[ragasssd]

there is a lake here in mumbai where i get my plants, hornwart, anacharis, duckweed etc. man you guys should have seen the hornwart i scooped up from the lake it was like 3-4 inches wide and super dense, dark, and several feet long. it was beautiful! in my tank, the hornwart grows, yes, but like 3/4" wide and a light green. anacharis forget it, even after flourish its back to transparent and brown growth again. in the lake the anacharis was brown from dirt, but growing strong anyways.

my point is i'm shocked at what a gigantic difference is between the tank and lake. i mean the lake here is teeming with filth, natural and unnatural (its horribly polluted), and wildlife. but does filth explain it? also, the myth that tank size affects fish size, does that apply to plants? i dont see how it could but as you can see, i don't really know much!

sagar

 

[Moody636]

I'm sure the main difference is the lighting. We just can't get close to mother nature as far as that goes, but I did see a new type of lighting online that may get us there.

LINK

 

[Wasserpest]

Nice link... LEDs aren't here yet, and already scheduled to be replaced by the next big thing.

And yes... sunlight intensity makes all the difference. I noticed that a lot with house plants too. When you see them in the wild, they are often huge compared to what we are used on our window sills.

 

[ragasssd]

interesting! i always assumed it was the water, nutrients, etc. for some reason.

 

[Erloas]

I'm sure the main difference is the lighting. We just can't get close to mother nature as far as that goes, but I did see a new type of lighting online that may get us there.

LINK

Question is: do these have the same issues as plasma TVs? One major issue with plasma TVs for my area is I'm at 6000+ feet in elevation and with plasma TVs at elevations above about 3-4k they tend to outgas a lot faster and their output life is something like 30-50% less then it is at sea level.
Its an interesting develoment though.

 

[mistergreen]

I'm sure the main difference is the lighting. We just can't get close to mother nature as far as that goes, but I did see a new type of lighting online that may get us there.

LINK

great, more ways to grow algae!

 

[mszabo]

interesting! i always assumed it was the water, nutrients, etc. for some reason.

The human eye is pretty tricky that way. We have a very high dynamic range so we can see just as well in a room with a couple light bulbs as well as outside in full sun even though there's a huge difference in the amount of light being thrown out. It certainly made/makes camera work difficult as film has a fixed (and much smaller dynamic range). I certainly never thought about it until I bought my first real camera.

 

[kid creole]

I think part of it may be the competition in nature. If you look at a spot on the earth, for millions of years plants and animals have been fighting for it. Different places have unique characteristics, and the plant or animal that takes a spot has won a very long contest to take that area.

In an aquarium, we create one unique environment and try to grown many plants in it.

 

[BrentD]

I noticed something similar on a business trip to Hyderabad a couple of years ago. The lake there, Hissain Sagar, is so polluted that the water is a weird lime green and smells horrible. Right below the Marriot Hotel there is an area where water drains out of the lake into a ditch area that carries the water away. The ditch is down in a ravine about a 30-foot drop from the sidewalk beside the hotel.

There are a lot of just regular plants growing up on the hill above the ravine and all the way down to the water, Bougainvillea, Elephant Ears, Banana trees, various types of Ivy. As you look down into the Ravine, the close the plants get to the water, the larger their leaves get and the more vibrant their blooms look. The way the ravine is situated, the light decreases the further down into the ravine you go, and the spray from the slight waterfall seems to govern the size of the plants. My guess is that there are a bunch of chemical plants dumping phosphates and other wastes into the lake that are causing the plants to grow huge.

Now all that being said, you are one brave person to harvest plants from that lake in Mumbai, if it's anywhere near as polluted as Hussain Sagar. You couldn't pay me enough to touch that water.

 

[Guy]

I think part of it may be the competition in nature. If you look at a spot on the earth, for millions of years plants and animals have been fighting for it. Different places have unique characteristics, and the plant or animal that takes a spot has won a very long contest to take that area.

In an aquarium, we create one unique environment and try to grown many plants in it.

This is simply so well stated that I am in awe.

 

[ragasssd]

I think part of it may be the competition in nature. If you look at a spot on the earth, for millions of years plants and animals have been fighting for it. Different places have unique characteristics, and the plant or animal that takes a spot has won a very long contest to take that area.

In an aquarium, we create one unique environment and try to grown many plants in it.

competition leads to evolution yep. and the way these plants propogate, its like a new generation with every new stem. i suppose that after a short while, plants will adjust their size to co-exist, balance with the rest of the community, nutrients, light. its probably really complex, as most of nature is.

yes i am brave i guess but my wife thinks i'm insane...

btw, very interesting replies keep it comin!

 

[talontsiawd]

I don't know if it is just the light because the plants I have grown outside really didn't have any drastic change in size. I wonder if it also the amount of space it has to grow. For example, a tree will only grow as big as its roots will allow. In a small pot, a tree will only grow a fraction of the size of in the ground, even if everything else is held constant. Just a theory.