Re: crenacara filamentosa

[David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>]

"The plants will lower the conductivity, but you will
not have much luck if you start the plants in soft
acid water. Even plants that are native to such areas
have been shown to grow better in harder water."

My experience has been the opposite Scott. I have had
both hard water and soft water plants thrive in acidic
environments. Does this apply to all plants of course
not. However, It makes sense that plants would do
better in acidic water because there is more available
CO2 from the abundance of carbonic acid. When we have
an acidic environment we have more carbonic acid to
tip the scale to the acid side and thus more available
CO2. This is why people use CO2 injectors to make the
water more acidic and thus lower the pH. Growing
plants will raise your pH because they are utilizing
the CO2 from the carbonic acid. Now if you grow both
hard water plants with soft water plants in the same
tank, you may get a problem. because the soft water
plants would have a hard time competing with the hard
water plants in an aquarium containing hard alkaline
water and visa versa. Again plants release chemicals
to fend of both algaes and plants. In fact some
combinations of plants simply wont work because of
this battle going on in the aquarium. One of the plant
species wont make it. In the case of hard and soft
water plants yes you can grow them both in either soft
or hard water but if you do both kinds one will have
an advantage and out compete the other.

David Sanchez



--- Scott <zerelli@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The plants will lower the conductivity, but you will
> not have much luck if you start the plants in soft
> acid water. Even plants that are native to such


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