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  1. #1
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Lillies - do they actually need soil?

    I was thinking - I have two large lillies that are happy in 70cm of water in the old pond, the koi have excavated the pots but they seem happy without soil. The roots have broken through the baskets anyway. I was thinking - perhaps using a hanging basket and the plant at a depth of 70cm on one wall in the new pond. Total depth of the new pond would be about 1.75m



  2. #2
    Senior Member Rank = Jussai Spongebob's Avatar
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    They definitely dont need soil but they do need nutrients from somewhere. If you have no soil they would normally get this from the fish waste and pond crud, which hopefully isnt there! Otherwise you would add fertilizer to the water, which of course you cant do. But presuming they dont rip the actual lilies apart cant hurt to try?

  3. #3
    Place them in a Tesco home delivery basket with pea shingle, line the basket with Terram or similar. As your putting them in quite deep water I’d think about covering with a Terran and putting some off cuts of Indian Sandstone on the top of the shingle to stop the shingle being dug out.
    I don’t have the issue as I have them in a veg section the koi have no access to.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    Mine are in Anoxic baskets growing really well.

    That's basically graded moler clay from here;

    https://www.kaizenbonsai.com/moler-m...-growing-media

    And a small amount of aquabasis in the middle of the basket, from eBay.

    Planting in that medium hits 2 birds with one stone, and there's no soil or mess.

    You could put tights over the top of the basket with a hole for the lillies to grow through to avoid fish digging out the baskets.

    Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

  5. #5
    I was also wondering the same thing. Saw a video on YouTube where a guy building ponds in the states had someone with a really green pond and found it was because she added loads of pond plants with the soil (and fertiliser) still on. He said it would be fine without it, and obviously better for the algae situation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDPXM3cVCtE

  6. #6
    Senior Member Rank = Hassai Mike Bass's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by laulau View Post
    I was also wondering the same thing. Saw a video on YouTube where a guy building ponds in the states had someone with a really green pond and found it was because she added loads of pond plants with the soil (and fertiliser) still on. He said it would be fine without it, and obviously better for the algae situation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDPXM3cVCtE
    With aquaponic planting you don’t actually need any soil at all, the nutrients ( nitrates) the plants need to thrive all come from the water itself. To anchor the plants within the baskets used inert clay beads used specifically for the purpose of securing the plant against the wind, giving the roots something to hold onto. Therefore no extra soil to add extra nitrates and feed the green algae. The plants thriving are an indication that they are drawing nitrates out of the water.
    added note if the plants are in amongst the fish you need to zip tie a plastic or stainless mesh over the clay beads to stop the beads floating up or being rooted out by the koi.
    Last edited by Mike Bass; 07-08-2020 at 08:32 AM.
    1kGal BD/Skim RDF/UV/k1 2.3kGal 2windows 2airBD/skim Sieve/Eazypod RDFcombi+bakki 3xVP/UV,ASHP

  7. #7
    Senior Member Rank = Gosai Jampot's Avatar
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    But the big win with anoxic filtration surely is that ammonia is turned into di-nitrogen (or something) without producing nitrate. so the only nitrate in the water to feed the plants is that which is produced by conventional bacteria on the hard surfaces in the pond etc.

    Is that likely to be sufficient to sustain large or many plants?

    Jim
    I don't keep fish, I keep water. I don't keep fish, I keep water. I don't keep fish I kee........

  8. #8
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jampot View Post
    But the big win with anoxic filtration surely is that ammonia is turned into di-nitrogen (or something) without producing nitrate. so the only nitrate in the water to feed the plants is that which is produced by conventional bacteria on the hard surfaces in the pond etc.

    Is that likely to be sufficient to sustain large or many plants?

    Jim
    True. di-nitrogen is N2, nitrogen gas. So the anoxic short cuts and so there's less nitrate (part of the reason the new pond will have an anoxic filter) but the small pond is where the lilies are at the moment.

    Difficult to say with certainty without trying and measuring.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  9. #9
    Senior Member Rank = Hassai Mike Bass's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jampot View Post
    But the big win with anoxic filtration surely is that ammonia is turned into di-nitrogen (or something) without producing nitrate. so the only nitrate in the water to feed the plants is that which is produced by conventional bacteria on the hard surfaces in the pond etc.

    Is that likely to be sufficient to sustain large or many plants?

    Jim
    The plants I had growing in the “anoxic” tank didn’t do so well as those in other tanks/floating beds in trays elsewhere within the same ponds filtration system, so I would say there is plenty of Nitrogen to be utilised just not in the anoxic bed.
    5906D03C-E2EA-4C6E-9609-A888ECA4ED20.jpg
    so the best results are when you keep the anoxic & aquaponics system’s separate
    so they can each perform their different tasks.
    D8166EAF-6508-46A7-B736-886CDEEC1D12.jpg
    The floating salad & brassica crops are just running off my QT tank which has 4 x30 cm fish in as well as brush/Matt/k1. & Alfa grog trickle shower.
    E678F83E-91B5-4DC5-B3F6-B6BEDC0CEF17.jpg
    E4F84B39-02DF-4FA4-8B38-0667EC56C97D.jpgD1F5E656-EC76-4A78-92E6-103899525B7C.jpg20502C09-68B5-434F-ADB8-517406AD5800.jpg
    The 1000gallon pond has floating rafts of aquaponic plants growing above the bio chambers after the drum & the QT tank In the greenhouse even has rafts of polystyrene cut outs with little cup baskets above the sieve & after the K1 and they grow uncontrollably so plenty of nitrate to feed them
    & currently I have 60 fish of various sizes in the 1kgallon pond until the new pond is completed
    Last edited by Mike Bass; 07-08-2020 at 02:03 PM.
    1kGal BD/Skim RDF/UV/k1 2.3kGal 2windows 2airBD/skim Sieve/Eazypod RDFcombi+bakki 3xVP/UV,ASHP

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