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Light color and plant growth pattern
In a message dated 2/17/02 3:57:20 AM Eastern Standard Time,
Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:
<< low *red* light. Warmer colored light tends to promote the
> photosynthetic response, and coupled with the added CO2 the
> _expected_
> results were toward really lush and sturdy growth. What I _got_ was
> more of
> a "miniaturization" of the growth - similar to comparing a miniature
> Collie
> to a full-sized one rather than the stunted growth of Bonsai. >>
I noticed when my 5300K PC's were first installed I got a lot of horizontal
growth in my newly setup tank with CO2 injection and high nutrients. This was
a 75 with 220 watts (4 X 55 W).
When I say horizontal I mean really horizontal. Almost everything grew
sideways much faster than up and every plant in there turned about as warm
colored as it could. My Hygro p. was brown and normal Ludwigia as red as
macrandra. Neil's E. tennelus micro variety looked like a red variety of BBA.
There could be other explanations for the color such as nutrient chaos in a
newly set up tank by a newbie but I think it was the strength of the lights
more than the color.
This horizontal crawl may indeed have been due to the earlier suggestion that
plants who can claim as much of a footprint as possible over bare ground can
then populate the waters above at leisure. There again, everything in there
had more than enough light to engage in this type of sprawl.
A year and a half later into the life of these same bulbs no longer witnesses
this horizontal growth pattern occurring. True, the substrate is now covered
for the most part and the PC bulbs are surely weaker now but more germane to
this discussion: they are surely more red shifted if anything.
Bob Olesen