# Rooting pothos in substrate



## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

Hello!

I've recently set up my first Walstad tank, and it's been very exciting so far! One problem I think I may run into is anaerobic substrate. My tank is the standard Aqueon 5.5 gallon, and I think for a tank so small, I may have made the substrate layer too thick (1inch soil, 1 - 1.5in peace river gravel).

I think I'll need to wait a bit longer to see for sure if it goes anaerobic. But in the meantime...

I have a pothos that's growing quite well, and it occurred to me that if I was able to root it in my substrate, it could help provide oxygen quite efficiently (since it has the aerial advantage). Has anyone had success with getting a pothos (or other kind of terrestrial plant) to root in their substrate? I've seen plenty of people just throw the pothos in and let the roots grow in the water, but would that be too much competition for the aquarium plants I currently have?


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

I've neverdeliberately tried to do this, but one time pothos in a tank did send roots down to the substrate. In this case the substrate was just a thin layer of gravel. The roots in the water were healthy, but the ones growing into the substrate rotted right at the surface of the gravel. Perhaps pothos can't tolerate the mildly anaerobic conditions under the gravel.

Try a true aquatic or emersed plant with strong roots, like a cryptocoryne.


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## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

Michael said:


> The roots in the water were healthy, but the ones growing into the substrate rotted right at the surface of the gravel. Perhaps pothos can't tolerate the mildly anaerobic conditions under the gravel.


That's interesting. Maybe I'll test it out in a jar with some soil first and see how it goes.



Michael said:


> Try a true aquatic or emersed plant with strong roots, like a cryptocoryne.


I have planted the tank pretty densely so far. I will post a picture later, but I have some that should develop pretty good roots I think (vallisneria, cryptocoryne, a small sword called echinodorus parviflorus, and some others). Right now I'm just a bit paranoid that things will go badly, and wanted to get a jump start on the issue with the pothos. But if it won't root in the aquarium substrate, that probably won't be the way to go


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

The plants you already have should do what you want. If you want to do something else right away, poke the substrate with a chopstick or pencil every inch or so. This will release any trapped CO2 and help aerate the soil layer.


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## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

Here is the tank (apologies for lack of photography skills). Vallisneria is in the back middle, pearl grass in the back right (will this root well?), stem plants in the back left (Brazilian Pennywort and elodea. This corner worries me, as when I originally planted, I didn't realize these wouldn't root. May need to put another rooted plant there). Midground has the swords on the left and middle, crypt on the right, and a ludwigia repens in the middle-leftish (also not sure if this will develop extensive roots). Foreground is two types of dwarf hairgrass, Lilaeopsis mauritiana (micro sword), and dwarf baby tears. Floating plants are duckweed and Salvinia minima. 

I realize now that I didn't plan the layout optimally for even distribution of roots. Hopefully things shape up well anyway  I did start poking the substrate with a paperclip as well. Thanks for the advice!


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Pretty tank! You've got a lot of nice plants. It may do fine without any tinkering. I think a Pothos houseplant would spoil the effect in such a small tank.

Poking the substrate is a good idea when first using an organic soil. 

The gravel layer is thicker than it should be. If it were my tank, I would remove some of the gravel. You could do it surgically with a soup spoon just towards center where there are mainly small plants and open areas.


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## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

Thanks for the advice! I kinda tried scooping out some substrate as you suggested, but it was a bit awkward with how the plants are distributed, and I don't think I can remove much without redoing some of the aquascape. If the carpet plants in front continue not to grow (or get worse), I may pull them, remove some gravel, and replace them with something else. For now, I'll wait a bit longer and see how it goes (and continue poking the substrate). 

After reading some other threads here, I'm toying with removing the driftwood as well. I like how it looks, but not enough to risk suffocating the soil. I pushed it down as far as I can, so hopefully there's not too much soil underneath. Again, I'll see how it goes for a while before doing anything drastic. The good news is the pearl grass and vallisneria seems to be doing well; lots of growth and new leaves. Next trip to the LFS I'll pick up some more rooting plants for that back left corner.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

I like your patience, upbeat attitude and the fact that some plants are growing. Enjoy!


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

If you are careful, you can vacuum some gravel out with a siphon. The trick is to go slowly and hold the end of the siphon at just the right distance from the gravel surface.

About the driftwood, in the photo it looks like it just barely resting on the surface of the gravel, and does not seem to have a wide base. If so, this is good. Water circulation around the wood will help to prevent the substrate under it from becoming anaerobic.

I agree with Diana, it is a very nice looking tank!


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## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

Thanks for the encouragement, it goes a long ways  

I've been keeping up poking the gravel. Lots of bubbles come out - I assume that's mostly CO2? The pennywort and floating plants are seeing tremendous growth, and there are some new runners coming off the micro sword. 

Pearl grass seems to have slowed a bit, but is still growing. The carpet plants are stagnant, besides the aforementioned micro sword. The larger leaves on the vallisneria keep melting. Maybe those were the old leaves grown emerged, and they didn't acclimate to the tank? There are still healthy younger leaves though. 

My crypt and larger swords seem unchanged. They still look healthy, but haven't grown. Are these expected to take a while to get established? And interestingly, the elodea has stopped growing as well (I expected this to grow very fast). The ludwigia totally melted away, there's just one small stem left. 

I also threw in some bulbs I got from petco, to hopefully fill in some of the blank spots. Although I've heard I may have limited success getting them to grow, depending on the quality. 

Oh, and since the water parameters have been stable the last week or so, yesterday I added the tank's newest tenant!

Edit: Oh, and thanks for the tip about siphoning Michael. I'll give that a shot.


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## MistyPhi (Oct 30, 2019)

A beautiful tank and fish. I really like the driftwood but I'm afraid of over complicating things for myself since I'm new to all this. It looks so good in your tank though that I will definitely be considering it for the future.

I'm amazed at just how much you've managed to cram into such a small tank and still make it look incredible and with plenty of space for your newest member. Inspiring.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

jatcar95 said:


> I've been keeping up poking the gravel. Lots of bubbles come out - I assume that's mostly CO2?
> 
> My crypt and larger swords seem unchanged. They still look healthy, but haven't grown. Are these expected to take a while to get established? And interestingly, the elodea has stopped growing as well (I expected this to grow very fast). The ludwigia totally melted away, there's just one small stem left.
> 
> I also threw in some bulbs I got from petco, to hopefully fill in some of the blank spots. Although I've heard I may have limited success getting them to grow, depending on the quality.


If you still have that thick gravel layer, it is good you are poking the substrate. Most of the gas is CO2. Poke gently around plant roots so as not to injure them.

Crypts are slow to take off. The Amazon should move faster.

Val is not an emergent plant, so it may just be adjusting to the new conditions in your tank?

Be careful with those bulbs, which could cause problems in the substrate if they do not sprout and start rotting. I would keep their tops near the gravel surface where you can monitor them. [The ones I got from Petco (Red Tiger Lotus) never sprouted.]


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## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

MistyPhi, thanks so much for the compliment! I'm pretty new at this as well, so very appreciated! I would probably not have risked the driftwood either, had I known more about substrate oxygenation - it's really just my ignorance that allowed me to add it in  But now I don't want to mess things up by removing it so we'll see...

dwalstad Thanks for ongoing support and tips. Once roots are established, would I be able to stop gravel-poking? Or as long as the gravel is this thick, would you recommend it? I didn't have a chance to try removing again, but that would definitely be the ideal solution.

I did notice that one val has actually sent off a little runner! I think you're right about it adjusting - earlier on I was messing with my water hardness to get to the desired level. Those changes probably upset the plants somewhat.

I'll definitely keep an eye on the bulbs. I have them barely nestled in the substrate right now. They want to float, and one escaped the gravel and is bobbing around now. I figure that may actually be a good way to monitor them, to see if they're growing roots.

Thanks all!


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

You don't have to poke gravel forever. Although your gravel layer is deeper than it should be, it may work with the poking. 

Soil chaos lasts about 2-8 weeks. Once you see that rooted plants are growing, then you can ease off or stop poking. That means that the substrate is becoming "healthy" and less anaerobic; rooted plants are strong and photosynthesizing enough to keep their roots safely oxygenated. 

It's a good sign that your Val is multiplying.


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## jatcar95 (Oct 30, 2019)

Just a little update. The tank has been up for just over five weeks.

My main concern is still with the substrate. I managed to scoop some gravel out in the middle areas, but it's still pretty thick in others. I try not to jostle things around too much, but I have noticed with my poking that the crypt still seems very loosely rooted. It does have a few tiny new leaves though, so that's a good sign. I believe the driftwood is creating some anaerobic pockets underneath, as warned. When I wiggle it, a substantial number of bubbles will come out of the substrate.

Things are going pretty well though. The floating plants are growing incredibly fast!! I have to remove about half of them each week, and they just completely clog the surface again by next time. Stem plants do their thing and keep needing to be trimmed back. The val is growing nicely, and has sent off multiple runners. I can see its roots along the back of the tank, and they are a good-looking white color all the way down into the dirt...which I assume means it's winning the fight against anaerobic substrate in that part of the tank. The big sword is putting out new leaves (the smaller one seems unchanged, but looks healthy still). The micro-sword is sending out runners, and even the DHG is starting to propagate. The dwarf baby tears unfortunately does not look like it will make it, but it gave a valiant effort.

I've also had some surprising results with the bulbs! The biggest one, some kind of _Aponogeton_, has sprouted leaves and seems to be taking off. Two others are also sprouting - one was listed as some kind of water onion, and one is maybe some kind of lily? I'm not totally sure. I threw out the other bubs, as they were just disintegrating.

I added some seachem equilibrium and seachem alkaline buffer, as my tap's dGH and dKH are very low (2, 1 respectively). I got it up to 7dGH and 6dKH a couple of weeks ago, but it has declined since. Now it's at 6dGH and 5dKH. I may add a bit more next time I need to top up the tank. (Also, is my notation correct? I've also seen dH, which I think refers to GH. Am I just making up dGH?)

Should I remove the driftwood? Can the tank still thrive if there are some parts of the soil that are anaerobic, or will that destabilize the whole thing? The driftwood itself doesn't seem to be rotting, if that makes any difference. The driftwood is also partially embedded in the substrate, so I'm worried removing it will mix it up.

Thanks for the help from this community. This has been very rewarding so far, and I'm learning a ton!

Oh, and Funfetti (Fett) is doing well. He's VERY active, and even seems to have let the ghost shrimps continue to share the space (for now)!


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Very nice to hear such good results for your tank and your experience with the bulbs.

I think that we are all talking about GH (General Hardness); dGH may be just "degrees GH" with an associated misspelling.

As to driftwood.... In a tank where there are few rooted plants and a deep substrate, driftwood may cause problems with the DOC it releases and the anaerobic pockets it creates in the substrate. In contrast, _the same driftwood_ in a tank with lots of healthy plants--like your tank--may be a benefit. The DOC released may become a source of CO2 for the plants; the accelerated plant growth benefits the tank's ecosystem.

If your plants are growing and the fish/shrimp are happy, gas under driftwood is a non-issue. I only complain about driftwood when I see a driftwood tank having problems. 

I am glad that you shared your tank's progress with us.


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