Sunlight for aquatic plants

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Sunlight for aquatic plants
From: Stephen.Pushak at saudan_HAC.COM
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 16:45:31 PDT
In-Reply-To: <199607111939.PAA23447 at looney_actwin.com>; from "Aquatic-Plants-Owner at ActWin_com" at Jul 11, 96 3:39 pm

Often it is assumed that to place an aquarium with plants in
front of a window is to invite an algae festival. I've recently
purchased the back issues of TAG which include some excellent
articles by Diana Walstad and several other contributors!
I was amazed at how common the use of natural light was
particularly in the early days. It was recommended that the
aquarium should be placed in an East or West facing window.
North would not give enough light and South perhaps too much.
Only a few hours of intense light are needed for the plants.
Diana recommended the use of plants that grow right up out
of the water such as Ludwigia or Bacopa. Once these reach the
air and have a plentiful supply of CO2 from the atmosphere,
they really began to compete with algae. George Booth mentioned
the possibility of using philodendron roots to help extract
nutrients too. How did that experiment work out George?
I'm curious if many of our readers are using natural light
or have experimented with it.

Steve in Vancouver with a high today of about 36C