Algae is a plant right? (algea question)

sumthin fishy

sumthin fishy

I eat spam
Aug 22, 2005
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So I got a new light for my 55 gal amazon tank. Nothing much, just upgraded from the incandescent to florescent for fish viewing purposes. I dont have live plants, unless you count the algae. Its been there for a long time in small ammounts, I scrape it and keep it in check, dont mind having it at all. Since I got the new light It has started to grow a bit more. Again, I dont mind it and its quite miniscule. My question stems from an observation a few nights ago, when I noticed a lot of air bubbles comming off the algae ( I had fallen asleep on the couch quite early, prior to shutting the lights off) I dont usually look at my tanks at night, as the lights are off and I'm sleeping :rolleyes: I have heard reference to pearling and I think thats a refference to plants giving off oxygen or something? Not sure if thats what's happening, but Id like to know what those little bubbles are. Im pretty sure they arent hurting anything, Im just curious is all! :D TIA
 
Algae are lower order plants. The bubbles you are seeing is most likely O2. I've also saw diatoms give off bubbles, same with BBA and the green slime.
 
GRRRRR :rant2:

I can't get my plants to pearl and he gets pearling algae.


NOT FAIR!
 
Sounds like you just need to get drunk, fall asleep on the couch and give your algae a 16-20 hour photoperiod.


it couldn't hurt to try ;)
 
Algae are not plants. They belong to a Kingdom called Protists. Many scientist believe that plants evolved from green algae since they share the same pigments such as chlorophyll a and b, and carotenoids.
 
:huh: Wha?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist

Algae used to be classified under the Kingdom of Plantae until recently. Biologists are now using DNA and molecular biology to determine the taxamonic classification of many organisms.

I'm taking a first year university course in biology and I was surprised to see that algae wasn't a plant. I always thought it was but apparently not. Other than the green colour and photosynthetic pigments (only similar in green algae), algae are more like other protist not plants, especially with the sexual/asexual reproduction.
 
dang mysteria got to it first!, basically, protists are the junk box of the biological kingdom, the kingdom protista contains all the (usually single cellular organisms like paramecium, but some multicellular organisms like algae) organisms from amoebas to kelp, its got fungus-like plant-like and animal-like organisms (fungus-like is almost the same as animal-like but whatever...)

but for plants to be plants, they usually need more than what algae has, moss is about the simplest plant around, so think of it in terms of complexity (moss has roots and spores)
 
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