The Krib Plants	[E-mail]

Plant Tech: Lighting, Heating Cables, and other Gadgetry* Plants need assistance to grow in the aquarium environment, and some of this is provided by the "technology" of lighting, water pumps, heaters, etc. Note: CO2, the most popular plant gadget, is discussed in its own section.

There are many different schools of keeping planted tanks, several of which are described in these pages. You'll be much happier if you pick one, as opposed to trying to mix methods.

Speaking of schools of thought, here's a list of Dupla's Golden Rules for the succesful aquarium, most of which can be accomlished by an expensive piece of hardware. :)

Lighting

• results of a Survey of how much lighting people use
• foot-candles, lux, lumens, sunlight, PAR: Steve Pushak explains it all for you! (Side note, after reading this, perhaps you'd like to buy a PAR meter!)
• Notes about PAR units and conversions, with interesting consequences about light spectrum.
• general discussion on the effect of spectrum (color temperature) on plant growth, etc.
• Plant-specific lighting posts (topics include what spectra and day length is optimal for growing plants, avoiding algae, how much light, how to stimulate flowering, etc).
• Too Much Light! Yes, the hobby has progressed to the point that folks can actually say that now.
• Open top or not?
• Natural lighted tanks
• Krause's theories (an interesting contrast to Dupla).
• Technical info on photosynthesis

Heating Cables

• Dan Resler and Uwe Behle's illustrated article, explaining everything you ever need to about Dupla's cables, or how to build your own.
• Dan's older posting.
• Scott Moore's photographed step-by-step document of how he built his heating cables by the above recipes.
• Nadeem Faiz's concise summary of using wire-wrap wire with heat-shrink tubing.
• Lots of helpful posts on cable heating in general
• info on why you shouldn't use high-voltage cables and other potential disasters.
• A source for some medical Dupla-like flexible cable.
• some debates over the value of cables themselves,
• alternatives to heating cables (of varying degrees of dubiousness).

Miscelanious tech

• Tweezers and the like
• other topics.
• Discussions on the merits of the high tech approach itself.
• A reality check from "Dr. Dave" Heubert on the concept of optimal growth.
• tissue culture.
• "No-tech": what happens when you neglect the tank altogether?
• a distantly-related description of a terrarium control system.

^*The PlantTech Logo is based on an idea by George Booth.

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