[APD] RE: CO2 levels and mega-dosing

["Steve Pushak" <teban at powersonic_bc.ca>]

On Tue, 23 Karen wrote:
> 10 mg/L is just barely better than nothing.  You get 4 mg/L
> and can maintain
> it steadily if you do nothing more than heavily aerate a
> tank.  And we know
> that's not adequate under most circumstances.

I believe Dr Dave Huebert was performing quantitative macrophyte growth
studies where he achieved very high growth rates using nothing more than
heavy aeration of his tanks. I suspect that this was substantially more
aeration than an air stone; he had the water moving quite turbulently.
:-)

I think people will find pretty good plant growth without resorting to
40ppm CO2 if they employ strong circulation such as with a power-head,
moderate CO2 fertilization and keep the macro nutrient levels above
zero. Most aquatic plants will grow rapidly until something is used up
and then the growth rate is determined by the concentration of the
limiting nutrient. This is one reason why the clay fertilizer ball
approach works well; the bolus of nutrients is not released into the
water column immediately; it must diffuse through the clay or be drawn
out of the clay by the roots of aquatic plants.

BTW, German & Dutch aquarists have regularly documented CO2 injection
rates by bubble rate for years and are not as addicted to test kits as
the techno-gadget Yanks. ;-P

Is it just me or is everybody getting a lot of emails ostensibly from
Krandall which contain the W32/Bagle_bb at MM Microsoft mail worm? I
suppose people are getting them from my email address too; I get bounce
messages occasionally.

Steve in Vancouver BC, Canada
Welcome North of the 49th G Dubya! ;-)

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