Water Plants, Global Warming and Ecosystem

Water Plants, Global Warming and Ecosystem

This piece might invariably become very big, so I decided to make a personal anecdote.

Of course, it has relevance to Global Warming and the Water Ecosystems.

The first to be effected by the above catastrophe are our domestic inland fish stock who cannot withstand temperatures above 84 degrees of Fahrenheit.

Mind you 84 was the highest temperature recoded in the Nineteen Seventies.

Added to this the algal bloom that is ably aided by our detergent industry and soap that percolate into our water bodies, kill our fish stock, right left and center.

Detergents effects the gills of fish and kill them.

Added to this the toxic agrochemicals that are dished out at lib without any control complete the devastation.

For ages my interest was water plants, not fish.

The Guppy Fish, I keep is my ready made answer to the mosquito problem.

All the Guppy Fish that were released by British, imported from Latin America during Malaria Epidemic cannot withstand the atmospheric degradation, currently.

We always blame British for our ills but always forget their contribution, especially in education.

If not for them there would not have been a science stream in education.

 

Strangely one cannot find a healthy batch of Guppies from an aquarium now.

I have an artificial figure of twenty, as my number for a minimum number of plants that should be in a particular location as an ecosystem, to call it a biodiversity hot spot.

In that sense, my roof top garden is a hot spot albeit artificial!

It is 2 (for binary division) and log one (ideally natural log) multiplied.

I counted the number of my plants by memory and I got stuck at 18.

My memory failing I decided to count them visually and stuck again at 18.

This is on top of the four water lilies I have (my latest interest).

Then I decided to investigate and found the the missing two.

One was barely surviving at the rim of a basin.

I quickly uprooted it and transferred it to my fish tank carefully leaving behind a little strand at its original site.

 I made sure the plant had its tiny pot.
This was a tiny plant I cherished a lot.

After period of hibernation (bad weather, too) this tiny plant is now spreading its outgrowths forming a beautiful carpet at the bottom well away from the Vallisneria outgrowths.

Second one which had a beautiful flower was completely neglected by me.

I divided it, into two lots and placed them in appropriate pots to grow.

Given time a beautiful flower would bloom!

In the midst of this I found another water plant barely surviving.
It has its rightful place now.

The problem is with the dry weather coming, if I do not water them at least once in three days, they would not survive.

The global is taking its toll right  NOW!

Now I come to the main topic of this piece.

It was the Vallisneria Plant.

I could not raise a reasonable stock of this plant.

I had grown it in a special plastic container.

It won't spread out from its tiny pot.

I carefully selected two outgrowths and placed them in the front center of the tiny fish tank.

The expectation was one will grow to the right (the space available) and the other to the left and placed them in such a way but still connected to the mother plant.

Funnily one went in the direction of right, away from the light source.

It hit the glass and stopped not knowing to take a 90 degree turn.

Few weeks later it took a 90 degree turn and every week or so (at regular interval), another vegetative growth, sprouts (as it was measuring the length and breath of the tank).
Original stems grow in height while the advancing front looks for space but the whole (total) growth is coordinated by the original stem.

So my conclusion is never put a Vallisneria plant in a pot, let the plant finds it own bearings.

The other outgrowth never grew.

The one growing to the right inhibited it.

I severed it from the mother plant and placed it halfway between the left corner and the middle of the fish tank.

After about five days of dormancy, it sprouted out a new leaf.

I am watching to see which way it grows.

Right or left.

That will be in my next piece.
You have to wait!
Its growth is still inhibited (stunted) by the mother plant but has four tiny leaves now.

Postscript:

Mind you this is not one year (an annual) of collection.

I can revise the total number to 21 and five out of six varieties of lilies left are not included.

Fifteen (15) years of painful propagation and caring for them.

If I go out on a two weeks holiday and come some will perish or outgrown by others competing for the limited space.

Unlike human they do not kill each other but localize themselves in their own nick of the ecosystem, leaving tiny place for the less aggressive plants.

If you are busy and have limited time, I wonder whether you should try it.

It is far better for the aquarium vendor to visit you at regular interval, if your tank is very big.

Experimenting with a tiny fish tank is more advisable but number of plants in the ecosystem will be limited by the space.