Re: Low Light, Slow Grow Tank

[Paul Krombholz <krombhol at teclink_net>]

> Roger Miller wrote:
> ..........Concentrating the light at the back of the tank will let 
> you grow a few plants
> that you couldn't otherwise grow.  You will have to try a few of the
> borderline plants (like E. bleheri) to know if you can do it.  For quite a
> while I had a 55 gallon tank lit with 60 watts of light -- one 40 watt strip
> light and a 20 watt light sitting at one end of the tank.  The end of the tank
> that was under both tubes could grow a lot of plants that one would grow in
> moderately-lit tanks.  The other end grew anubias and crypts.


I have a bunch of large amazon swords, probably E. bleheri, that are 
doing well in a tank that gets barely two watts per gallon.  It is a 
20 long with a small number of guppies,  no additional CO2, and it 
has 2 feeble, old T12  bulbs that leave the ends of the tank rather 
poorly lit.    In spite of this, there are four large plants trying 
to push the cover off,  and four medium plants struggling under the 
larger ones, and about 6 smaller plants trying to get their leaves up 
to the surface.  One of the large plants at the end has just produced 
a 3 foot branched flower stalk.   Considering that there are so many 
plants fighting for so little light, I would say that these swords 
are pretty good low light plants.    They shut out so much light that 
I doubt that anything could grow under them. 


--
Paul Krombholz in sunny central Mississippi, doing an experiment to 
see if chocolate cures the common cold.