From: Thomas Barr <tcbiii at earthlink_net>
No, it's not limiting to the plants, they have plenty of NO3.
So the N is still being supplied to the plants but little NH4 causes the
algae not to bloom and cause probelms.
Plants do not need NH4 at all. they do fine with nothing but NO3.
They are huge and have plenty of reserves to convert NO3=>NH4. Algae
don't, they exist in a different niche, the microscale.
Just a question here: NH4 --> NO2 is an exothermic reaction, as is NO2 -->
NO3 (after all, that's where the bacteria
colonies get their energy from). So, if I offer both NH4 and NO3 to plants,
wouldn't the plants preferentially take
up NH4 because it takes less energy for them to get at the N?
If this assumption is correct, then that might help to explain why healthy
and actively growing plants
help to control algae: a healthy plant is biologically active and would have
"a go" at any NH4 as
soon as it appears, thereby removing it from the water and depriving algae
spores of an essential nutrient.
On the other hand, a plant that isn't growing well would take some time to
activate and remove
the NH4, thereby allowing the spores to get at it first and establish
themselves as algae. Then, once the
algae are established, it doesn't matter much any more what the plants are
doing because, once established,
algae can get their N from NO3 just as well as the plants can, and the NH4
concentration becomes a
secondary factor.
If all this (admittedly surmise) is correct, that would help to explain why
a well-planted and fertilized
tank tends not to get algae and why, once algae are present, it's so
difficult to get rid of them again.