# indoor pond plant?



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

My in-laws have an indoor pond that I believe gets a fair amount of indirect light which they keep some goldfish in. I am wondering about some plant, floater probably that would both look good and be good for the pond to lower nitrates. They basically do no maintenance on the pond, just top it up once in a while. The pond is about 5 or 6 feet x about 3 feet. 

A couple options would be nice as the plant selection in Kingston isn't that great


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## juyun1 (Apr 7, 2012)

*Indoor Pond*

I think some floating water lettuce and frogbit would be good. They do a good job of cleaning the water and the leaves are large.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Try some water lotus or water lily. Unless you dump a large quantity of floating plants in there to keep up with the demands of the gold fish. Most floating plants will get eaten or have their roots eating.

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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I think you would find that water lettuce won't grow without a considerable amount of light. It likes full sun, or as close to it as it can get. The mini type that we like on our tanks is the same plant as the big one. For some reason I don't understand, it simply stays small most of the time, but it can grow to full size given the conditions it likes to do so. Perhaps the small size is due to the tank lighting rather than sunlight.. I don't know for sure. 

I do know it would not grow for me in my first tank until I upgraded my lights from what I started with, and frogbit would not grow in my original low light either.

One way to get some idea of the amount of actual light getting to their pond would be to try taking a picture of it in it's natural light with an SLR camera. If you need a very slow shutter speed or very large aperture to get a good pic, the light is fairly low. 

If you need both slow speed and large aperture, it's very low light and there probably aren't too many true water plants that would do well in it. But you might do ok using some houseplants that are actually marginal pond plants where they originate. Peace lily, for example, will tolerate fairly low light, though it prefers it brighter. It loves to be very moist, so it might well grow nicely at the edge of the pond, in the water. Spider plant, especially the all green version, might also do well. Spider plants will grow rooted in water for very long periods of time, so while they are not pond plants, they are so tolerant of having their roots in water for a long time, they could last a long time, provided the leaves are not submerged. Don't know if goldfish would eat the roots, but even if they did, spider plants are cheap, easy to get and if they fail, not much is lost. If there is enough light, even the variegated spiders might do ok this way.

But most floaters like quite a bit of light. Even in what we consider low light tanks, when you think about it, they are very, very close to the lights, so they get enough light to keep them happy. Anything below water would get a lot less light in the situation you describe, so unless you grew something emersed, I can't think of many that would likely survive.

With an indoor pond such as you describe, if all it has is window light, how close is the pond to the window or windows and which way do the windows face ? Or is it a skylight type of situation, and if so, which way is the skylight oriented and how far above the pond is the skylight ? 

Without knowing what sort of windows there are, I'd think placing some of the more tolerant houseplants by the pond would make it look really nice, and they'd be good with most lighting. They'd also really appreciate the extra humidity being near water. For Philodendrons, any of the green types, but only in pots by the pond, not in water. For Chinese evergreen, any excepting the cultivars with a lot of white on the leaves or stems, also outside the water. For Peace Lily, any of them, though best to get one that isn't going to top out at ten feet, and would grow in water. Even Snake plant, that is, Sansevieria, does very well in most lighting conditions indoors and looks good even though they really prefer drier growing conditions. So long as they aren't IN water, they'd be good. 

And a Peace Lily, aka, Spathyphylum, would, if the pond's contours allowed it, be fine planted in a pot sitting in the water, so long as it is not too deep. The pot would stop fish nibbling too much of the roots. You would not want water over the pot edge, as you don't want the crowns to be under water, only the roots. I'd repot the plant with something like Shultz's pond soil, which is a baked clay type of material, rather than the potting soil it comes in, to avoid messing up the water. Wash off the potting soil, then spread the roots out and fill in with the Schultz's in the pot. Another possibility might be Aspidistra, aka Cast Iron plant, treated in the same way as the Peace Lily. Only problem with those is that they tend to be quite expensive and hard to find. But despite their reputation for tolerating dim light and dryness, if memory serves me, they are truly a marginal pond plant and would be happy like the Peace Lily would, in the pond, with even less light.


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