I can't think of anywhere that has high light freshwater environments like we try to create for our precious glosso etc... rivers and lakes are usually murkey dark places.
show me if you can.
show me if you can.
Low light or no light... where in nature does a high light gardenscape ever exist?
- Thread starter mellowvision
- Start date
Sunlight is easily 20x brighter than most of the lights on our tanks... sunlight is also much brighter in the tropics...
Yes, rivers do often apear quite murky... but your probably looking at 20+ ft of water. the majority of plants grow in shallow water... like around 5 feet deep or less maybe. Even if a river apears darker than your tank with "medium" light... don't forget that unless your lighting your house with thousand watt halides then it's quite a bit brighter outside... Your eyes acclimate to let more light in when it's dark, less when it's bright... so your eyes do not give a fair comparison.
Also, around here, I see quite abit more variety of plants in small shallow creeks and stuff then I do around the shores of lake st. clair.
Yes, rivers do often apear quite murky... but your probably looking at 20+ ft of water. the majority of plants grow in shallow water... like around 5 feet deep or less maybe. Even if a river apears darker than your tank with "medium" light... don't forget that unless your lighting your house with thousand watt halides then it's quite a bit brighter outside... Your eyes acclimate to let more light in when it's dark, less when it's bright... so your eyes do not give a fair comparison.
Also, around here, I see quite abit more variety of plants in small shallow creeks and stuff then I do around the shores of lake st. clair.
the intensity of sunlight is not really much of a factor in the discussion I'm trying to discuss, at least, not as much as the lumens that reach the floor and the resulting vegetation.
what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that dense patches of glosso grow as carpets in the wild... or that plants in nature are ever found in such extreme "good" conditions... I'm starting to see this style of aquascaping as really unnatural.
even in shallow creeks, plant growth is not lush and dense as seen in these tanks...
what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that dense patches of glosso grow as carpets in the wild... or that plants in nature are ever found in such extreme "good" conditions... I'm starting to see this style of aquascaping as really unnatural.
even in shallow creeks, plant growth is not lush and dense as seen in these tanks...
You would be correct in your assumption, Mellow. You just don't commonly see the kind of growth in the wild that occurs in most high-tech planted tanks. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it isn't very common. Different species of plants normally don't grow in the same densities that we find in our tanks, either. Growth is usually more sparse and spread out. In places where there is substantial agricultural runoff, you may see plant growth explosions, but that isn't 'wild' IMO....it's directly influenced by us.
I dissagree. perhaps I have a more abundant amount of basil in my garden, but in every other sense, it's pretty natural.... just plain soil, water, and sun.
but in our aquariums, we blast light, add tons of fertilizers, do water changes and pump in co2. it's way less natural than most gardens.
but in our aquariums, we blast light, add tons of fertilizers, do water changes and pump in co2. it's way less natural than most gardens.
we do that to our tanks because in nature, mother nature suplies the plants with all that. Fish to poo for the ferts, soil for ferts, fish breath thus producing CO2, then through nucler energy of the sun they are provided with light to mix all that together to make glucose their food.
no, we do that in our tanks to out do nature... to create environments to grow plants at a rapid rate and make aquascapes that are not possible in nature.
Okay you are in new york if you want to see some real plant growth like in an aquarium come to Texas and look at a creek or pond or lake and you will be amazed oh and in my pond I add nothing and I have a pond lilly that took over the whole pond in les than a year.
pond lilies will grow in a bucket full of gasoline... they take over anywhere. but they're not really what we're talking about. show me anything in texas that looks like a glosso carpet... that's not man made. it just doesn't exist.