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dried out emersed growth
My new 90-gal setup is my first open top tank with MH lamps (2 175w
pendants, suspended about 12" above the tank). One of the main reasons
I set the tank up this way was of course to allow for emersed growth.
So that's what I'm now beginning to see - Hygrophila corymbosa,
Alternanthera reineckii, and Lysimachia nummularia all have sent up
emersed growth. What has surprised me, however, is how dried out all
the Hygro and Alternanthera growth is (the Lysimachia does fine). My
house is not particularly dry (unless of course you're comparing it to
a tropical rainforest!), plus I've taken to misting the emersed growth
several times a day. The leaves still look like dry, wrinkled up
prunes; some of them have even wrinkled up and died.
What are other peoples experiences with this? How do I get nice
emersed growth? Turn my house into a tropical rainforest???
Once obvious solution is to raise the pendants alot higher. Many of
the tanks pictures I've seen with very nice emersed growth have
pendants hanging very high over the tank. However doing that would
adversely affect the light intensity at the bottom of my tank, plus
put alot more light out into the room.
It appears that it's rather difficult to have alot of nice emmersed
growth as well as great looking submerged plants. If nothing else the
emmersed growth will steal most of the light from the underwater
plants.
What really puzzles me about this is that some people (Mr. Booth, for
one) seem to be able to get beautiful emmersed growth (without
misting) in normal or even low household humidity while at the same
time having their light sources hanging at a normal distance from the
tank. Is there a trick here I'm missing?
dan
--
Dan Resler email: dresler at vcu_edu
Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA 23284-2014 USA