Re: Enough CO2 already!

["Adam Shaw" <adams1 at comcen_com.au>]

>Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 09:12:34 -0400 
>From: "Hopkins, Samuel" <Samuel.Hopkins at marconi_com>
>Subject: Enough CO2 already!

>Wouldn't it make sense to have CO2
>turned on to get your plants to grow like crazy, prune them to the
style >you want and then turn the CO2 off so you dont have to prune
every 3 days?

Not likely. Plants need the CO2 for basic photosynthesis. If you 'grow
them like crazy' and end up with a very dense tank after a while, then
switch off the system, it would be making the tank short of a basic
nutrient. There would be die-off and in general the plants would
relatively quickly go from looking great, to looking very average.
Aquatic plants need some basic things; CO2 during light hours, O2 during
dark, trace elements, iron, and water (or depending on the plants,
merely high moisture content in the air). Take any one of these away and
the plant is bound to not perform well.

Growing the plants to a dense stage using CO2 then switching it off when
it all looks good would rather be like having an aquarium full of fish
which you've grown to a large size with plenty of food, then just stop
feeding them because they've finished growing. Clearly not a good idea
:)

You can get away with CO2 if you want to keep a small amount of plants,
or have slow growth - but growing a dense foliage of plants and then
depriving them will probably be a little nasty in the long run.

Cheers,
Adam Shaw