On oxygen and light:
Under this framework, specifically the interconnected web, we need to consider the root of life - oxygen. As a nutrient, it also falls into leidbigs and with wanting it in slight excess (or in this case it's importance more excess) as we do for all nutrients, we need to consider it. We don't dose it - perhaps we should. There are two ways to introduce it into the system: mechanically or chemically.
Mechanical is capped by the use of wet/dry filtration and this give good oxgygen, but without wet/dry, we are left with surface agitation.
Chemically, we are left with plants who oxygenate both the water and the substrate. They do better though, they super saturate. In this hobby, there was a movement towards reducing light and the goal of this was to make plant growth more manageable: This goal was at the expense of oxygen generation, the foundation of the rest of the life in our tanks: in particular, our microbial assemblage which is equally important to a healthy system.
The only way thing we have control over chemically is how much light we pump into the system. More light = more oxygen, provided it doesn't drive the demand on nutrient acquisition out of the ability of your plants to acquire them either via chemically or mechanically. -- but if the plant can moderate how much light it uses ... does it matter? ... and the answer is yes - by assumption 2 - light is a ripple in electromagnetic field and it will interact with anything which has non-zero electromagnetic components (everything in our tank - including the nutrients such as Calcium ... since it has an electron) ... so we can have too much and it also falls into the web -- but what is that? Is it fair to light to say you can have as much as you want of it but nitrogen is the boogey man? Or you can have lots of nitrogen but light is the boogey man? Light plays into this as well ... but it is a game of economics and perhaps reducing it from a maximum that I do not know is not worth the benefit. Perhaps not, however, if your flow is poorly distributed.
In many ways, I wonder if the tool of water column fertilization with frequent water changes (EI) is better implemented with high light, though I will not make this claim.
As a result, this discussion is leading us to optimizing the aquarium for maximum probability of success. If oxygen is as important as we think it is, then withholding light from your tank may be as much of a mortal sin as running CO2 all night and not during the day (which I have done).
I am not so sure that I am ready to draft a list of optimal parameters just yet -- but soon.
Josh
Under this framework, specifically the interconnected web, we need to consider the root of life - oxygen. As a nutrient, it also falls into leidbigs and with wanting it in slight excess (or in this case it's importance more excess) as we do for all nutrients, we need to consider it. We don't dose it - perhaps we should. There are two ways to introduce it into the system: mechanically or chemically.
Mechanical is capped by the use of wet/dry filtration and this give good oxgygen, but without wet/dry, we are left with surface agitation.
Chemically, we are left with plants who oxygenate both the water and the substrate. They do better though, they super saturate. In this hobby, there was a movement towards reducing light and the goal of this was to make plant growth more manageable: This goal was at the expense of oxygen generation, the foundation of the rest of the life in our tanks: in particular, our microbial assemblage which is equally important to a healthy system.
The only way thing we have control over chemically is how much light we pump into the system. More light = more oxygen, provided it doesn't drive the demand on nutrient acquisition out of the ability of your plants to acquire them either via chemically or mechanically. -- but if the plant can moderate how much light it uses ... does it matter? ... and the answer is yes - by assumption 2 - light is a ripple in electromagnetic field and it will interact with anything which has non-zero electromagnetic components (everything in our tank - including the nutrients such as Calcium ... since it has an electron) ... so we can have too much and it also falls into the web -- but what is that? Is it fair to light to say you can have as much as you want of it but nitrogen is the boogey man? Or you can have lots of nitrogen but light is the boogey man? Light plays into this as well ... but it is a game of economics and perhaps reducing it from a maximum that I do not know is not worth the benefit. Perhaps not, however, if your flow is poorly distributed.
In many ways, I wonder if the tool of water column fertilization with frequent water changes (EI) is better implemented with high light, though I will not make this claim.
As a result, this discussion is leading us to optimizing the aquarium for maximum probability of success. If oxygen is as important as we think it is, then withholding light from your tank may be as much of a mortal sin as running CO2 all night and not during the day (which I have done).
I am not so sure that I am ready to draft a list of optimal parameters just yet -- but soon.
Josh
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