richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (04/22/89)
In article <1626@blake.acs.washington.edu> tom@blake.acs.washington.edu (Tom Bunch) writes: >In article <14753@gryphon.COM> richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >> >>It's really hard to say. Conventional wisdom dictates that >>with enough artificial light, you should be able to grow >>anything. Well thats great, but I've noticed two modes: >>with two flourescent tubes in a fixture over my 40 gal tank >>I get algae, everywhere. With only one tube, nothing seems >>to grow much. > >This doesn't exactly solve this particular problem, but the >useful life of aquarium bulbs as far as plant growth is concerned >seems to be about 6 months. After that I understand the bulb >ceases production of the useful wavelengths of light. I can't >explain why the algae will grow while the plants die, though. Does anybody know more about this notion that flourescent tubes cease to produce plant-usable light after a while? Somehow the idea of replacing all my flourescent tubes every six months is not terribly appealing. -- ``But why are you taking your money out of a solvent bank ?'' - Me ``Because you can't get it out of an insolvent one'' - Him richard@gryphon.COM decwrl!gryphon!richard gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV