plants

[schizo_fish]

what affect does ammonia, nitrite and nitrate have on plants? are they bad for them and can high concentrations kill them

 

[linzbob]

Not sure really,

I cycled my tank (fishless) with all the plants in, but i used real strong ammonia, some of the leaves went brown / yellow but all the plants seem healthy enough.

Also during most of the cycling i didnot have the lights on (my starter/lighting pack blew up) so this probably didn't help

Linz

 

[Bangin]

Plants should only help the cycling process. They will breakdown ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. In my heavily planted aquariums, the plants use all of the nitrates and bring the reading to 0.

 

[Bol]

Plants need a source of nitrogen to grow. In an aquarium, they use ammonium and nitrates as that source of nitrogen -- apparently most plants prefer ammonium over nitrates.

As far as I know, plants do not "use" nitrites, under normal circumstances.

I have no idea how high concentrations affect plants.

 

[sinistral]

I agree with Bangin about plants and cycling, and I second everything Bol wrote (as far as I know plants don't utilize nitrogen if in nitrite form). I would only add that, as per a discussion I had with mrV, apparently in high concentrations ammonium ion may be toxic.

Apparently ammonium is taken up so much more readily because of the savings in energy (nitrates require more energy to take up and metabolise) that plants will deplete carbohydrate reserves and fail to reproduce in the presence of high ammonium-low carbohydrate environments. Also, ammonium in high concentrations may inhibit electron transport in photosynthesis.