Plant's Reduced sensitivity to light
Since my dosing disaster with KH2PO4, I decided to do a little experimenting. No loss, I thought, so I upped my dosing (more like OD) of KNO3, and Potassium to try to balance out the excess PO4. I also increased my CO2 rate and irradiated the 20 litres with 72 watts of PL, 1.5 inches from the water surface To keep things cool, a 6" fan is blowing onto the surface 24/7. Evaporation is an understatement but like I said, I wanted to experiment.
My last test says the water contains:
NO3: 40ppm
PO4: beyond 40ppm, (still beyond test range after 4 water changes of 50% or more)
pH: 6.5
kH: 5 degrees
CO2: 40 over ppm
Fe: 0.25ppm
Observations:
1) The tank was not only bubbling, it looked more like a soda drink with all those bubbles floating all over the shop. IMO, it looks "dirty" like too much suspension of particles in the water. Pearling is nice, but with too much bubbles, not nice. I'm learning about too much of a good thing is not good.
2) Fishes (tetras) become very timid, hiding away in the foilage. They use to come up front to "greet" me before this experiment. Even feeding time, they are timid and will only make a fast grab at the floating pellets before going back to hide.
3) Khuli loaches conversely have become bold, even rising to the surface to pick the food.
4) Banana plant puts out more surface leaves than underwater leaves.
5) E. tennelus colour turns bronze.
6) Cabomba and Egeria looks terrible growing skinny and long, and growing too fast. but the tiny bubbles on the delicate leaves make it look like it's sprinkled with fairy dust very nice.
7) Pink leaves of E. oriental turn green very fast would prefer them to stay rosy pink with green veins forever
8 ) Riccia stays attached to the bogwood and grows very long fronds, almost antler like. if only they can stay this way and not float to the surface.
9) Alga: ahem... dun talk about it lah. All types also have. I'm becoming to like some of them frankly (those long green filament types and the cladophora types are rather nice on the bogwood)
10) Which brings me to the subject of plant sensitivity to light. Last night, I raised the lamp up on their 3 inch legs so that I can do some tidying of the water surface scum, etc.
After 30 minutes of doing this, I noticed the bubbling rate had reduced by a noticable amount. And when I returned the lamp down to 1.5 inches above the water surface, my "soda factory" resumed production within 5 minutes.
So does that mean that my plants have gotten used to the extra-high light intensity? I've heard of anti-biotic resistance in bacteria, so is it possible that plants get numb to lights?
Any thoughts?
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
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