Plants In Your Tank

[james morrisontoxic2]

should the lights in your tank be left on most of the time for the plants to grow better,or does it not make much difference the reason i ask is through the day the tank gets good day light light ,thanks for any replies

 

[Truck]

if the tank is getting daylight, algae is going to be a problem for you.

10 hours of aquarium light will see your plants through but a good fertilizer and some easy carbo will do them the world of good.

 

[james morrisontoxic2]

thanks for your reply mate,as you can see im new to this do i just add the stuff you have said to the water

 

[Truck]

yes just follow the instructions on the boxes, just add to the water, does them on alternate days. so one day TPN+ next day the easy carbo.

get some tropica plant nutrition +

and some easy life easy carbo

both can be bought from

the green machines website or aqua essentials

 

[james morrisontoxic2]

thanks for advice mate your a goodun,will do as you have said

 

[Truck]

no probs

it says on the boxes to dose so much a week, follow this but if it says dose 10 mill a week do 3 every other day, so your getting an even dose insead of all at once

 

[james morrisontoxic2]

thanks will do mate

 

[waterdrop]

Truck,

Your comment made me wonder... Do the members think that "evening out" the dosing of liquid carbons (like easycarbo or flourish excel) is a significant improvement over whatever the manufacturer recommends?

I've always wondered, since it certainly seems to be the case that the planted folks worry a lot about smoothing out the delivery of CO2 to the tank when using Pressurized or DIY. And, additionally, the planted folks often discuss the value of a very stable level of CO2 in the tank as potentially being quite important to algae prevention and plant health...

It just makes it seem possible that one would want to stabilize the delivery of organic carbons (via liquid carbon dosing) also, just like the attention they pay to gaseous carbon delivery.

What do you think?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[aaronnorth]

It just makes it seem possible that one would want to stabilize the delivery of organic carbons (via liquid carbon dosing) also, just like the attention they pay to gaseous carbon delivery.

What do you think?

inorganic carbon sources are made up of the molecule, Glutaraldehyde (C5H8O2) as the base foundation. And this is also what acts as a mild algaecide, and it is very toxic to us.
Most plants can break down this complex molecule via other chemical reactions into CO2 which is then transported to enter the Calvin Cycle. Algae, and other bladderwort plants like riccia cannot complete this cycle, so instead it becomes toxic to them

 

[waterdrop]

It just makes it seem possible that one would want to stabilize the delivery of organic carbons (via liquid carbon dosing) also, just like the attention they pay to gaseous carbon delivery.

What do you think?

inorganic carbon sources are made up of the molecule, Glutaraldehyde (C5H8O2) as the base foundation. And this is also what acts as a mild algaecide, and it is very toxic to us.
Most plants can break down this complex molecule via other chemical reactions into CO2 which is then transported to enter the Calvin Cycle. Algae, and other bladderwort plants like riccia cannot complete this cycle, so instead it becomes toxic to them

Ah, there's Aaron.. it is so incredibly useful to have a plant pro who is such a forum addict that one's questions are immediately considered even on a holiday morning! So here we are back at RuBisCO again! Give me two years of puttering around and I may accidently start to understand this stuff.

OK, so just to take a stab... Is the 5-carbon glutaraldehyde serving as the 5-carbon compound mentioned in step 1 in calvin cycle in the wikipedia article? Or is it farther down in the mess?

By the way, I attended a lecture by the young man who I think took over his father's business, Seachem, and who's lab has been through this to produce the excel product. I got to talk with him some and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he and some of his lab folks know one heck of a lot more biochem than I ever will. ...but its always fun trying!!

WD

 

[aaronnorth]

Ah, there's Aaron.. it is so incredibly useful to have a plant pro who is such a forum addict that one's questions are immediately considered even on a holiday morning

Well it's 4.10PM over here lol, i dont usually come on in the morning's

OK, so just to take a stab... Is the 5-carbon glutaraldehyde serving as the 5-carbon compound mentioned in step 1 in calvin cycle in the wikipedia article? Or is it farther down in the mess?

I am not 100% sure but from looking at it, it comes from various stages of the process:

"Triose phosphate isomerase converts some G3P (Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate) reversibly into dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP), also a 3-carbon molecule."
"Then fixation of another CO2 generates two more G3P"
"Fixation of a third CO2 generates two more G3P."

"Thus, of 6 G3P produced, three RuBP (5C) are made totalling 15 carbons"

Which i assume is where the plants get their Carbon source from

 

[DaveA76]

yes just follow the instructions on the boxes, just add to the water, does them on alternate days. so one day TPN+ next day the easy carbo.

get some tropica plant nutrition +

and some easy life easy carbo

both can be bought from

the green machines website or aqua essentials

do these additives afect the fish at all ?

 

[waterdrop]

ah yes, one of the reasons I sometimes enjoy mornings on over here is that I can catch so many of you before your supper or having an evening session, always kind of a fun reminder of the big globe turning. Isn't it a joy to think of all the fun we little earth insects get to have before the whole whirling bunch of rocks turn to stardust some day, sigh.

Anyway, back to the fun at hand.. Yes, I follow you and what you point out and quote makes sense.

OK, so even if you and I were really good plant biochemists, there'd be some value in an exercise where we attempt to move slightly away from the "chemistry-speak" lets say, if you follow me, for both ourselves and the beginners here, and I'm wondering if we have a feeling for whether the easycarbo or excel could be thought of as supplying:

1) Just the carbons that eventually are turned into the plant's sugar, both its stored sugar like sucrose, and perhaps some into its active sugar like glucose.. but in general into energy storage/food via sugars.. ie, we are "fueling/feeding" the plant in a big way, with the raw materials it uses every day to grow and do all the things it does... OR

2) (only slight difference) The carbons begin supplied are potentially doing "both" the "fueling/feeding" of carbons that will be turned into sugars, AND, maybe a small supply of atoms that the plant will use to build RuBisCO itself, since plants need relatively (compared to other enzymes) lots of RuBisCO. (Am assuming RuBisCO itself has carbon in it but can't actually remember or find it at the moment, though.)

I'm just belaboring this a bit as besides my own curiosity, I'm thinking that the odd beginner reading this might have his/her curiosity peaked about this amazing enzyme, RuBisCO, that is often called the link between "rocks and life itself" in the sense that:

On one side we have all this carbon, locked up in bicarbonate minerals, carbon dioxide gas and other things. Then, inside all those chloroplasts, in all that greenery all over earth, sits this big ball of an enzyme, the most abundant enzyme on earth, and it takes this "lifeless" carbon and "re-constructs" it into "organic" molecules that form the basis of life on earth! One could almost stop and take a moment of meditation on this .

Here's an example of some paragraphs that repeat what I'm saying:
RuBisCO!
(just maybe fun for beginners, I know you already know this stuff Aaron! but my question is still up there...)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[aaronnorth]

do these additives afect the fish at all ?

Stick to the manafacturere's recomendations and it will be fine, even if you up the dose it will be ok, but they have to put it to stay on the safe side, icase you have 'delicate' fish.

just got this off the Seachem website: http/www.seachem.com/Products/product_pa...urishExcel.html

The reason plants need CO2 is to produce longer chain carbon compounds also known as photosynthetic intermediates. Photosynthetic intermediates includes compounds such as ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate, and 2-carboxy-3-keto-D-arabinitol 1,5 bisphosphate. Although the names are complicated, the structures are quite simple (5 carbon chains). Flourish Excel™ does not contain these specific compounds per se, but one that is quite similar. By dosing with Flourish Excel™ you bypass the involvement of CO2 and introduce the already finished, structurally similar compounds. It is in its structural similarity that Flourish Excel™ is able to be utilized in the carbon chain building process of photosynthesis. Simple chemical or enzymatic steps can easily convert it to any one to any one of the above named compounds (or a variety of others).

So your second opinion could be correct...

By the way i am not that clever lol

 

[Dave Spencer]

Plants switch over to the resource intensive production of RuBisCo in low carbon environments. Seachem Excel is an excellent product, but it seems to me as if they are implying their product is better than carbon via gaseous/aqueous CO2, which I can say quite categorically that it is not. Plants need the carbon as CO2 before they utilise it.

Excel works best in slower growth environments where the carbon uptake is also slower. For the very highest growth rates, gaseous CO2 is the best means of avoiding limiting carbon during plant uptake. This is why ceramic diffusers are the best means of delivering CO2, because they introduce gaseous CO2 right at the leaf. I don`t use ceramic diffusers for aesthetic reasons, so I go down the aqueous CO2 route via a reactor.

We seem to have assumed that the OP needs to dose organic carbon when pressurised or DIY could be better.

As for the even delivery of organic carbon as opposed to gaseous, organic carbon is best used in slower growth, hence lower light tanks, so it is far less critical.

Dave.