Aquarium Plants
April 14, 2009 by admin
Filed under Fish Tank Decorating, Keeping Tropical Fish
Under the influence of sunlight, plants and only plants have the ability to manufacture their own food. These green plants combine water and carbon dioxide to form sugars in a process known as “photosynthesis.”
During this process, free oxygen is released in excess of that used by the plant for respiration. This occurs only under the influence of bright light. At other times, the plant breathes normally, consuming oxygen and giving off carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis occurs only when the plant in light is healthy and growing.
Light, then, is essential to your aquarium so that the plants will grow properly and give off oxygen and consume carbon dioxide. The “wonder material” that regulates the food manufacturing process is chlorophyll - the material that gives plants their green color.
There is a good deal of controversy concerning the amount of oxygen that the aquarium plants actually supply for fishes to use.
It should be remembered that water can dissolve only a certain amount of oxygen; any excess oxygen is therefore released at the surface. It is not stored in the water for later use as the fishes require it. Carbon dioxide is released and oxygen is taken into the water. The process can be hastened by bubbling stream of air through the water. This tends to agitate the water and increase the area exposed to the surface in proportion to the amount of circulation engendered. Manual stirring of the water serves the same purpose, but it is not so convenient a method as the mechanical one.
The greater the area of the exposed-to-air water surface, the faster oxygen will be taken in and carbon dioxide released. The greater the air surface, the more fishes can be kept in a given volume of water. You do not really increase the capacity of the fish tank to hold fishes simply by raising the height of the water in the tank. You must also increase the other dimensions in proportion.
Probably the same number of fishes could be maintained in a bare aquarium as in one with plants. Then, you may ask, why bother with aquarium plants? Well, plants serve many functions besides the disputed one of oxygenating. The principal function is an esthetic one: there would not be much beauty to a tank without plants. They provide an excellent background against which your colorful fishes will display themselves to best advantage.
