Why Floating Plants Are BAD For Your Aquarium
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- čas přidán 13. 08. 2024
- Why Floating Plants Are BAD For Your Aquarium
Although floating plants can be a major benefit to an aquarium by providing shade for fish and reducing nitrates and phosphates which helps reduce and prevent algae there are also negative issues stemming from adding floating plants.
The biggest problem with floating plants is that they can out compete other aquarium plants, especially ones deeper in your aquarium. They do this in two ways. Floating plants suck out nutrients really quickly and so can starve other aquarium plants but also they will cover the surface of the aquarium and can prevent enough light reaching the other aquarium plants.
Smaller aquarium floating plants like duckweed can cause issues by clogging up filters and larger floaters can reduce flow across the aquarium with long roots. Covering the surface can also cause issues with reducing oxygen in the water due to a smaller surface area for gas exchange.
Even though we add floating plants to help alleviate problems with too much nuisance algae this can cause a issue later on due to there not being enough food for algae eating fish in the aquarium so additional feeding may be required.
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#aquarium #plantedtank #shrimptank
Could also call this video “Bad maintenance is bad for your tank”.
How can you know what good maintenance is if you don't understand the results of not doing that maintenance? If you are new to tanks how can you know to trim and fertilise plants, clean filters and feed fish correctly etc with out experiencing the results of either doing or not doing these things or learning from the mistakes of others?
I make videos for instruction of others and to also point out my mistakes so others can learn. Sometimes I also create problems to highlight issues and give solutions
@@EverydayAquarist That’s all true and fair. But the video title says they are bad. Not ‘can be bad’. They can be bad if you don’t maintain your tank, but so can any plant.
@@kanelucas1475 Very true, this video has soooo much good info, thought it was just me but the title distracted me the whole time. THUMBS UP still... change the title!!!!
EXACTLY!!!
@@EverydayAquarist apparently you don't know good maintenance if your trying to say floating plants are bad for your tank
To be quite honest I don't understand why you let it go on fo so long that 5 of your ottocinclus fish died of starvation. Why not remove half of the foating plants at once for example?
I didn't notice they had gone the tank is so big plus I have been feeding wafers everyday. Its not as if I watched them starve to death I just simply didn't realise
@@EverydayAquarist thank you for the clarification. I'm glad to hear that.
Yes, it is actually a very easy fix. Just reduce the floating plants every now and then. Probably check every month?
Because he needed a topic for a CZcams video.
you had 6 months . i dont care about this entire rant@@EverydayAquarist
The positive of frogbit and duckweed far out weighs the negative, they are essentially your failsafe and automatic aquarium cleaner. All you need to do to solve all those issues is ringfence an area in the back or corner of the tank, and put the floaters in there, still get all the benefit but none of the negative. Once that ring fenced area is completely covered, just pull out 50% of the floaters and throw them away or sell it, rinse repeat. An alternative is to have a refugium (aka a salterwater like setup) and put all the floaters there and let them go nuts while not affecting the look of the actual tank, it’s something I am experimenting with so far so good. The workload of upkeep on planted aquarium after adding floaters is probably reduced by 50-70% for me, as I never have to do any algae maintenance and water change is extended to every 2 month. The constant battle with algae for a planted tank never goes away no matter what those crystal clean aquarium CZcams videos show you, they just don’t show you the work beforehand, and I have been doing both high tech and low tech setup for over 20 years, but after finally adding floaters, algae just literally magically went away….
Catfish?
The problem im having is there so many baby shrimp in the frogbit now, how can i remove it without hurting them?
@@raymeekss lol same issue with removing moss. You just have to move it out of water very slowly, giving them time to swim away. By design to survive, they will swim away as the floater root they are on moves out of water….some may still get removed along with the floater, but not much can you do since they are so small and hard to see….adult shrimps should very rarely if ever have this issue as long as you don’t just yank it out of water instantly
Floating plants aren’t bad, you just need to maintain it. Add it to another tank or do what I do and sell excess plants.
Just what I was thinking.
Or eat them.
Or make a compost
@@-..l Pretty sure duckweed is something like 45% protein by dry-weight. There's a reason a lot of bigger fish will gladly eat duckweed, it's thicc with nutrients.
Good fertilizer, chuck the plants onto your plant pots.
Lesson of the video. Limit the amount of floating plants that grow in the tank, trim the roots and floating rings
Hello friends! Here's an alternative take on floating plants in your aquarium. Where one thing flourishes another falters and this is especially true in my shrimp tank!
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A thing that can help is making a circle or oval out of airline tubing (could use Y adapters then seal them) and it makes a part of your tank where they don't grow in as easily and it allows more direct light
I have lids on my tanks with floating plants and they are thriving. Weird
Maybe you get less condensation on your lid. My plants were rotting because they got so wet
I also have a small circular 8 inch diameter glass cylinder vase with glass on top and growing floating plants without issues. I do lift the top in the mornings for air exchange , when I remember . I do see condensation under the glass some mornings.
Can`t order any from you , I`m in Australia.........Lol.
So do I! All of my tanks have lids and I'm pulling out BOWLS FULL of red rooters every week 🤔
I regularly take frogbit out of my tank and trim the roots for the ones I leave in!
I leave my roots long because the shrimp like it
@@EverydayAquarist I like the look of it with trailing roots , as long as the tank isn`t choked with them.
Has trimming the roots affected your frogbit in any way for you?
@@zamim.aka-arima_z4753 not that I’ve noticed honestly it’s still spreading at the same rate as ones I have in other tanks I don’t trim
All these issues can be fixed with simple maintenance and like $2 usd for a intake sponge and air line.
The only issues I have with floaters (specific to shrimp tanks) is just taking care when removing them to not accidentally remove my baby shrimp clinging to roots. Although for folks VERY new to fish keeping or not much common sense this could be useful lol
I don't know. Seems pretty straightforward to take out as much as you want any time.
As someone with ADHD I have very hard time in decision making in that I let the frogbit grow to much and was very hesitant in removing excess floating plants. Just like that all my stem plants (dwarf Aquarium lily, limnophila sessiloflora , ludwigia palustris, water sprite, water wisteria, Anubias barteri, Hygrophila polysperma etc) all succumbed to their demise. All I have remaining is Vallisneria marimo moss , and one finger digit worth of Anubias rhizome. I have since removed the frogbit and replaced it with another easily controllable floating plant.
What plant you replaced it with, I'm very curious
@@plejra Hygroryzia aristata !!!
@@fruityautism thank you!!!!!!
Wow, so many easy fixes for all your issues mentioned.
I have lids on all my tanks. The duckweed is growing like mad, but the larger ones arent growing as well.
This was quite informative. I could not at first understand why too many floating plants would be a problem ,as you can simply remove any amount as required , but you saved that comment till the end of the video. Good information all round , thank you !
Thank you
While I could see this as a problem in some tanks, it seems like frogbit would thrive in an axolotl tank without many other plants because axolotls like low flow and low light.
You grow Frogbit for resale like myself. Try giving your customers extra plants for free or lower your prices briefly. Your Frogbit is in a shrimp only tank. I have fish which produce waste for the plants. I like to dose daily and I use easylife. In my Roma 125 I do a minimum of 50% water change fortnightly. This also replenishes the nutrients abit.
My Roma has a lid on it and I have no problem growing Dwarf Lettuce or Frogbit. My floating plants are only a few inches from the lights and lid.
Sometimes you just have To bin the plants like I do. I agree with you on Duckweed. It's horrible stuff.
The trouble with selling floating plants on eBay there is so much competition as you probably know.
Try growing other fast plants for profit.
Thanks! Interesting about the lid, mine absolutely melted due to it
Hey now, I've got a strain of duckweed that, under high light, maintains a very pretty purple underside. They're larger than the other strain I had, so they're fairly easy to keep a handle on.
If your on the fence about them, id say get them. It's like the easiest plant to maintain because it just floating. What makes it annoying is the frequency of maintenance is high. But it makes it easy if your new, don't really want algae in your tank and you rather have an algae eater. Id say if your new to the hobby don't really care about aquarium look but want healthy environment for fish do it
Nice to hear a counter-view to the bulk of videos I've seen, and I hadn't even considered the lid/condensation issue.. thankyou!
Good video for beginners. For non-shrimp focused tanks, you can def go for the shorter root floaters like red roots floaters, salvinia, etc.
You should add extra fertilizers. The holes don’t seem from lack of light they seem like they really need additional nutrients added which the “complete fertilizer” just isn’t supplying enough of them
Yeah doing a water change has cleared it up
..so take care of your aquarium?
Just manage the floating plants to prevent any problem?
I found that java ferns are good with frogbit , but as I think about it perhaps java moss would of been better.
Have you had some thoughts of selling those plants?
Have and do
Very Informative, Sorry you lost 5 Ottos ...It's get uba sad when Fish die.
Frogbit only grows long roots like that if not enough nutrients in the tank water column my frogbit roots are short as they have loads of nutrients and dont need to grow long roots
Great video, thank you for the heads up. Is there a chance of getting a hold of a hand full if you're getting rid of the excess plants? Cheers 👍😉
Thanks! I get rid of them by selling them :-)
@@EverydayAquarist great, how much you selling them for and where. It would be good to support you buy buying them 👍
Oh nice one! Ebay my listing is 3xJUMBO Amazon Frogbit and my seller name is planted_reef. UK only though 👍😉
@@EverydayAquarist awesome, I'm based in the UK 🤣
I usually add floating plants about 7 of them . My bottom plants still fine
Can't have a lid per se, but you can glue together an upside down acrylic or glass box that can fit over the aquarium with the light on the clear top of the box and with short hinged doors on the front so that you have access, and ultimately have several inches of space between the surface of water and the top, but can still greatly reduce condensation. You'll still have higher humidity, but not as high, so it's kind of a happy medium. This also gives the opportunity to do some above water features, and allow space for snails to hang out. My mystery snails could find good places to lay their eggs (haven't laid eggs yet, but probably just need to wait longer), and my nerite snails love to hang out way above the water during the day and submerge at night. Paludaria in general would work with floating plants, minus the other issues floaters can create.
I like salvinia and red root floaters, mostly because of their small roots. It’s not invasive like frog bit and water hyacinth.
"Can't have a lid"
I have 5 tanks with a variety of floaters, and all of those tanks have lids. Frogbit, red root floaters, and water spangles. I'm not saying you didn't have a negative experience with a lid, but I assure you it can be done.
Everybody else stated it already, and i even guess that was your point here - maitenence and balance is a key. Everythig that you do too much is well - too much. You can say - fish food is bad for your fish, because if you do it too much you will kill everything. Too much light and/or fertilizers and algae can overtake. You can go without floating plants, but they can help balance your water quality etc, still if you let them overtake it obviously not doing well. If your plants doesnt grow as you expect you should go slowly with lights, some fertilisers and CO2 (!) if algaes still keep bother you add some floating plants. Fine tune feeding fish, light, ferilizing, biovilter volume and flow until you make it. It is complex game, i guess thats why it is interesting and frustrating in same time. Most endangered from algae for me are moses. I adore how they look, and i dont mind they glow slower but they are dirt filter, and algae can overtake them overnight. Ooor make aquarium in such way that it can be almost selfsustainable as Father Fish do www.youtube.com/@FatherFish
i use floating rings to keep my duckweed contained
i got frog bit and water spangles in 2 other rings also
originally i just had the duckweed loose an i soon started hating it lol
thankfully i had to much water movement an most of it died
but now i have a flow guard on my filter an air stone areas
now my floating plants are thriving and contained
i still have a lot of dead duck weed floating around tho
Good sharing friend
Thanks
Floating plants is bad when it is already invasive because it can block lights which is needed for plants growth control is the key reduce the volume of the floating plants. Floating plants is good because it can help eliminate nitrate and it can also use for filtration thru its roots.
Most floating plants are excellent nitrogen fixers and that's why I remove excess / undesirable floaters and throw them in my garden/compost
Floating plants are great! You know what else is great? Maintaining your tanks. You do need to periodically remove floating plants. You shouldn't just leave them like the dude in this video did. All of my tanks have them. I have glass lids, and the light goes right through to the plants; No problem at all. The benefits definitely waaay outweigh the drawbacks.
I do agree with the filtration comment, though. That's a real concern. The best way to handle it is to get a prefilter sponge and put it on your filter intake. These coarse sponges sit on the intake foot of the filter and block the plants (and small fish or shrimps) from getting sucked into the filter. I find my shrimps will sit on the prefilter sponge and pick plants and stuff off of them for food.
What kind of plants are in your back aquarium (similar to hair) I love it
That sounds like one of those good problems.
1. Make liquid fertilizer with it
2. Transplant it to other tanks
3. Boil it to farm infusoria
Or Increase the flow to move the floating plants to a corner of your aquarium where lowlight hardy plants grow (if the flow hasn't killed them)
You are welcome guys 🤗
Those frogbit have some invasive roots, but are also from what I've been told, some of the toughest floating plants; That's actually why I've been thinking for a while that they'd be good for a refugium, but maybe not in the main tank. Water Hyacinth on the other hand needs lots of nutrient and disintegrated in my sump. Don't know how water lettuce would work. I've had good luck with red root floaters in general, and those add a lot of interest in their own right, aside from the fact that those brilliant roots are also quite short and won't clog up the tank. Azola could also be good, but I haven't tried it. If you're trying to shade the aquarium but want stem plants/substrate feeders (I'm gonna go out on a limb and say nearly all stem plants prefer substrate over water), dwarf water lilies could work. There are always options, and if you've got a sump btw, you can oxygenate that so that you're not smothering fish in the main tank.
This is true and I have a feeling that I am not just the only one that is going to make some assumptions about the way it is not the ways it was ♤♡◇♧
Try salvinia minima. the roots stay small and it doesn’t break up the light so much, but just like many floating plants you have to maintain and remove them. You can’t just leave that stuff in there and then complain when you have to much. But floating plants can really benefit most aquariums. I don’t like duckweed… stay away from that stuff
You realize that fert shows copper in it right? Just thought I'd mention...
i think 1 or two Frogbi would be good but not so much plants where you can see fish
FYI according to the excellent book Ecology of the Planted Aquarium plant roots produce oxygen, so you're tank should have plenty.
Ooh
On books maybe in reality they are a bad deal when they full up the top
Yes in day time they release oxygen and takes in co2 this is true but at night they release co2 and take in oxygen so be carefull i nearly lost my guppies due to not enough oxygen at night
@@welshdragon2001 Oh really? What do you mean by "nearly lost" them? They do tend to become very still at night.
So I appreciate you making a video educating people but...
1. You can have a lid on your tank, they just need some air between the surface and the lid. As long as air can get in the plants will be fine.
2. If to many grow just grab a couple of handfuls and throw them in the trash! lol! honestly... wtf? It's not like they are permanent structures.
Personally I keep Oscars and a feeder fish tank. The Oscar tank is obviously enclosed with some Red root floaters. The feeder tank is not enclosed with Red root floaters. The plants exist in both tanks ONLY to assist with ammonia and nitrate control. Assist being the key word.
Trim the Roots back and take a way half the flowing planets
this all boils down to 1 issue. He let his floating plants take over. monthly maintaining by removing extra plants would fix everything. I like dwarf water lettuce as they grow quite large compared to frogbit and it's easy to pull them out, maybe trim the roots if they get a little wild, and move on with life.
I’m just saying but for your aquarium I feel like water lettuce would be a good floater for your aquarium
Plants or filtration... that's the bottom line. My filter isn't extreme or anything but red root floaters are a fkn nightmare. Amazon frogbit is the same story. They break apart and get pushed into the intake. Airline tubing rings don't help. It's moving water... 😅
They're only "outcompeting" your other plants because you aren't doing proper maintenance. You literally only have to scoop them off the top. Your second problem is you're over fertilizing.
I have floating plants and fake plants at bottom, that way I find it easier to keep clean and my male fighter loves em
thats a great idea you should use the damn barrier you were talking about friend
In a uk pond will they flourish?
During summer
my Otto loves raw grass-fed hamburger
That pleco at 6:15 😮
This isn't a a parody?
Luckily all you do is grab a handful and throw it away or sell it.
It is inapropriate to use the word WHY? Its better to use the word WHEN..
"money's bad because I spend all mine on crack"
Hear me out... Regular maintenance.
I love my floating plants. Every once in a while i remove a bunch of it and put it in the outside pond where the koi devoure it. If i didnt have the pond, it would go in the trash or mulch pile
Mayne get a floating plant that isn't so big 🤣
I have cats = need a lid = I can’t have floating plants :( lol
Your fert doesn't have electrolytes, it's what plants crave....
I add Brawndo on a weekly basis, didn't mention it in the video
@@EverydayAquarist 😂😂😂👍
Doesnt look like its a plant issue.
Learn to manage your tank better
Looks like you never maintained anything you let it go bad. Those should have been trimmed .. all on you ...
Just grab them and throw some out or give them away , it’s just like trimming our garden plants and grass , don’t they do the same if we don’t trim them? Why is it a different story when they are in aquariums ? They are not fish, it’s okay to trim them .
Looks like a lazyman tank.
Homeboy forgot plants create oxygen
These are floating so the oxygen will not go into the aquarium
Watching this and I'm baffled that you'd let it get that far... Why not remove 3/4 of the plants and you're good. Speaking from first hand experience, It's the easiest thing to do by the literal handful in a minute or two for Frogbit. I would get it if they were rooted and you'd have to disturb the tank's substrate. Oh, and the floating plants will also out compete the algae first then your inside plans. It's like you've created an issue then made a video to complain about a self created issue. You only say you have control over this at the very end of a long waste of time that could have been a 2 minute video of before and after.
Just remove the excess plants🤷♀️💀
oh cmon, just remove more.... what's the problem?
and about the filter.... the plants are the filter.
This title is stupid floating plants are really good for tanks except the fact they multiple and shade the light.
are you mad. 😅
Get 🐌
Don't think I've ever been first before, lol.
I don't think it's much issue to scoop the duckweed into my pond now and again ;)
Congratulations 🥳
I use a green onion as a floating plant and all the fish died after what a bad idea
In other news, water is wet. Title is nearly clickbait.
What do you expect after 6 months no growth!?? G-wiz just thin it out once every two weeks by just taking enough out of your tank. Or is that too difficult for you 🤣
All this time u could just use 5 secs and scoop off some of the floaters off the surface.
But no u gotta bitch about PrOBLeMs
Bro easy solution. Take half of them out and sell em..... EASY Ignore this fool
Thanks bro
I dont see the complaint just remove and give away or toss if you cant figure out that eventually any plant has to be trimmed back im a noob at planted aquarium and i know this
Frog bit is great. Ypu could just remove 75 percent of that. Floating plants are great just don't let it get this crazy. This is just bad tank maintenance
The lesson I took away from this video, is people who don't know how to care for aquariums are able to make videos on how to make an aquarium. You let your fish and plants die because you don't perform proper maintenance. The frog bit isn't the issue, it's your lack of care for it. My ponds or filled with water hyacinths and my tanks are filled with red root floaters giant, duck weed, water spangle, and frog bit. As long as a trim them and remove most new plant growth my tanks and ponds are great.