Is It Worth It

[lefty07603]

I bought plant bulbs and like a lot of people i have themin a container on my windowsill with gravel as they grow. It said they like co2 so i have been blowing through a straw everyday for a minute or so. Wouldn't this put co2 in the water because to put oxygen u just have an air pump blow o2 bubbles?

 

[Shovelman]

I bought plant bulbs and like a lot of people i have themin a container on my windowsill with gravel as they grow. It said they like co2 so i have been blowing through a straw everyday for a minute or so. Wouldn't this put co2 in the water because to put oxygen u just have an air pump blow o2 bubbles?

uh...well... hm...

I doubt a minute or so would make any difference.....also if im correct you don't exactly exhale 100% co2...

 

[kcartwright856]

Unfortunately, you are quite literally wasting your breath, and time.

CO2 has to be dissolved into the water for our aquatic plants to utilize it, which usually requires special diffusers that create the tiniest bubbles that eventually disappear in the water as they dissolve.

 

[FishBlast]

If the atmosphere is made of O2 and CO2, isn't the air bubbler actually adding CO2 and O2 same time?
What I don't get is why some plants need a lot of CO2 made by a special device, when in nature they don't even get that luxury?

 

[crawfish]

yes but in nature they have what they were designed for like the sun way better than our bulbs, we will never be as gd as nature

 

[tomtomtom1230]

CO2 speeds growth. The more you add, the more they absorb and the quicker they grow. CO2 isn't utilized by the plants in any other way, other than growth. As I understand it, it is possible (in theory anyway, not sure how this pans to practice) to grow most plants in a low-CO2 environment provided they have everything else they need.

Light and CO2 need to be in balance otherwise you'll end up with hungry plants and discoloured leaves etc.

Plants will react differently in nature and share similarities with their parent plant (like, for example, I have my Mother's eyes). If the parent plant has adapted to a certain CO2 level, whether that be higher or lower than what's in the aquarium then chances are the offspring plant will be more suited to a lower or higher CO2 environment.

Plants that are brought up in the aquarium will be used to utilizing a certain amount of CO2 and will definitely die or at the very least melt and stay melted for a while, if you were to stick it in it's natural habitat.

Hope this sort've makes sense. A lot of people forget that plants, although they don't have eyes and mouths, are still living things and therefore evolution and genetics still apply.

 

[FishBlast]

yes but in nature they have what they were designed for like the sun way better than our bulbs, we will never be as gd as nature

I've heard that our fluorescent lights are much better than the sun + that they are brought much closer, thus maximizing the amount of light a plant gets.
CO2 - unlike the systems some people use, in nature plants have to deal with what they receive (which is plenty anyway in the atmosphere, outnumbering O2, what with all the pollution...
Organic substances - they might get more of them if they are in an area where there were rotten leaves and dead animals. But in some places, that might be lower.

CO2 speeds growth. The more you add, the more they absorb and the quicker they grow. CO2 isn't utilized by the plants in any other way, other than growth. As I understand it, it is possible (in theory anyway, not sure how this pans to practice) to grow most plants in a low-CO2 environment provided they have everything else they need.

Light and CO2 need to be in balance otherwise you'll end up with hungry plants and discoloured leaves etc.

Plants will react differently in nature and share similarities with their parent plant (like, for example, I have my Mother's eyes). If the parent plant has adapted to a certain CO2 level, whether that be higher or lower than what's in the aquarium then chances are the offspring plant will be more suited to a lower or higher CO2 environment.

Plants that are brought up in the aquarium will be used to utilizing a certain amount of CO2 and will definitely die or at the very least melt and stay melted for a while, if you were to stick it in it's natural habitat.

Hope this sort've makes sense. A lot of people forget that plants, although they don't have eyes and mouths, are still living things and therefore evolution and genetics still apply.

Yeah but that's mostly forcing a plant to grow.
I've noticed that my water sprite has changed according to its surroundings:
When it was bought, it had a lot of black leaves and some yellow ones.
Due to the low light (daylight only), only the broader-leaved plants have survived and the ones with thinner leaves started to go yellow and die.
When I added my current neon bulb, it started to grow sprouts like crazy and all sprouts turned out to have thin leaves instead of broad ones, and all the broad ones just melted away.

The Java Fern was brought with some black areas on some leaves, some look like it's been scratched.
The new leaves that grow out of it seem to be much darker than the older leaves. Though the old leaves haven't melted, they're still there. Though I hope they get replaced, one of them has its tip covered by roots of two new plants growing on it. Looks like an octopus grabbed it.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Broader leaves can indicate that the plant as been nurtured emersed, and the leaves have been allowed to grow above water and the stems and roots below. I would expect these to melt or go a funny colour at least. Longer thinner leaves are more like it and the plant is now adapted to photosynthesizing under water. It's just the plant killing off the leaves it didn't need, sprouting new ones and then killing off the rest now it's got new leaves to survive on. Your newer neon bulb is obviously a much better bulb than your previous.

 

[FishBlast]

Broader leaves can indicate that the plant as been nurtured emersed, and the leaves have been allowed to grow above water and the stems and roots below. I would expect these to melt or go a funny colour at least. Longer thinner leaves are more like it and the plant is now adapted to photosynthesizing under water. It's just the plant killing off the leaves it didn't need, sprouting new ones and then killing off the rest now it's got new leaves to survive on. Your newer neon bulb is obviously a much better bulb than your previous.

Previous was mostly sunlight LOL. Then in the evening a small bulb that did probably nothing.
This is an 18W 6500K, but it sure sped up plant growth, to the point that the fern's leaf has even longer roots today.

Oddly, those broad leaves have been grown under water and just floated to the surface, where it started to grow thin and more heavily branched leaves.
Such as this one:

It grew much longer now.
You can see the broad ones going brown. Snails ate those.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

[/quote]
You can see the broad ones going brown. Snails ate those.
[/quote]

I wouldn't expect anything less from snails - they gorge themselves on the ends of leaves whilst I'm not looking! I'll catch them one day and when I do...

 

[FishBlast]

I wouldn't expect anything less from snails - they gorge themselves on the ends of leaves whilst I'm not looking! I'll catch them one day and when I do...

Would you kill the apple snails? *hides my little bunny snails*
And my snails usually eat the dying leaves. Well, Lorenzo occasionally snacks on sprouts, but it seems like ever since I feed him carrots and flakes, he has stopped eating them and just focuses on unhealthy leaves.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

I wouldn't expect anything less from snails - they gorge themselves on the ends of leaves whilst I'm not looking! I'll catch them one day and when I do...

Would you kill the apple snails? *hides my little bunny snails*
And my snails usually eat the dying leaves. Well, Lorenzo occasionally snacks on sprouts, but it seems like ever since I feed him carrots and flakes, he has stopped eating them and just focuses on unhealthy leaves.

Not an apple snail but pest snails most definitely! I woke up this morning with another snail-sized hole munched into a leaf (the rest of the plant is healthy). There's only a few in there but they're too small for Assassin snails to deal with, I suspect.

 

[FishBlast]

I wouldn't expect anything less from snails - they gorge themselves on the ends of leaves whilst I'm not looking! I'll catch them one day and when I do...

Would you kill the apple snails? *hides my little bunny snails*
And my snails usually eat the dying leaves. Well, Lorenzo occasionally snacks on sprouts, but it seems like ever since I feed him carrots and flakes, he has stopped eating them and just focuses on unhealthy leaves.

Not an apple snail but pest snails most definitely! I woke up this morning with another snail-sized hole munched into a leaf (the rest of the plant is healthy). There's only a few in there but they're too small for Assassin snails to deal with, I suspect.

I have well-over 7 pesties and my java fern's leaves are intact, along with all the ceratopteris' healthy leaves. So I doubt pesties would bother to eat something that they can barely drill a hole in anyway. Unless you have something other than ramshorns of 3 mm. I even put 3 of the pesties in the fry cage and they clean up pretty well.

Now my apple snails seem to like the new moss too much, one of them grabbed a willow moss thread 3x as long as his body and began to suck it up like it was spaghetti. He ate the whole thread. O_O

 

[tomtomtom1230]

I wouldn't expect anything less from snails - they gorge themselves on the ends of leaves whilst I'm not looking! I'll catch them one day and when I do...

Would you kill the apple snails? *hides my little bunny snails*
And my snails usually eat the dying leaves. Well, Lorenzo occasionally snacks on sprouts, but it seems like ever since I feed him carrots and flakes, he has stopped eating them and just focuses on unhealthy leaves.

Not an apple snail but pest snails most definitely! I woke up this morning with another snail-sized hole munched into a leaf (the rest of the plant is healthy). There's only a few in there but they're too small for Assassin snails to deal with, I suspect.

I have well-over 7 pesties and my java fern's leaves are intact, along with all the ceratopteris' healthy leaves. So I doubt pesties would bother to eat something that they can barely drill a hole in anyway. Unless you have something other than ramshorns of 3 mm. I even put 3 of the pesties in the fry cage and they clean up pretty well.

Now my apple snails seem to like the new moss too much, one of them grabbed a willow moss thread 3x as long as his body and began to suck it up like it was spaghetti. He ate the whole thread. O_O

I don't have any dying plant matter in my tank at the minute (for once) and no algae that I can see, perhaps the snails are getting desperate in my tank for food? Anyway, it's defo not the BN pleco and nothing else in the tank would take a munch out of a leaf

 

[FishBlast]

I don't have any dying plant matter in my tank at the minute (for once) and no algae that I can see, perhaps the snails are getting desperate in my tank for food? Anyway, it's defo not the BN pleco and nothing else in the tank would take a munch out of a leaf

I guess that's the problem. No dead plant matter, so they resort to drastic measures. LOL.
Now my craziest snail Lorenzo chose to get some kicks out of climbing over the fry cage, exactly where the filter powerhead blows strongest and it's like watching him get blown by a blizzard. He seems to like it, as he keeps sitting there.