Hi all, Light is definitely the driver of everything else, but you can always control light intensity, even when you can't control light intensity with a dimmer, by adding floating plants, as a <"
net curtain">. Personally I like a long photoperiod and a reasonably bright light.
Floating plants eliminate CO2 availability from the equation and they are plants adapted to <"
intense sunlight on Varzea lakes etc">. So you have also taken light out of the equation (unless your light is so dim on full power that not even floating plants receive enough PAR to grow).
That just leaves the <"
fourteen mineral nutrients essential for plant growth">, and that is where your floating plants come in useful again, via the <"
Duckweed Index">.
It isn't very exciting as an approach, but by isolating each of the separate factors;
It allows you to eliminate them one at a time when you are problem solving. If you have a bright light and your floating plants are
- yellow,
- have stunted leaves or
- don't grow at all,
<"
it is a nutrient issue">.
If you floating plants have yellow stunted
new leaves, it is a problem with a <"
non plant mobile nutrient"> and you need to wait a little while for an improvement in plant growth to occur.
For the plant mobile nutrients as soon as you've added the nutrient limiting plant growth you should see a difference. With nitrogen the greening effect can be observed with in minutes for many plants, they visibly go greener as you look at them.
cheers Darrel