plants giving out oxygen?

[ahdi]

i don't see bubbles coming from my plants. does that mean my plants are not giving out oxygen?

[|squee|]

nope... you can only see bubbles for oxygen when your water is saturated wit h it i think.

[gks]

If you want "bubbling" plants, your planted tank needs to have adequate to strong lighting, proper fertilisers/plant nutrients, and carbon dioxide.

However, with strong lighting, you have two problems, heat (water may become too warm for the plants/fishes) and algae (competing with plants for the nutrients and even "suffocating' the plants by enveloping them).

The fertiliser/plant nutrients portion is the tricky part as you need to determine what is needed or in excess. You can spend $$$ getting the various test kits or by trial and error or seeking help from other more experienced planted tank hobbyists. Bottomline, get this part right, our plants will thrive, get it wrong and you will be constantly replacing plants.

As for carbon dioxide, there are several means of "pumping" CO2 levels up. My preferred method is to have sufficient number of fishes to balance the plants' needs, that may also require that the tank cannot be kept surgically clean. Planted tank hobbyists usually go for compressed CO2 tanks. DIYers create their CO2 generators with yeast, sugar and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Experimenters can try electrolysis with carbon electrodes. In any case, plants "consume" CO2 to produce O2; therefore if not enough CO2, plant growth will be stunted and no bubbling.