Natural Sources of CO2 -- ?

[dapellegrini]

I was just reflecting on natural aquascapes and realized that I have no idea how plants in a natural environment find their CO2... What produces CO2 in a lake/river?

[Robert H]

Plants grow above water and take it from the atmosphere. Truly submersed plants evolve to survive under very low levels of C02 derived from decaying organic matter and bacteria in the water and substrate.

[dapellegrini]

Really? So then would it follow that most of what we grow and cultivate in the FW planted scene will not be found in nature, the way we grow it in our CO2 injected tanks?

[Purrbox]

While the plants we grow are often found in nature, you aren't going to find them growing nearly as fast nor as algae free as we strive for in our tanks. We are trying to provide ideal growing conditions for plants that rarely, if ever, occur in nature.

[fish_4_all]

Everything that breaths gives off CO2. Fires produce it, decaying matter, car exhaust has a lot, lots of sources for it naturally. And as far as lakes and such, the simple mass of surface area allows for massive exchange amounts of CO2 into the water although the levels are about 3ppm normally. This allows the plants to use a lot more than our little tanks can provide and that is why have to inject CO2 in order to give them fastest growth. Somoene told me that so don't ask where I found it.

[dapellegrini]

lol...

So even if I had a good map, a snorkel and some good goggles, I wouldn't be able to find aquarium grade R. wallichii in the East Asia wild growing like I see it in photos online?

Perhaps a bad example, but I guess what I am trying to confirm is that the majority of the plants growing in my tank, specifically those that like high CO2, do not exist fully submerged in the same state in nature... Are the vast majority of the plants that we grow submerged really emersed-loving plants that we are able to adapt to full aquatic conditions with high-light and CO2 injection?

[rkilling1]

oh man, that's another, stay up all night on the computer, kinda night for the answer kinda question.

fish_4_all kinda answer it, at a normal rate, the plants due fine with the CO2 level found naturally in water. they have adaped to the 3PPM level by changing many things within the structure of their leaves to be able to accomplice this. (thinner membrains for better CO2 absorption, uptake nutrients from thier leaves, ect..)

that doesn't anwser your orginal question, but it should help answer why aquatic plants survive, somewhat.

we can go deeper if you would like?

HTH.

[dapellegrini]

LOL... you are right rkilling, this is a "stay up all night on the computer" kind of question.

My orginal question was "where does the CO2 come from..." then on realization that the CO2 simply doesn't exist in the same proportions in the natural world, the follow-up is "well is there anything natural about my aquarium?"... Thus the bit about East Asia with a snorkel... Could one truly find any of this crazy pink, red and orange flora as I am growing it, in a natural state similar to my tank? ...

I think the answer to that is coming is a NO... We make the plants much prettier by providing more of what they wish they had (or we wish they had) out in the wild.

(obivously) I am still on the lower part of the learning curve with all of this...

[fish_4_all]

I have seen some of our plants in pictures in nature that have the same nice colors we like to see in them. Bogs are a prime example of natural aquatic environment that can potentially have very high concentrations of CO2 in the water. Massive amounts of decaying matter that release CO2 and because of high levels of Carbonate the CO2 levels can be very high, high enough to be dangerous in the right circumstances. Ceder bogs around here in times of low rain can be fatal to most aquatic life. I have also seen the standard weed we call anacharis growing in my local lake actually become red when it got really close to the surface in low water.

The real point is your chances of walking out and seeing an aquatic plant with the same vibrant colors as we can produce in our tanks is rare and is really something you have to search out to see.

[Plantbrain]

There are many places nature CO2 rich water eminates from, they are called springs

Pierre water etc?

I'm sure many are familiar with soda water?

Such rivers exists in Florida, many! Same with sections of the Mato Grosso, packed with fish, turtles etc.

Shallow lakes have no issues remaining clear and algae free for the most part, the water is gin clear as long as they have about 30-50% coverage by the plants.

This is common knowledge to Limnologist that work on tropical and subtropical lakes, cough cough cough!

But old dated reference Limnology from the 1970's that was very boased towards northern lakes, of which few folks keep biotypes of, cough cough cough!

Let's bring you folks up to date by about 30 years:

Read this guy, he's been around and was at the lab I worked at for the MS:

http://fishweb.ifas.ufl.edu/Bachmann/Bachmann.htm

http://fishweb.ifas.ufl.edu/Canfield/Canfield.htm

http://fishweb.ifas.ufl.edu/Havens/Havens.htm

http://fishweb.ifas.ufl.edu/Faculty.htm

Now that group of folks and the funding for aquatic sciences and the amount of folks specifically targeting aquatic plants we actually keep and grow is enormous, far more than all the references ever supported by any aquatic plant book ever written to date.

The area of research is also specific. It examplifies the best natural conditions that one might find an aquarium tropical plant and applied research.

A lake in Demark or Minnesota that freezes every year, is very deep, has only cold water species, large turn over events 2x a year is hardly applicable to a shallow tropical planted tank don't you think?
Plants grow much faster and cycle faster at warm temps, and grow very slow at cold temps.

http://www.floridasprings.org/explor...tured/wakulla/

There are about 90+ to chose from BTW:
http://www.floridasprings.net/

The Mato Grosso and Tx springs also host enormous amounts of optically clear waters full of plants without algae, the visibilty in the Rainbow river exceeds 200ft.

Hardly algae ridden...............

Regards,
Tom Barr