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Re:Newbie & native plants



Darcy wrote,

>     I know that someone mentioned ( possibly Tom Barr- but I'm not sure )
something about wild plants/weeds- something that interests me, but I don't
know how practical this would be for me, as I live in Minnesota. However, if
anyone would have any information about plants native to my area that would
be suitable to domestic life, or if anyone would know of a site(s) where I
could find information on aquatic plants in general ( ie- genus, species,
nutritional/light/Ph requirements, native area- and possibly pics ) I would
be really interested in finding out.
     Thanks again for all the info provided by your list- and, of course,
the
artistic views, as well- don't want to offend anyone : )

Darcy Bachand  <

I have collected numerous plants from Minnesota lakes and have had good
success in the aquarium.  My favorite was some type of a giant val or sag.
Maybe someone on the list can tell me that one or the other does or doesn't
grow in MN.  I had just bought a used plywood tank that was about 80 gal.
It was about 5' long and maybe 2' front to back, and not real deep.  It was
located in a living room that got west and north light and the tank had no
supplemental light.  The plants were amazing!  Filled out the tank and grew
across the top.  The only inhabitant was a clown knife fish that grew to be
maybe 15".  A real whopper.  Back in my days of large fish LOL.  Some MN
lakes are being choked by plants that were brought in by the aquarium trade.
Euraisan milfoil (sp?) being the worst offender.  When I was growing native
plants always had the best luck with only one plant in a tank.  Of course,
at the time that was also my experience with non-native plants.  They were
always low light tanks, sometimes soil under gravel substrate, and water
column fertilizers were unheard of.

During the recent art discussion it was mentioned that if we could pull a
section of lake or stream out and plunk it down in our living room with
warts and all, we wouldn't much care for it.  I was very tempted to respond
and comment on the beauty I see in just such a tank.  But the comment would
not have been appropriate in the context of that discussion, however, it is
appropriate in the context of this discussion.  Also, the implication of
such statements is that we *cannot* remove a tank size section of a biotope.
Granted, things work & look different in the aquarium but to a large extent
it is possible to "recreate", visually, a small segment of lake and it can
be a very satisfying experience.

Oops, didn't intend to wade into the three letter word topic :-)

Regards,
Jay Reeves
Minneapolis