Floating Plants with Canister Filter?

[fish4phil]

I attempted to put floating Amazon Frogbit into my 36G pressurized CO2, but my canister filter blew them all around, to the side, and starting flipping them upside down, which these plants hate.

I don't want to turn my filtration down, or get a different filter.

My only idea is to point the filter output down to get zero surface agitation, and add an air pump, though I've read planted tanks should not have air pumps (and oh the noise!).

Thoughts?

 

[wildroseofky]

You can corral floating plants with a section of airline tubing. Get a airline tube connector at a fish store and make a circle. You put the plants in that to keep them in one place. Tie a piece of fishing line to the circle and tape the other end to the tank to hold it in one place. You can also attach suction cups to the end and just string it across the tank in front of the outflow to keep the plants from being pushed under the water.

You can use airstones and sponge filters in a tank with plants. I have a air pump driven sponge filter in my Betta tank and my 5 gallon tank. Both heavily planted. No problems. If you are using CO2 it can take some of it out of the water but I have never had a problem with plant growth.

 

[Delapool]

I ended up wrapping string around it and then tying off. It was a good sized plant but had no troubles. It did trap a lot if muck though and was a pain to clean each water change. Fry loved it.

Thinking of running a plant tank over winter to try and grow some cuttings out to decent size to do it again.

 

[fish4phil]

What if I position a O2 airstone from an air pump directly below my filter output, and blow the bubbles around the tank?

Or, if I had 0 surface agitation from my filter and had only 1 airstone going to the surface, would this create enough O2 for the fish? With this way, would I have to run the airstone day and night or just night? (Medium to heavy planted)

 

[Delapool]

My experience has been the plants still get moved around in the current until they can lodge into something.

 

[fish4phil]

What about using a spray bar? I'm using the nozzle now, but the spray bar has 3 sections, each of which I can angle differently.
1 section over the CO2 diffuser
1 section to create some surface agitation
1 section to create more flow in tank

Ou I like that idea, thoughts?

 

[Fresh2o]

What if I position a O2 airstone from an air pump directly below my filter output, and blow the bubbles around the tank?

Or, if I had 0 surface agitation from my filter and had only 1 airstone going to the surface, would this create enough O2 for the fish? With this way, would I have to run the airstone day and night or just night? (Medium to heavy planted)

That should work; anything to break the surface and introduce new water there. The canister should provide enough movement to create turnover in the deeper areas of the tank.
What size is the tank? Canister make or model? Plants aside from the frogbit? Number of fish? Just trying to get a picture of your situation and since the mobile app for iPhone has been sketchy recently cannot really scroll up as mush as I'd like to (app crashes).

 

[fish4phil]

That should work; anything to break the surface and introduce new water there. The canister should provide enough movement to create turnover in the deeper areas of the tank.
What size is the tank? Canister make or model? Plants aside from the frogbit? Number of fish? Just trying to get a picture of your situation and since the mobile app for iPhone has been sketchy recently cannot really scroll up as mush as I'd like to (app crashes).

36 Gallon Community, will be 30 fish (all small, neon tetras, guppies, zebra danios, etc.) with a Penn Plax Cascade 700 filter and a small hydor koralia (10x total water flow between the both), floating plants as mentioned with ground cover, stem plants, background/midground plants, anubias

 

[Fresh2o]

36 Gallon Community, will be 30 fish (all small, neon tetras, guppies, zebra danios, etc.) with a Penn Plax Cascade 700 filter and a small hydor koralia (10x total water flow between the both), floating plants as mentioned with ground cover, stem plants, background/midground plants, anubias

Not sure you need the air stone at all or spray bar since you have both the canister and power head in there. The air stone might gas off your co2. The plants will be helping to supply o2.