Reducing nitrate level using pothos plant

Hi all,

In my Aquarium I have got a constant nitrate level 40ppm. I have performed water change and still it showing same. I found in Google that if we down pothos plant roots in the Aquarium, they will reduce the nitrate for some extent. But I can see mixed reviews for the same.

Anybody have any personal experience in that?

I have found the below plant. Please confirm whether it's a pothos plant?

 

How often are you doing water changes? What’s the stock of your tank? If you use pothos your better off buying from a place where you know there’s no chemicals On it.

 

Hi,
My tap water here in London is really high in nitrates and before I got a little RO unit, I used pothos to help reduce the nitrates.
I'll be honest, it didn't work miracles for me (you've probably seen on YouTube where people have what looks like a jungle of pothos is a sump) I just had a couple of cuttings in each of my aquariums along with dwarf water lettuce which is also good for taking up nitrates. Plus I put Seachem De-nitrate/Matrix in my filters.
One, or maybe a combination of these definitely dropped my nitrates though!

Re your picture, yes, that's a pothos and the best way to go about using one (bearing in mind what jkkgron2 said) is to take a couple of cuttings and put them in a jug of water. After a week or so, they'll start to grow roots which are used to just being in water. I believe that if you just clean the earth off and dunk an existing plant into the aquarium, it'll not cope with the change.
When I switched to RO I got rid of the plants, but I kept this one in a jar where it's lived happily for a few years now!


Hope this helps!
Emma

 

Yes, that looks like the plant folks are recommending. I have pothos roots in my 2.5 gallon snail jar and they do in alright job in there. The jar is about half filled with roots. I didn't have much luck using them in my 55 gallon tank though.

What I found worked for me is Nitra-zorb. It actually pulled the nitrates out of there. If you decide to get some be sure to get some aquarium salt too. You use the salt to recharge the nitra-zorb so it can be used over and over. Folks have reported that the bag the nitra-zorb comes in doesn't hold up very well over time so you might want to consider getting a very fine mesh media bag to put it in.

The bag it comes in was actually too big for the filters I was going to use it in so I divided it up into 2 pieces of panty hose. This way I can put one in each of the 2 HOB filters I run on my big tank.

 

Thank you friends for the advices.

 

I believe that if you just clean the earth off and dunk an existing plant into the aquarium, it'll not cope with the change.

It worked for me!
I have a whole plant on my tank that grows fast but it still doesn't quite reduce nitrates as much as I'd hoped, if at all.

 

It absolutely reduces nitrate. It's hard to determine how much unless you do a controlled study with the same sized plant in a tank that doesn't have increasing nitrate (no fish or anything). Everyone's tank has different nitrate production, lighting, plant size, etc.

If you struggle with nitrate, I 100% recommend a pothos plant. The more of it you use, the more nitrate will be removed.

Another thing to check is whether you have nitrate in your tap water. Some people do so it will make water changes only capable of bringing your nitrate down so much. In this case, an RO unit or buying water at a water store is the best way to go. Just don't forget to add back minerals so your GH and KH is optimal.

 

It worked for me!
I have a whole plant on my tank that grows fast but it still doesn't quite reduce nitrates as much as I'd hoped, if at all.

That's good to know!
Certainly a lot easier than getting cuttings to root!