# Peace lilly pollen poisonous to fish?



## sciencefiction (24 Jun 2014)

I am a bit worried about my peace lily flowers possibly harming my fish. I have it growing emersed and it's been shooting flowers like crazy recently.  The pollen/white powder falls in the water if I am not careful and accidentally touch the plant.
I finally put some cling film to block some of it from falling in the water.

Can it poison my fish? The reason I have some doubts is because a platy died for no reason whatsoever. It was fine yesterday, dead today. It may have been because she was too old as most are already 3 years old but then it was a bit sudden and after I shook a flower by accident in the water. Maybe the platy indigested some?
The only other plant that flowered is the anthurium lily next to it but it doesn't produce such powdery pollen, at least I haven't noticed.


----------



## X3NiTH (24 Jun 2014)

All the lore says it is poisonous to mammals, especially lethal to cats! Fish, not so sure, contact sensitivity to the pollen probably not but ingestion toxicity maybe if there's enough of it eaten, apparently the toxicity is due to the oxalates. It may be worth collecting all the pollen before it can disperse, how you would go about that easily without employing an army of pollen gathering insects is another matter, maybe bag up the flower and give it a shake to prevent it ending up in the tank in potentially lethal edible quantities. Since its just one old fish it may be coincidental but that fish may have been dominating the supply and now that its gone a subservient fish may now get the best pickings.


----------



## dw1305 (24 Jun 2014)

Hi all, 
I think all Aroids (like _Spathiphyllum & Anthurium_) are potentially toxic, but I'd be surprised if the pollen is poisonous enough to kill a fish. 

cheers Darrel


----------



## sciencefiction (24 Jun 2014)

Thanks guys. I thought I'd ask just in case. The fish may have just died from something else. There's no way I'd know but platies are pretty hungry fish and will take a bite of anything that floats hence why I raised the question.
I tried wrapping the flowers in cling film to get the pollen off but when I touch it, it just falls before I can even wrap it around. It's hard with two left hands


----------



## X3NiTH (24 Jun 2014)

sciencefiction said:


> It's hard with two left hands



But I bet those Green Thumbs compensate!


----------



## Mick.Dk (24 Jun 2014)

I've worked in a huge Zoo-exibition, way back.( A lot like Eden, but before that was even thought of *lol*). Lots of different size ponds everywhere, and lots of Spatiphyllum growing in and around them. Flowered insanely, like yours.
Ponds inhabited by diff. fish - a.o. Poecilia - but never ever did I see any effect of Spatiphyllum pollen, falling in the water.
- if you want to prevent, though, you can just cut off the "pole" and leave the white leaf, wrapping it. Just like florists remove the pollen-carriers from cut Lily, before you buy it (otherwise they can really mess up your shirt).


----------



## sciencefiction (24 Jun 2014)

X3NiTH said:


> But I bet those Green Thumbs compensate!



Ha, ha, I doubt it X3NiTh.
I presume the tropical plants have a period of time when they flower and then stop? Although the anthurium has been flowering for long enough now. The peace lily started only a month or two ago, can't remember.[DOUBLEPOST=1403625851][/DOUBLEPOST]




Mick.Dk said:


> I've worked in a huge Zoo-exibition, way back.( A lot like Eden, but before that was even thought of *lol*). Lots of different size ponds everywhere, and lots of Spatiphyllum growing in and around them. Flowered insanely, like yours.
> Ponds inhabited by diff. fish - a.o. Poecilia - but never ever did I see any effect of Spatiphyllum pollen, falling in the water.
> - if you want to prevent, though, you can just cut off the "pole" and leave the white leaf, wrapping it. Just like florists remove the pollen-carriers from cut Lily, before you buy it (otherwise they can really mess up your shirt).



Thanks Mick. This is encouraging.


----------



## Lee Sweeting (24 Jun 2014)

Sciencefiction! Have you got a journal up and running for this tank? It looks great.


----------



## sciencefiction (24 Jun 2014)

Lee Sweeting said:


> Sciencefiction! Have you got a journal up and running for this tank? It looks great.



Thanks Lee. I did, but the stupid imageshack has closed my free account and deleted the pictures so there' s nothing to see anymore in the thread and I don't know how to fix that. 
The tank was going great guns until the tank started leaking last year, then a filter leaked half the water on the floor, then all the lights failed which I couldn't fix on time, resulting in an almost complete meltdown because the tank doesn't get any natural light.  So I am back to square one trying to recover what's left by cranking up the partially fixed lights on 12hrs a day as intensity is just not enough for the underwater plants. And I am saving for a new light unit. Until then, I'll be looking at anubias and java fern and some amazon swords trying to regrow themselves, plus a few crypts.

I can't seem to find the pictures, I may have a couple somewhere on my computer.... but I have a video uploaded of it from last year. It's a low tech tank, no co2 or ferts,  now it gets some kno3 weekly because the emersed tropical are a very hungry bunch.


----------



## X3NiTH (24 Jun 2014)




----------



## sciencefiction (25 Jun 2014)

Thanks X3.

I removed the cling film.  Probably just an old fish. Most of the platies in this tank were born about 3 years ago except a few, so it's probably expected to start losing some. Sometimes I forget certain fish don't live that long.

Thanks all for your help.


----------



## Lee Sweeting (25 Jun 2014)

sciencefiction said:


> Thanks Lee. I did, but the stupid imageshack has closed my free account and deleted the pictures so there' s nothing to see anymore in the thread and I don't know how to fix that.
> The tank was going great guns until the tank started leaking last year, then a filter leaked half the water on the floor, then all the lights failed which I couldn't fix on time, resulting in an almost complete meltdown because the tank doesn't get any natural light.  So I am back to square one trying to recover what's left by cranking up the partially fixed lights on 12hrs a day as intensity is just not enough for the underwater plants. And I am saving for a new light unit. Until then, I'll be looking at anubias and java fern and some amazon swords trying to regrow themselves, plus a few crypts.
> 
> I can't seem to find the pictures, I may have a couple somewhere on my computer.... but I have a video uploaded of it from last year. It's a low tech tank, no co2 or ferts,  now it gets some kno3 weekly because the emersed tropical are a very hungry bunch.




Such a shame you lost all the pictures, it seems to be happening quite a bit on here. It doesn't look as though you've had much luck either, especially with the tank leaking. I'm glad you're keeping it going though. The riparium planting looks awesome, looking forward to updates.


----------



## BigTom (25 Jun 2014)

I lost all my imageshack images as well, but as long as they were from an account (rather than really old ones where you could upload without an account), then you should be able to get them back by nagging their customer services guys - they fixed mine after a few days when I asked. Not sure if you need a paid account though, but I figured $2 a month was easier than re-uploading everything, haha.


----------



## sciencefiction (25 Jun 2014)

Thanks Lee. Yes, this tank really ruined my mood for a good while. I've been like waiting for it to leak again since last year, thankfully the fix worked but when one of the filters and the lights failed subsequently it really got me down as I couldn't afford to fix either for a while.

Thanks Tom. They were all from an account. I'll see if I can recover them as I don't have all of them saved anywhere because my computer hard drive failed at some stage too and I lost a lot of pictures. I did download some random pictures while the account was still running, but not all and I don't have the old full tank shots. I guess I am going to have to fix the tank and start taking pictures again


----------



## Tim Harrison (25 Jun 2014)

Ask Walter White...no wait...that was Lilly of the valley...


----------



## sciencefiction (25 Jun 2014)

Ha, ha, yes, breaking bad I guess


----------



## dw1305 (26 Jun 2014)

Hi all,


> All the lore says it is poisonous to mammals, especially lethal to cats!


Just a thought with that, I think that applies specifically to the true Lilies (_Lilium_ spp.).

cheers Darrel


----------



## X3NiTH (26 Jun 2014)

dw1305 said:


> Just a thought with that, I think that applies specifically to the true Lilies (_Lilium_ spp.)



Yeah, and more than likely its some unidentified alkaloid at work that destroys the renal tissue making them so lethal. The oxalates in the petals of peace lilies though will have digestive consequences if eaten, which is probably why it gets the blanket caution statement as the symptoms of both would follow the same progression but only one is fatal at the end if left untreated. Diagnosis would be easier if the cat could tell you if its tripping or not but you'd treat the same way for both by getting the charcoal out.


----------



## sciencefiction (28 Jun 2014)

A bit unrelated to the above but wanted to share in case anyone wonders why I am always raving about not going too low light on a low tech( I am not suggesting extremes)

I am pretty embarrassed how the tank looks right now but it shows interesting trends one may find useful although not scientific experiments.

The light factor!....in low techs.

This is an example below of my 3 amazon swords that can be seen in better times on the above video when they got what they needed...but now regrowing under poorer light conditions because of me running way lower light, not by choice.

I actually only achieved any growth of these almost completely melted plants when I bumped that super low light to 11-12 hrs a day a couple of months ago. Prior to that everything was slowly but surely either melting or just frozen in time. I used to have extra led strip on top of the two running now and all light was suspended lower, and my emersed plants were not obstructing the underwater ones. Surely my anubias absolutely adores these conditions though, but not the other plants.

On the very right of the picture the sword gets the minimum of light thankfully to my emersed plants, poor thing barely grows.
You can see the middle one is doing well enough but has different leaf shape, very narrow and asymmetric shape,  awkward leaves..
And the one to the very left is actually growing relatively fast now and I am sure it will outgrow it's brothers if I keep the light duration like this.






Ludwiga plant same symptoms. This one below is next to the slowest growing amazon sword that's on the very right on the above picture. I planted this ludwiga stalk ages ago to test if it would grow there. I had to take it from another tank because the rest withered and died. It grows extremely slow now, almost non existent growth.






Then I planted this one below around a month later after I planted the above ludwiga stalk, but I planted it in a bright unobstructed from emersed plants area and its growing fast and has nice colour, leaf size and shape.


----------



## Alastair (28 Jun 2014)

Never had any issues with my peace lilies or anthuriums when I had them growing in my puddle. Many a time I knocked the spathes and the pollen would fall into the water yet I never noticed any harm done to fish or shrimp.


----------



## sciencefiction (28 Jun 2014)

Thanks Alastair. I haven't had any other incidents and I shook another flower by accident so I think it was just a coincidence but I needed reassurance.


----------

