Can You Place Your Peace Lily in Aquarium?

Peace lilies thrive in tropical forest floors. They’re easy to grow and adaptable. Hence, they’ve become popular office and home decorations for house owners.

However, can you place your Peace lily in aquarium? The short answer is yes. Although Peace lilies typically grow in soil, they can adapt to water environments.

In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about growing your Peace lilies in an aquarium. Let’s jump in!

What Are the Advantages of Growing Your Peace Lily in an Aquarium?

Your Peace lilies enhance not only the overall landscape of your aquarium but save you a ton of time to maintain them. They can also improve the living conditions of your aquatic pets.

Here are six advantages of growing your Peace lilies in an aquarium:

1. No More Watering

The first and most obvious benefit of growing your Peace lilies in an aquarium is you don’t have to water them. Unlike Peace lilies growing in soil, they can take care of their watering and humidity requirements on their own.

Besides, the water can also help maintain the right humid environment for your Peace lilies.

2. No Need to Repot

Peace lilies growing in water don’t need repotting. Instead, you can change the container to the ideal size for your plant and fill it with water. Place your Peace lily into it and make sure that you don’t submerge parts other than the roots.

3. Fewer Pest Infestations

Soggy soil often attracts pests like Aphids and spider mites. So, if you place your Peace lilies in an aquarium, they’ll have lower risks of infestation. In fact, if you take good care of them, there’ll be none at all.

4. Lower Risk of Root Rot

An extremely soggy soil mix usually causes root rot in Peace lilies. However, since you’re growing them in water, their roots have lower risks of rotting.

5. Provide Shelter for Fish

Peace lily roots can serve as a shelter for your fish and provide a home for hatching snails. Plus, they can also be a breeding space and hiding spot for grown fish.

6. Can Keep the Water Clean

Did you know that Peace lilies can absorb nutrients from the water?

If you place them in your fish tank, they’ll absorb the nutrients in the water that are made from fish poop. Therefore, they can help keep the aquarium clean and reduce the growth of algae.

What Are the Disadvantages of Growing Your Peace Lily in an Aquarium?

Peace lilies bring benefits to your home and your fish’s habitats, but they also come with drawbacks. Here are three disadvantages to growing your Peace lily in an aquarium:

1. Less Nutrient Absorption

Peace lilies might take lots of time to grow in an aquarium since they don’t get as many nutrients as the Peace lilies in pots. Although they’re adaptable plants, they’ll need time to adjust as they originally grow in soil.

For instance, your Peace lilies are less likely to bloom flowers due to a lack of nutrients. This is mostly the case if the Peace lilies haven’t had the time to adjust to living in water.

Peace lilies that have already adapted usually have lots of tiny roots—as opposed to several large roots.

2. Shorter Lifespan

Peace lilies grown in water have a shorter lifespan than the ones in soil. On average, they can only live for a year. In contrast, Peace lilies in soil can survive up to five years.

Furthermore, you can transfer your Peace lilies to potting soil if you want them to thrive longer than a year.

3. Toxic to Fish

Peace lilies contain saps that contain calcium oxide. This substance isn’t harmful to fish as long as they don’t turn to them as a full meal. A few nibbles are fine, though. Nevertheless, you have to feed them regularly. Otherwise, they’ll turn to the Peace lilies’ roots as food.

Moreover, make sure that you only submerge the roots in the water. If their stems, stalks, and flowers come into contact with water, they’ll start to decompose.

In time, the decomposition will release a chemical called calcium oxalate crystals. This chemical is toxic to fish, especially if your beloved pets consume them.

Lastly, wash your hands thoroughly after you’ve cleaned the tank and have come in contact with the Peace lilies.

How Do You Care for Peace Lily in an Aquarium?

Peace lilies aren’t high-maintenance. However, if you don’t tend to them properly, they won’t thrive either in soil or water.

Here’s how you can take proper care of your Peace lilies:

1. Use Rainwater or Distilled Water

Although you don’t need to water your Peace lilies regularly, you have to change the water of the aquarium once or twice every week.

Avoid using tap water as it can contain harmful minerals and chemicals, such as fluoride, chlorine, and bicarbonates. These substances cause yellowing and browning of the leaves.

Alternatively, you can use rainwater or distilled water because they have lesser chemical deposits. However, if you use tap water, make sure to let it sit overnight. This way, it’ll allow the chemicals to evaporate, therefore, leaving behind clean water.

2. Keep Peace Lilies Away from Direct Sunlight

Your Peace lilies don’t need sunlight. They thrive under indirect sunlight or dappled light. So, you can place your aquarium three to five feet away from south-facing windows. You can keep them near a north-facing window where they can get moderate sunlight as well.

3. Use Water Soluble Fertilizer

Since you’re growing your Peace lilies in an aquarium, a liquid or water-soluble fertilizer is your best choice. Alternatively, you can make organic fertilizer for your Peace lily. Turning potato peels into liquid in a food processor will do.

Keep in mind that your Peace lilies are low feeders, so you don’t need to fertilize them regularly. You can apply fertilizer once every six weeks, preferably during summer and spring. You should avoid fertilizing in the winter because Peace lilies become dormant.

Usually, an indication of over-fertilizing is brown tips on your Peace lilies’ flowers and leaves.

Moreover, drop a few drops of fertilizer into the water after cleaning the tank. Some of your best options for organic fertilizers include:

4. Monitor the Tank’s Temperature

Peace lilies are tropical plants that can thrive at the same temperatures as human beings.

Typically, they need temperatures ranging from 65℉ to 85℉. Although they can tolerate a drop of 10℉ during the night, temperatures below 60℉ can damage their leaves and cause them to turn brown or wilt.

Keep the aquarium away from cold windows or drafts coming from electrical appliances, such as air conditioners. Other devices that release hot air, like heaters and radiators, can also cause damage to your Peace lilies.

Better yet, install a thermometer on your aquarium to monitor the temperature.

5. Be on the Lookout For Pests

While Peace lilies have lower risks of pest infestations, you should look out for pests, namely aphids, spider mites, and mealybugs. Typically, signs of pest infestations are brown and distorted leaves.

If you notice an infestation, clean the tank and change the water. You need to clean your Peace lilies as well. Then, spray the plant with pesticide. Some of the best pesticides in the market are:

What Should You Consider Before Placing Your Peace Lily in an Aquarium?

Peace lilies are great additions to your aqua scape setup. However, here are three things you should consider if you want to guarantee that your Peace lily thrives in an aquarium:

1. Choose a Matured Peace Lily

You can’t plant Peace lilies by stem or leaf cutting. Although you can grow them from seed, they take time to develop into mature plants. Generally, they take two to three years to mature. It’s much easier to just buy them from a plant shop.

By doing so, you can ensure that they’ve already developed crowns, which is something you need to divide before growing them in the water. Mature Peace lilies are four feet tall and six feet wide.

2. Peace Lily Must be Healthy

In addition to choosing matured Peace lilies, you need them to be healthy too. Make sure that they don’t have yellowing leaves or brown streaks. This is often a sign that the Peace lilies aren’t growing well.

Healthy Peace lilies have dark green and glossy leaves around six inches long. They also bloom white to off-white flowers if they’re well taken care of.

3. Water Adapted Peace Lily

If you’re going to purchase Peace lilies from the shop, it’s best to opt for Peace lilies that are already growing in water. This way, the Peace lilies have already adapted to the water environment and will surely survive.

Wrap Up

Can you place your Peace lily in aquarium? Well, yes, you can! In fact, growing them in water makes them a lot easier to maintain because you don’t need to water them. They can even provide your aquatic pets with shelter or breeding space.

Just keep in mind that the roots are the only parts of the plants that you should submerge in water. Replace the tank with distilled water, don’t place the aquarium in direct sunlight, and use a water-soluble fertilizer.

To ensure that the Peace lilies survive, purchase mature and healthy ones—preferably Peace lilies that have already grown in water before.

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