My Houseplant Journal

[Fanatic]

Hello, as many of you might know I was an enthusiast betta keeper in the past, but now that I no longer have any of my tanks, a new hobby has taken the place of aquariums.

I began working at a greenhouse nearby and quite rapidly I developed an addiction to plants, specifically houseplants or anything you can comfortably grow indoors. It's only been about two months at this point, but my space is now filled with a variety of different plants that I have taken home from work. As an employee there, we have first pick on anything that arrives damaged, isn't up to customer quality standards, or just pulled from the shelf.

So, this will be my journal to keep track of my houseplants and general care routines, feel free to follow along!

Here are the plants I currently have as of today, almost all of them have been repotted, but some I still need to wait to get to.

Aglaonema (Chinese Evergreen) Emerald Bay

Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily)

Pilea (Chinese Money Plant)

Monstera Deliciosa

Golden Pothos

 

[Newbie1234]

I am a plant hobbyist too! Waiting for posts!

 

[Fanatic]

I may be returning (somewhat) to the hobby once more, because I have been thinking about setting up a 20 gallon long with guppies or similar fish in it to keep and use the water on water changes for watering the plants, and I can keep my pothos ivy rooted in the water as well.

I only thought about guppies because they're usually easy to get, fairly inexpensive, and the bioload and waste production should be good for supplying nutrients to my plants.

If anyone else has different suggestions for types of fish, then I would be more than welcome to hear them!

 

[Kribensis27]

AAAAAAAAH I just found this thread!!!!!! I looove plants! I have "way too many" as my mom says, but THERES STILL SPACE FOR MORE!!!! I have mostly orchids and succulents, but also plenty of other stuff. Guppies or endlers sound like good fish for your tank.

 

[V1K]

I like the Pilea, that's a very different look than most of the plants.

I like housplants too. I have a vertical stand with Coleus amboinicus, purple passion plant, Epiphyllum cactus, Aeschynanthus lobbianus, purslane and basil. I also have a tall golden shrimp plant and 19 year old jade plant (not as big as one might think, because I prune it every year; looks a bit like a bonsai). Oh and small Araucaria that is currently decorated with small christmas decorations.

 

[Kribensis27]

I have a few streptocarpus 'grape ice', a calathea lancifolia, a monstera deliciosa, a philodendron burle marxii, a regular heart leaf philodendron, some average golden pothos, a peperomia 'happy bean', a peperomia 'piccolo banda', a 90 year old hoya carnosa, a young coffee tree, 5 phalaenopsis orchids, 2 dendrobium orchids, 2 beallara Marfitch 'Howard's Dream' orchids, 3 cattleya orchids, some snake plants, a natal mahogany tree, a spider plant, a super old bamboo palm, a pink hibiscus, some poinsettias I keep all year, an echeveria agavoides 'aquamarine', an echeveria 'black prince', two aloe nobilis, 15 aloe vera, 7 blooming kalanchoe, a kalanchoe beharensis, 3 crassula ovata 'gollum', 2 regular crassula ovata, a haworthia retusa, 5 haworthia attenuata 'big band', 5 haworthia attenuata normal, a haworthaloe, around 15 different sedums, around 15 different crassulas, a few more echeverias, some aeoniums, some senecios, 2 alocasia 'polly', some cryptanthus 'ruby', some polka dot plants, some columnea, some nematanthus, some soleirolia soleirolii, tillandsia ionantha, tillandsia caput 'medusae', three different types of episcia, some heart leaf ferns, a few lemon button ferns, a nepenthes alata, a few sarracenia, some venus flytrap varieties, some indoor pelargoniums, some pachira aquatica, an echinopsis flambeau 'cristata', a lime tree, and a million different pileas including pilea spruceana 'norfolk', pilea spruceana 'silver tree', pilea involucrata 'moon valley', and pilea 'dark secret'. I've also owned a million other types, and I have a ton of different aquatic plants too.

 

[Lucy]

Cleaned up the thread.
Please don't hi-jack this member's journal with your own side conversations.

Thank you

The question is in bold.

I only thought about guppies because they're usually easy to get, fairly inexpensive, and the bioload and waste production should be good for supplying nutrients to my plants.

If anyone else has different suggestions for types of fish, then I would be more than welcome to hear them!

 

[Pfrozen]

I didn't realize asking a question and participating constituted hijacking. Okay.

I'll answer OPs fish question I guess. Pothos are nitrate suckers, you'll probably end up running 0 nitrates with it rooted in your tank. I have two schools of 7 fish in my 20 and it runs at 0 nitrates between a small length of pothos vine and a spider plant.

I recommend stocking some larger fish or putting together a community if you want there to be enough N for your pothos and other plants. Snails are a good option as well, easy way to up the bioload. Same thing with a BN pleco.

Of course you don't want too many fish tho or the maintenance will take away from the natural experience.

I like to overfilter and only change about 15% weekly in my 0 nitrate Blackwater

 

[goldface]

You can't go wrong with guppies, but if you want very easy, no hassle fish, you could try some rosy red minnows. Being sold as feeders, you should probably buy a few more than what you're planning. You'll likely have a few losses, but the ones that survive will be very hardy.

 

[Kribensis27]

Cleaned up the thread.
Please don't hi-jack this member's journal with your own side conversations.

Thank you

The question is in bold.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were hijacking. Other than guppies and endlers like I mentioned earlier, a good one would be a small shoal of pea puffers. Super fun, and have a ridiculous bioload for their size. They should keep the plants happy.

 

[Dippiedee]

You know what else makes a pretty nice house plant? Avocados! And once they're nice and established they can handle a bit of neglect.

Also, have you grown devils ivy in fish tanks before? When i took mine out of a pot and put it in my betta tank it tripled in size within a couple of months; much more growth than I ever saw when it was potted.

The Chinese evergreen is gorgeous. I'm interested to keep track of your Monstera Deliciosa; I've been debating picking one up for myself but I'm not sure it can survive my 'care'

Here is a (not very good) photo of my avocado. What possessed me to take it at this unflattering angle I don't know lol

 

[Kribensis27]

You know what else makes a pretty nice house plant? Avocados! And once they're nice and established they can handle a bit of neglect.

Also, have you grown devils ivy in fish tanks before? When i took mine out of a pot and put it in my betta tank it tripled in size within a couple of months; much more growth than I ever saw when it was potted.

The Chinese evergreen is gorgeous. I'm interested to keep track of your Monstera Deliciosa; I've been debating picking one up for myself but I'm not sure it can survive my 'care'

Here is a (not very good) photo of my avocado. What possessed me to take it at this unflattering angle I don't know lol

Trust me, monsteras are one of the toughest plants you can buy. I've kept more of them alive then cacti! Just get them a nice well draining soil mix and really any level of light, and they'll do great! Mine does best with an east facing window, but they can handle a south or west facing one too. A north facing window might not give them quite enough light, but practically anything else works. They also do well with LEDs. I also didn't water mine for 3 months one time, still perfectly fine! They're super forgiving plants.

 

[Fanatic]

Okay, so an update!

I lost my juniper bonsai, turns out it should have been kept outdoors and I didn't water it enough from the start, so it ended up drying out and dying without me realizing it soon enough. I replaced it with a brand new one last night after a couple of weeks of waiting.

The new bonsai in question is a ficus fig tree, and it's eight years old.

I also replanted my big Norfolk pine, had this one for a couple of months now.

 

[Kribensis27]

Okay, so an update!

I lost my juniper bonsai, turns out it should have been kept outdoors and I didn't water it enough from the start, so it ended up drying out and dying without me realizing it soon enough. I replaced it with a brand new one last night after a couple of weeks of waiting.

The new bonsai in question is a ficus fig tree, and it's eight years old.

I also replanted my big Norfolk pine, had this one for a couple of months now.

That Norfolk is gorgeous! Do you have any tips in care? I just got my first one a few weeks ago. It’s just about a foot tall.

 

[Fanatic]

That Norfolk is gorgeous! Do you have any tips in care? I just got my first one a few weeks ago. It’s just not about a foot tall.

It's tropical, cannot sustain cold temperatures so I keep it indoors only. I really haven't done much to it yet, just left it in front of a sunny window during the day and water it weekly.

 

[Kribensis27]

It's tropical, cannot sustain cold temperatures so I keep it indoors only. I really haven't done much to it yet, just left it in front of a sunny window during the day and water it weekly.

Ok, I have mine in an east window with some supplemental lighting, so that should be fine, and I’ve been watering it a bit less than that. I’ll start doing weekly. I also mist mine every morning with my orchids as I heard they like a bit of humidity. Is that true?

 

[Fanatic]

Ok, I have mine in an east window with some supplemental lighting, so that should be fine, and I’ve been watering it a bit less than that. I start doing weekly. I also must mine every morning with my orchids as I heard they like a bit of humidity. Is that true?

I'll be honest and say that I don't even have an east-facing window in my house, it's positioned towards NW, and south runs directly through it where no windows could ever exist.

Most plants will benefit from some humidity, so giving this one a bit of exposure to moisture in the air wouldn't hurt it at all.

 

[Nessaf]

This is my Norfolk that I’ve been using as my Christmas tree for five years now. We had moved to Colorado in August and our artificial Christmas tree was still at my Mom’s house. So I picked up this Norfolk pine at Walmart for half-price ($10) a few days before Christmas. It was about a foot and a half tall and now it’s about three and a half feet tall.

As for tips on growing, I keep it in a sunny window and water it either with the slimy water from my dog’s water bowl or aquarium water. I plan on transplanting it into a bigger pot after the Christmas season, so fingers crossed.

I look at houseplants as a perfect complement to aquariums as I use the water from water changes to water my plants.

 

[Fanatic]

This is my Norfolk that I’ve been using as my Christmas tree for five years now. We had moved to Colorado in August and our artificial Christmas tree was still at my Mom’s house. So I picked up this Norfolk pine at Walmart for half-price ($10) a few days before Christmas. It was about a foot and a half tall and now it’s about three and a half feet tall.

As for tips on growing, I keep it in a sunny window and water it either with the slimy water from my dog’s water bowl or aquarium water. I plan on transplanting it into a bigger pot after the Christmas season, so fingers crossed.

Yes, that's awesome! I am hoping that mine will grow a lot larger so I can continue to decorate it for the following years.

 

[Nessaf]

Ok, I have mine in an east window with some supplemental lighting, so that should be fine, and I’ve been watering it a bit less than that. I’ll start doing weekly. I also mist mine every morning with my orchids as I heard they like a bit of humidity. Is that true?

Mine is usually kept in an East window as well, although sometime I move it to a south window area depending on the season, when I need more window sill space for garden seedlings. The ceramic pot it is in is decorative and holds the plastic pot it is actually planted in, which is actually up on some rocks. So water will sit under the pot and create a bit of localized humidity.

I don’t mist mine, but the window it usually is in is just to one side of one of my aquariums, again giving more humidity. I don’t mist my phalaenopsis either, but they also get aquarium water weekly.

 

[V1K]

The ceramic pot it is in is decorative and holds the plastic pot it is actually planted in, which is actually up on some rocks. So water will sit under the pot and create a bit of localized humidity.

I have similar setup, and since mine is glass, after getting the aquarium I removed some rocks and threw some extra moss in. There's a bladder snail living there too.

 

[Kribensis27]

Mine is usually kept in an East window as well, although sometime I move it to a south window area depending on the season, when I need more window sill space for garden seedlings. The ceramic pot it is in is decorative and holds the plastic pot it is actually planted in, which is actually up on some rocks. So water will sit under the pot and create a bit of localized humidity.

I don’t mist mine, but the window it usually is in is just to one side of one of my aquariums, again giving more humidity. I don’t mist my phalaenopsis either, but they also get aquarium water weekly.

Thanks! Yeah, I usually don’t mist the phals, mostly the oncidiums and dendrobiums.