Floating plants with air powered filter

[Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics]

In my other tank floating plants help me not get algae and make the fish more comfortable. I wanna set up a new tank and use a sponge filter and a under gravel filter. Is there any floating plants that do fine with surface agitation? And/or is there a way to protect the plants from dying in the flow?

[Katherine]

I'm not sure about other floating plants, but my duckweed does just fine with a sponge filter. It swirls around a bit and stays just outside of the area where the bubbles come up.

[Widgets]

I have just recently added some floating plants. I had some duckweed stowaway in my Neocaridina purchase from the LFS. So far they have not had a problem with the surface flow. They are settled in the two back corners. Time will tell.

I have seen where people have made floating barriers from airline hose. Some partition the tank, some setup a containment ring to hold the floating plants, and some setup a keep-out ring to prevent the floating plants from areas. They can be free floating or anchored.

[Jacob Hill-Legion Aquatics]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:04 PM, Widgets said:

I have just recently added some floating plants. I had some duckweed stowaway in my Neocaridina purchase from the LFS. So far they have not had a problem with the surface flow. They are settled in the two back corners. Time will tell.

I have seen where people have made floating barriers from airline hose. Some partition the tank, some setup a containment ring to hold the floating plants, and some setup a keep-out ring to prevent the floating plants from areas. They can be free floating or anchored.

Do you think giant duckweed would work? cause I don’t wanna do normal duckweed cause it’s hard to remove if I ever wanted to.

[Widgets]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:55 PM, Jacob Hill said:

Do you think giant duckweed would work? cause I don’t wanna do normal duckweed cause it’s hard to remove if I ever wanted to.

I think it would be less impacted by the bubbles, due to the relative sizes.

[Odd Duck]

On 3/28/2022 at 5:22 PM, Jacob Hill said:

In my other tank floating plants help me not get algae and make the fish more comfortable. I wanna set up a new tank and use a sponge filter and a under gravel filter. Is there any floating plants that do fine with surface agitation? And/or is there a way to protect the plants from dying in the flow?

Frogbit tolerates a fair amount of surface agitation and if you put a floating ring around them they tolerate much more under surface agitation than you might think.  They don’t like a lot of spatter on their surface but will tolerate a bit more if the top is partially open so they aren’t quite so wet on top.  Even red root floaters will do pretty well with a ring around them.  I like using 3/8” wide silicone tubing held into a ring with end to end connectors.  You can run the ring around a heater cord or attach it to a suction cup using a couple zip ties, or even cut up a floating feeding ring and superglue it to the side of the silicone ring.

 

[Odd Duck]

I should add that the water can’t be blasting around, but the flow from an air stone isn’t enough to ruin them.  I have some with no ring, just floating, in a tank with an UGF and a separate sponge filter and they’re doing fine.  Here’s a bad fish pic from a couple weeks ago but it shows the frogbit pretty well.  Ignore the tannins.

 

They’re also doing great in my scud culture jars with no ring.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Odd Duck

[Widgets]

On 3/28/2022 at 10:00 PM, Odd Duck said:

Ignore the tannins.

I like your tannins.

I mentioned that the duckweed in my shrimp tank is just hanging in the corners with no problem. This tank is a 20 long with a UGF using airstones on all 4 uplift tubes.

[Guppysnail]

I use all types of non surface floaters/ submerged as floating plants for shade. Some are hornwort, anacharis, cardinal lobelia, ludwigia broadleaf, pennywort.  Others that hate my water (or maybe just hate me) are water sprite and water wisteria.  I prefer the submerged vs surface floater because I can’t keep surface floater alive 🙄🤣

[Anon]

Just make sure you have a lot of light on the surface if you're planning on growing frogbit or anything from the salvinia family. Partial light will make random bits and pieces melt. Hornwort will also make an awful mess if the water moves too much.