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Originally Posted by Enviroplasticity  To clarify on this subject, Cacti and succulents fix CO2 at night because their stomata are closed during the day to prevent dehydration due to the high temperatures which cuts off air curculation entirely. If I understand correctly, these plants still perform photosynthesis during the day, only instead of using co2 from the air, they use it from stored chemicals in their leaves from the night before. Knowing that aquatic plants will not close their stomata while submerged, I believe leaving co2 on at night does not make a difference to a plant's growth rate. However, I could be wrong about their growth rate for other, undiscussed reasons. |
Enviro, not an easy subject to clarify. There are two kinds or stages of photosynthesis. Light and water enable the first kind with light providing the energy to break apart water molecules and store that energy inside the plant. The other kind requires that stored energy and carbon dioxide. The plant's energy stores convert CO2 into sugars, which is a more useful to the plant way to store and transfer energy to where the plant needs it. So plants produce oxygen during the daylight photosynthetic hours, and all the time absorb CO2 (either from the habitat or stored CO2) in order to produce sugars.