Basic Floating Plant Growth

[GarethHall]

Hi All,

As the title suggests i'm looking for any advice on setting up the most basic of setups in which floating plants could thrive in. Required as currently i have duckweed, salvinia minima and amazon frogbit all growing very well across my aquariums - however the below plants are not thriving due to a lack of light and the tanks i believe could look much better if the floating plant population was largely decreased. But we use the duckweed to feed the chickens and we often give away the minima and frogbit to our local store which i don't want to stop doing - hence the requirement to continue growing these plants but away from our aquariums.

Currently i'm thinking:
- 3x 33/62l plastic containers = (with the surface area 70 x 40cm - capacity differs as i'm not fussed about the depth at the moment and have found safe containers with the same surface area just differing depths) = this will be our 'aquarium'
- one, possibly two decent quality lights which will be 120-130cm so that they can span all three containers when put sideways = these will be on for around 8-10 hrs a day
- heater currently don't feel i need as they will be in a heated shed that stays contestant between 20-24 celsius.


However i'm unsure on:
1) would each container require a basic sponge filter to slightly aerate the water ?
2) no substrate ? or would an aquarium soil type substrate help put nutrients in the water column ?
3) currently i don't dose any fertiliser as my tanks are fairly well stocked and i change the water each week or worst case each fortnight about 80% to replenish the nutrients. However, with not having any fish to kick off the nitrogen cycle and supply the plants with nitrates, would it be required to dose a liquid fertiliser ?, i won't be using any co2 as they will only be floating plants so can naturally obtain this from the waters surface.

I think this covers the every thing however please add/advise on anything else with may be required or any past experiences doing similar ?

I feel it will be a nice little project just to see if i could make it work and then try to restore my aquarium plants to become bushy and healthy again.

Thankyou in advance

[SPACKlick]

You can grow them in buckets with no substrate and no filter. Floating plants get O2 and CO2 from the air so gaseous absorption in the water is no issue.

You're right that the buckets won't have any nitrogen cycle in them but you do have a great free source of water with nitrogen and phosphorous in, the water you take out of your fish tanks during a water change. Just take water out of the buckets and then replenish from the tank when you would do a water change.

It may turn out that for perfect growth you need to tweak with a fertiliser but for good lush growth you should be fine.

[LookoutTrout]

Hi,
I have grown water lettuce and Frogbit in a bucket in my garden, as long as there is fertiliser then they will grow well until autumn.
Some helpful bird introduced duckweed as well so I now have too much of that in my tanks.