stem plants if you don't want stem plants in your main display or your display consists of very slow growing plants. this would help with out competing algae and in a remote tank they can spread and grow like crazy with no impact on your main display.

Steve

i'd like to use a seperate plant only tank , not only for use as extra filtration but to grow more plants than what i could with a smaller tank... lillies, hyiacinths, (refugium-indoor pond sort of deal). would it be too much filtration for smaller tanks??

thanks for all the information guys!! much appreciated!