[APD] RE: algae vs plants

["Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

>
> Hi all,
> I have a couple of questions on the Barr method. I
> don't really understand why plants are at an advantage
> to algae when it comes to nutrient uptake.

They "eat"/assimilate more rapidly when the nutrients are at higher
concentrations.
There's a alot more biomass to support and maintain than algae which need
next to nothing relative to a plant.
There's also a lot more plant than algae in most all tanks.
They(plants) start off dominating the system(if you add enough).

 I guess
> what I am really asking is: If we dose phosphate along
> with nitrate and other nutrients, why won't algae
> compete equally well with or better than plants for
> the nutrients? 

Well NH4 seems to play role with a few species of algae certainly.
NO3, not much.
PO4, not at all if there's enough plants.

> Also, it was mentioned that the reason algae did not
> grow all over plants in nature might be due to
> allelopathy.

No, it's light if you want to pick one thing in nature. See post about
allelopathy and simple method to remove these chemicals.
Also, it depends on what type of lake you want to comare to our tanks,.

Is it a northern deep kettle lake like those in WI? That freezes each
winter?
Or would a fully planted shallow sub/tropical lake bwe more akin to our
fully planted tanks.
I'd certainly say the latter. 

 I was under the impression that water in
> nature had zero quantites of phosphate and very, very
> low levels of nitrate. I thought this was the reason
> algae doesn't grow all over aquatic plants. Thanks,
> AK

Well we do NOT see this in FL lakes. You add PO4 and the lake will grow
more plants, not algae.
This was shown awhile back by researchers at IFAS. You nmeed roughly 30-50%
of lake area to get this response, less and it will go to the algae.

Regards, 
Tom Barr





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