Re: Those tht use bicarb and those that don't.

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Re: Those tht use bicarb and those that don't.
From: "A. Inniss" <andrewi at u_washington.edu>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:33:25 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <199610040739.DAA12987 at looney_actwin.com>


	A decent rule of thumb for determining which plants can assimilate
becarbonates and which can't is to to determine whether they come from
hard or soft water.  Since in hard water more C02 is bound up in
bicarbonates and carbonates, plants from hard water have to compensate for
the relatively low amount of readily available CO2 by extracting it from
the carbonates.  Thus many species of Val, Sag and Egeria have this
ability.  Egeria supposedly has the ability to extract CO2 from carbonates
too!  
	Plants from softe, more acidic water find a relatively high degree
of readily available CO2, and so I would think their ability to
assimilate bicarbonates would be less.  
bear in mind that this is a rule of thumb based on "logic" which comes
from someone who is neither a chemist nor a botanist, but it seems to make
sense to me.  Those with a deeper understanding may correct or modify what
I said.
	Hope this helps,
			The Drew-ed
When an eel bites your leg,
and the pain makes you beg - that's a moray :-(

 
> From: crom at cris_com (Crom)
> Date: Fri, 04 Oct 1996 03:20:33 GMT
> Subject: Those that use bicarb and those that don't
 
> Could anyone give a list of common plants that use bicarbonate, and
> those that don't?  Or does such a list exist somewhere on the net?