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Originally Posted by plantbrain Sure, the plants remove the CO2 very fast at night, the flux rate from the air into the the tank is much slower. |
During the day, plants photosynthesize and consume CO2; during the night, they perform aerobic respiration and release CO2 (they don't remove CO2 at night). Also, I'm not sure I get the connection to the flux of CO2 from air to tank. Do you mean that the flux is insignificant, eliminating that as a factor?
With regards to Niko's comment about the difference in rates - I don't really see that there is much of a difference in the rates (maybe I'm just not understanding the comment fully). As the concentration of CO2 drops, plants have a harder time utilizing what is available, and the rate of photosynthesis decreases (which explains plateau on the daytime part of the curve). Then, at night, the plants have a harder time doing aerobic respiration because of the increase in the ratio of CO2 to O2 (the plateau on the night time curve).