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East Coast Claus
Claus gave an example where light was a limiting factor on a tank. So if
light is a limiting factor then increasing other factors shouldn't matter,
right? Wrong. In the case of CO2 he said, in effect, that as CO2 increased
the plants cold make more efficient use of the light available to them.
Therefore CO2 effected the ability of the plants to use light. Say for
example that a plant requires 100 units of light to grow optimally and 100
units of CO2 to grow optimally decreasing the light to 50 units would not
cut growth by half if CO2 delivery was still optimal, it may increase by say
10%. If CO2 and light are both cut by half in may decrease by 45 by 75%, if
just CO2 is cut by 50% growth my slow by 30%. This is because the factors
are interrelated. I'm just making the numbers up, but nobody on this list
probably has a perfect environment and if they do it won't probably last
more than a few minutes. Leibniz law is just to simplitic.
What it boils down to is that a planted tank is a complex web of
interaction. I always understood that it was that algae is just more
phosphate sensitive, or that higher plants can store it or something like
that. Even in a terrestrial garden you can wipe out some plants to the
benefit of others by changing the soils pH a few points. With things as
different as algae and higher plants I can see this easily.
Adam