nelumbo74;30599 said:
When I try to recommend they reduce the wattage of the tanks, I am treated like an idiot. It happened just today on APC.
Welcome to the club
I've been treated like an idiot for many years.
It's easy to do on a forum or on the web, much harder to do in person
But the personal jabs do not matter, the issue is the topic at hand. Stay on topic and test your assumptions and beliefs. Many folks get really personally upset if you ask them to challenge their beliefs no matter how illogical they might be. This is a
social issue, not a plant issue. For all the banter about being open minded and accepting of new ideas.........it's the definition of irony.
I mention this because I want folks to see how to approach such cockamaney and male Bovine manure. So do not get personally pissed off. Let them do that.
After multiple personal attacks, it was not worth it for me to post on the APC and I have not been back in years since nor will. There are plenty of other forums without that behavior. However, I test assumptions, even the basic ones such as light and CO2 and actually ask questions and make test that answer the BIG picture.
Any clown can use google and rehash and parrot what someone else said and claim it to be their own advice and words. They do not know if what was said is true or not, they have no background about how to go about it logically.
Information is not knowledge.............
We will see dramatic changes in the Planted hobby coming up this next year about light and how it relates to ADA, scaping and CO2./nutrient demands. Folks are getting some cheap light meters that measure PAR, so we will see a lot more folks doing things in this area.
This is good news. Easy to measure and quick.
the light changes but only every slowly over time, so once measured, you do not have to do much thereafter. That's a test worth doing.
I've always known this and used this to target a general non limiting level for any light level(which is why I chose very high light to come up with estimation of the EI method). What I did not have was a bunch of nice scapes with low light to prove the point, but when I saw the chance and actually brought the meter with me for once, the data did not lie.
Still, it was testing my assumptions and curiosity, not assuming that all light types are equal in terms of the plant actually uses for photosynthesis. This avoids the issue of brands, color temps and watts, reflectors etc and we can measure all of those relative to a standard that is specific for plants.
The key is having a standard reference to begin with and also some nice low light tanks as examples.
One question, what is your opinion on spectrum? I noticed in one of the posts in this thread that you compared ADA lights to Coralife. I personally love the Coralife T5 bulbs, due to their affordability, as well as their peaks in the red spectrum, actually the 10000k and 6700k peak in the orange range, but the colormax peaks in the red range. I have a 45g tank with 4 - 21 w bulbs (2 - 1000k, 1 - 6700k and one Colormax). This gives me 1.86 wpg, but I get the most steady, even and healthy plant growth. I've grown the "hardest" plants out there, especially the very difficult red plants, and I have wonderful growth, ample pearling and no visible signs of algae.
Thanks,
Kevin
I think it matters only in the respect that you personally like the perception you get from your own eye balls
As far as growth rates from the plants: PAR units are what count or...rather, they are the bets units we really have for now, certainly better than many on the APD enjoy doing, "guessing" the light and the CO2.
I'm not comfortable doing that.
Since ADA is often referenced as the defacto best way to do things based on the Amano scaping skills, it seem wise to measure the light, then the CO2, and lastly, the nutrients.
I've measured the light, the nutrients in each liquid and have done the sediment as well recently(the next newsletter). I can measure the CO2 at Aqua Forest but it changes throughout the day depending on what time you come in. So ideally a data logging graph for several days for each tank would be best.
Steve and George would not mind I think.
But the CO2 device is 2000-3000$.
Light meter is a lot cheaper and quick. Since the light is controllable and stable in aquariums, measuring it is much easier than taking field readings as the sun moves and the angle changes
I found in several aquariums that the CO2 could vary as much as 10X even with high current and low biomass low cut pruned scapes. 40-100ppm near the CO2 outflow, 30ppm at 12", 20 at 36" away and in the plant beds 10-15ppm. At the surface it was about 20-25ppm. I have 18X per hour turnover. Hardly low flow, Steve and George also like higher flows and have an extra filter on each tank.
Guess where folks take their CO2 readings?
Not all these places nor in real time.
pH meters do not detect such differences.
Other aquatic botanist are not surprised by the readings either.
Let the no nothings believe their own thoughts.
You just keep showing examples of nice tanks, plants and sell them to the same haters. By falsifying what they say, any rational person will see the reality, and few will go to their side and think and believe the same things. I am rather adversarial about BS, so they do not like me too much, but I have a strong reaction to BS when I see it, just how I am and come across on line.
In person, I ask you directly and look you in the eye for an answer. Then it much harder to BS me and everyone else standing around looking at the readings. Many can come across as some expert on line and with google, but not in person. Some just get personal to avoid the question as it makes them look bad. So.......stick to the topic and keep after it and ask them to answer the question "how" if what they claim is true, is this possible? You might not ever know the real cause of their issues, poor plant growth, algae etc, but you will know what it is
not.
One step at a time, you can rule out causes.
Regards,
Tom Barr
