Plants in vases with water have foam on top
I’ve had these monsteras and this pothos for a couple years now all indoors. I’ve been maintaining them as normal and keep them at a south facing window that gets filtered sunlight via the curtain and closed blinds. They’ve all been living in vases with water and they’ve been growing fine. I’ve also put a bit of tropical potting mix in the water for nutrition and I’ve had no problems (until now.)
I noticed yesterday there was this weird foam at the top where the water line is and it smells Terrible, like plants in a lake terrible. I tried to get rid of the foam by dumping out water until it was gone and filled it back up with fresh water, still retaining the little potting mix I leave at the bottom and some water so it doesn’t shock the plant. I also made sure to remove any rotting roots and checked if everything was the right color (everything was fine on the plants). Another note: when I tap the glass, trapped air/gas(?) rises to the surface from under the potting mix.
Fast forward to today; I checked again and it’s back just as bad like nothing happened. Does anyone have any ideas what this is?? I’ve tried to do a search on this but so far I get results for potted plants and nothing on plants that have only ever lived in a vase with water. I’ve also searched up what causes the lake smell and it’s due to algae but the water I give my plants are usually drinking water (tho I’m not opposed to accepting algae to be the cause.)
extra note; my lucky bamboo in the background isn’t as bad and my hunch is that it’s from the potting mix in the other vases plus the new summer heat. And, because I admit I don’t know much, I’d rather ask plant experts to know for sure whats wrong and what I could do to fix it.
Sorry this was such a long post, thank you to everyone who has the patience to read through! I tried to cover as much relevant info as I could and if anyone has any questions feel free to ask em!