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Re: Allopathy





> Subject: Bacopa and Allopathy
> 

> His theory was that the smell was related
> to Bacopas ability to kill algae (allopathy). That
> made it click for me as that was one of the only
> differences between the two tanks was that the larger
> algae prone tanks did not have bacopa while the other
> smaller algae free tanks was loaded with bacopa. I
> realize that this is hardly scientific much less
> conclusive but figured it might help someone with
> algae problems. Has anyone had similar experiences
> with this plant? If so, did it adversely affect other
> plants in the tank?
> 
> Burke

I believe that this occurs but you cannot do many water changes and maintain
a decent level of these allelopathic chemicals. I am always skeptical when
someone suggest this as a cause of algae reduction. In a non CO2 tank with
low water changes I believe this occurs. But in higher light, big weekly
water changes and CO2 etc, other things seem more likely to be happening.

 Diana Walstad's book is a good source for a fair amount of in depth
discussion on this topic. Most of this is from natural studies so a grain of
salt might be taken before drawing conclusions.

I've seen only one case between two plant-plant interactions and the
algae-plant thing is even more difficult to access from a practical
standpoint in out aquariums.

I kept this plant for a number of years. I never have found any one plant
was this great algae reducer really. I did fine a strong correlation between
growth rates and lower algae presence. Fast grows are often pointed to as
examples of algae reducers. Whether it's the alleopathic chemicals or the
growth rate and increased O2, uptake etc is not clear so saying much about
it this can be misleading, especially if we add algae eaters, water changes
etc.

Personally, I find allelopathic issues very interesting and water plants
have good potential for showing these types of trends, butwhether or not
anyone has ever shown that plants defend a "territory" from other plants or
algae is quite another matter. None I know of. Yet.......I believe they do
but it needs shown is a good manner.

Regards, 
Tom Barr