Re: Too much light? -- Or - Too much salespitch, too little truth

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Jason said his lfs store told him"

> . . .the aquarium
> store (Natural Life,
> in Sunnyvale, CA) tells me there is no such thing as too
> much light.  

They can't have meant this literally unless they just don't
know what they are talking about.  And let's assume they
didn't say this just to sell as much lighting as possible
regardless of the truth.


Light is energy; it's the energy source that plants use to
drive their chemical machinery -- the botanists can put
that in much greater detail but that's the basic fact.

Can there be too much energy in a given place?  Of course. 
Can there be too much energy for healthy plants?  Sure, but
you'd be hard pressed to get that much light on a tank. 
Can there be too much light for a sensible, healthy planted
tank that doesn't require too much maintenance?  You
betcha.


Also, the amount of light needs to be in balance with the
right nutrients -- if the plants don't have the right
nutrients, they can't do much productive with the energy.


Maybe the salesperson meant something else, like, "It's
hard to fit more light than you need on most tanks." 
That's at least plausible, although still untrue.  I'd
refer this person to the www.thekrib.com, 
www.frii.com/~gbooth/AquaticConcepts , and
http://www.sfbaaps.com/, or
http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc/#1.  If they learn,
they might stop missinforming customers.

Scott H.

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