Algae and Water movement, Responses, Echinodorus

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Algae and Water movement, Responses, Echinodorus
From: krandall at world_std.com (Karen A Randall)
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 19:03:58 -0500
 Subject: Algae inverse with disturbance?
 
> I have an algal observation, and I am looking for additional
> perspectives.
> 
> I make the educated guess that algae growth decreases when
> water current increases.  In other words, algae development
> holds an inverse relationship with water movement.
> 
> While clearly light, nutrients, predators, etc. must absolutely
> play a role, I have far fewer algae problems in those tanks
> with (significant) water movement, while tanks with little or 
> no disturbance seem to have occasional outbreaks (blue-green
> algae, hair algae, other).

> <snip>

> What do the rest of you think?  How does this compare with
> your observations?

My instincts want to agree with you.  My observation is that in my 
tanks (which all have pretty good water movement) I do not have 
much in the way of algae problems _except_ for the luxuriant 
growth on the spill way from power filters and on the water fall 
in the paludarium (also powered by an OPF.  Maybe this is because 
my algae eating fish can't get at it, but I don't know that I'm 
entirely convinced.  Maybe another possibility is that I have 
inadvertently created "algal turf scrubbers" which are removing 
nitrate produced by the filters?

 ------------------------------
 
> From: jim at cka_org (Jim Robinson)
> Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 21:04:44 -0500
> Subject: Responses
> 
> Hi there y'all, eh. (Southern Canadian)
>         Thanks for all the input on my recent postings. The quan
> return mail to me has been astounding. Just how many of you guys
> gals-got to be Politically Correct you know) are there out there
> traffic on my e-mail has been enormous. I can't possibly answer 
> by 1 so I'll do it here O.K? If this type of communication is no
> acceptable, please let me know (gently) I'm a newbie on the net 
> familiar with all of the niceties and rules for it.

There's nothing wrong with responding here, but it would be nice 
to know what you're responding _to_, so that we can all learn from 
it! ;-)

----------------------------------

Subject: Echinodorus

Dirk  wrote:

> P.S.  Let me throw in another question, as long as I'm here:  My
> noted that a sword that we bought months ago used to have rather
> on the leaves--now, the old leaves dead and gone, the stems are 
> What do you suppose is the cause?

Is it just the stems that are shorter, or are the leaves getting 
shorter too?  If it's just the stems, and the leaves are still 
large, it's probably just the difference between emersed growth 
(which is the way most swords are propagated) and the submerged 
leaves.  If the whole plant seems to be "growing down", it means 
that the plant is lacking some important nutrients.  If you are 
already using substrate ammendments and trace element supplements, 
you might want to try potting the plant up with potting soil (or 
garden soil) and some extra iron supplement like a laterite ball 
or micronized iron. In my tanks, this makes the difference between 
Swords that limp along and those that regularly outgrow my tanks!

 ------------------------------

Karen Randall
Aquatic Gardeners Assoc.
Boston, MA