Jump to content

Plants outside your aquarium?


JimmyGimbal
 Share

Recommended Posts

@Steph’s Fish and Plants the struggle is real when you're into aquariums and house plants. Finding tank space and window space or deciding if an outlet should be used for filters and heaters or a grow light.

At least there is some crossover between the two. When I upgraded my tanks from nicrews to 3.0s, the nicrews became house plant lights. Water change day is also watering day because why waste that nitrate rich water. I got into house plants from keeping a pothos in my tank, now I'm trying to cultivate a sansevieria in my HOB.16028607070481885997743.jpg.f6aadee1f326a35864f086dfb25e244e.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Aubreywow I wouldn’t have thought to do a Sanseveria, but now I have to! I’m actually doing avocados in a few of my tanks. I had a lot of success with one, had it over a year, but the leaves kept dying and it would grow a few more inches, new leaves would grow for a few weeks, then die and stem growth, you get the gist. So I tried planting it but it died off. So now I’m doing 3 at once! As far as lights go, I’m actually using a stingray 2.0 that was way too strong for my 5 gallon and causing green water issues for my bioactive vivarium instead, along with my finnex stingray 1.0 from my 10 gallon since the 10 gallon is currently just for quarantine. As for outlet space, extension chords are your best friend. My room setup and what I’m running right now has actually given me a lot of outlet space, tho I’m sure to see that dwindle. What’s a good way I can mount a grow light over the rest of my plants that won’t cause wall damage? (I’m in an apartment)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Steph’s Fish and Plants I'm in an apartment as well, a very old small studio with only four outlets and I often have to unplug things to use other things or I'll blow the breaker. I've tried the command hooks and had them fail. I'm getting away with the "no holes" rule by utilizing an attic? access that just happens to be above my plant stands. I've thought about making a pvc or black pipe light stand, kind of like a really tall clothing rack.

16028615078141367627047.jpg

Edited by Aubrey
Tag
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had filled our small office with most of my houseplants after moving to a house with low indoor lighting. The office had great windows and fluorescent lights everywhere. People liked the jungle and it gave me a nice brain break to go tend to plants. 
 

then covid... and in the name of survival, one coworker took everyone’s company plant home (we give everyone a neon pothos for their desk, so 20-some 4 inch pots), the spider plants got grouped into a Tupperware lid I filled with water whenever I stepped in (my cats would’ve eaten them), my boss took the lemon trees, and everything else went home with me. 
 

It was manageable when they were outdoors for summer, but now it’s time they start moving back to the office before it’s too cold to transport. 
 

ADD28F12-02C8-4643-BC06-5DC26D7543F3.jpeg.c17bd126090d11dadb8e6e65af163523.jpeg

Money plant, sanseveria, some succulents, Hoya, zz, and philodendron. 
35A8039B-3E03-4527-8629-6F87323B117B.jpeg.c6899e0a56c95e74bebb5676f9221ff9.jpeg

philodendron, umbrella plant, sweet potato, ficus. 
5DA19F1F-49C7-4408-99D9-034674CAFCC7.jpeg.59e7c6196c97be4ca8b04e1feb1c7ecd.jpeg

Various succulents. 
There are more throughout the house but these are the main clusters. 
 

I found that my experience with houseplants lent itself to fish keeping and I’d be curious if others felt the same. It doesn’t pay to endlessly tweak things, getting to a stable environment is more critical, for most, than obsessing over small details. Observation is critical, it’s 10x easier to stop something when it’s just started to go wrong. Schedules are for humans, not for nature. It’s all about balance, not about binary good and bad factors. 

33E4EBCB-6AF0-4817-9A06-A6BC7C439840.jpeg.58bdae64fb04ab79c547c27516ef0a20.jpeg

Office window of succulents and uh... experiments. 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

@Streetwise it's not in or a part of any aquatic/aquaponic setup. It's just in the nursery pot that it came in, but I can show you that. The only aquatic things that it gets are the lighting is an old Nicrew and I water my plants with the waste water from water changes.

20201031_232520.jpg.cc717959210ca7b16f53cff73a6e4acb.jpg

I need to clean up the shelving that it's on and I'll take another pic. I have some 2.5 gallons, some melted glass bowls, and a 5 gallon portrait as part of the plant shelf display. Along with suffering from MTS, I also suffer from MPS. Multiple Plant Syndrome. 

Here is what it looks like all together. The 5 gallon in the center has my green jade colony and some rams horns. The 2.5s and bowls just have plants like buce, anubias, duckweed, hydrocotlyle, hornwort, and various crypts I didn't want to throw out along with bladder snails, rams horns, and maybe some shrimp hitchhikers. The bottoms shelves are where I keep my repotting supplies and water change buckets.

20201101_151923.jpg.17ae8702e2d105968833ea779b8b9f4e.jpg

 

Edited by Aubrey
Update pictures
  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I have a bunch of struggling plants grown from fruit pits and a seriously tenacious anthurium that flowers and makes babies all-year-round despite the relative humidity around 30%. Too bad I can't stick the babies into my fish tanks, it would have been quite a decor :)

anthurium.jpg.a48f46ad1b1d57785730165f37d34c26.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is my succulent, Randall. I saw him on the shelf at the grocery store. My mom let me take him home. While we were driving back, we were laughing a lot and enjoying being in the car together, since I’m not usually able to leave the house and be in a vehicle. So I named him after the road we were on.
Since then, I’ve been propagating him and have many tiny Randall clones 😅

85400464-DB06-40BB-95CB-1B8D1A1C2088.jpeg

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/7/2020 at 9:25 PM, Ohio FishPlant Dude said:

My plant collection gets me through the winter! The plants receive aquarium water after every water change...a  great companionship!

I wish my plants had a room of their own!  Sometimes my plants are the reason I do the water change.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/1/2020 at 6:19 PM, Robynski said:

Here are some pictures of my houseplant/nano tank rack. My working-from home desk is next to this shelf, so I can look over at my neocaradina shrimp bowl and endler tank whenever I'm feeling stressed. 🙂

 

PXL_20201201_225323335.jpg

PXL_20201201_225306715.jpg

I love the shelving for your plants and tank! Where is it from and/or how did you put it together?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, stephk said:

I love the shelving for your plants and tank! Where is it from and/or how did you put it together?

Thanks, Steph. I bought the shelving at Lowe's (make sure to select a heavy duty option that can hold a lot of weight per shelf).

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Style-Selections-18-in-D-x-47-7-in-W-x-72-in-H-6-Tier-Steel-Freestanding-Shelving-Unit/999990412

My original plan was to put a 20 long on the aquarium/middle shelf and 3 nanos on the plant shelf, so I wanted to make sure it could support the weight. I think this one holds an estimated 600lbs per shelf - but I won't be testing that limit! If I intended to fill the entire rack with aquariums I'd have bought Edsal shelving.

I then bought 1/2" plywood, which I got the lumber yard worker to cut for me since we are renters and own limited tools. I hand-sawed the notches so the wood fits around the corner posts (this could be done nicer with power tools we don't own, but it got the job done). By cutting notches in the corners the wood covers the entire top rather than a strip between the posts. I then sanded/stained/polyurethaned the wood. Stain is varathane dark walnut. This took some time, but the final look turned out how I imagined. It is a bit difficult to make the shelves level.

Overall, a great shelter-at-home project that really transformed my office nook. 🙂

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was never a houseplant person, as I always had cats (now passed away) who got into the dirt. In March I rescued my work plants and brought them home (due to mandatory telework), which I had "inherited" from someone who retired a few months before. They were almost dead to begin with, and in real bad shape when I got them home (3 weeks without water). Here is one plant (no idea what it is) which tripled in size over the 6 months after being transplanted (old container shown for size comparison), new soil, east-facing sunlight, water, etc.20201026_121538.jpg.f58e3ed5a40a766cb8a067fac6dbd9e9.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This one is a curb find from late 2019.  I wanted the 12" pot until I realized it was plastic.  Had the twin trunks been straight, it would have been over 6 ft. tall and naked for the first 5'.  I kept the plant anyway, cutting off 3' or more from each trunk. A freshly painted  5 gallon bucket and a summer in the backyard seems to have agreed with it.

Curb plant.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love houseplants. I've got a bunch, but here are photos of a few of mine.

The Croton lives on a small shelf unit in a south facing window. It LOVES the bright light, including direct sunlight it gets this time of year.

The Monstera and fig tree are in an east facing window. The next one is an unidentified "rescue" from one of my sisters. It was leggy and a bit anemic when it came and seems to be doing great here.

The Dieffenbachia is a funny story, since it got HUGE. Then I had to move it and snapped the thing right off. I almost cried but decided that wouldn't fix it. I didn't have time to figure out what to do with it, so I shoved the broken end deep into the soil and went about my work. Forgot about it. The broken base sprouted new growth, and the broken top didn't die. In fact, it's gotten all sorts of new growth since then. So what I thought was a disaster turned out to be no issue at all. Go figure.

The spider plant and 2 types of ponytails live on top of our entertainment center where they get a lot of light from an east window. The spider is putting out babies, and I'm currently rooting one of them in water in preparation for inclusion in an aquaponics project I'm currently setting up.

My Christmas cactus both sit in a window with full west exposure. The porch on that side is pretty wide, so they only get direct sunlight at the tail end of the day. The hill behind us prevents too much direct sun exposure, but they've never been happier. The one blooms dark pink/red. The other... until this year, it's always bloomed white. This year, the blooms are that white and pink blend. Never had that before. Only change I made this year for that plant is using fish tank waste water instead of tap for all waterings.

I've got more plants scattered around the house, but those are my main babies.

20201228_105546.jpg

20201228_105555.jpg

20201228_105619.jpg

20201228_105628.jpg

20201228_105642.jpg

20201228_105700.jpg

20201228_105715.jpg

20201228_105757.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...