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Who is the APD?



The 'who is Tom Barr' thread go me again thinking about the APD.  From time
to time I have suggested that new plant keepers sign onto the list to learn
a thing or two.  Generally I warn them that 'the list is the list and the
list believes what the list believes' take it with a grain of salt. I am
amazed that the sheer volume of posts from 'senior list members'. I have
been keeping planted tanks now for many years quite successfully but I have
almost no interest in following or posting to the list weekly, or god forbid
daily, for years on end. I just follow a thread occasionally or read the odd
post.  Mostly I just read the message headers and delete if that.  I suppose
I read it more in the fall and winter. I unsubscribe for months at a time.

The APD is mostly the work of a few dedicated people, god bless them, but
there is a lot of POTB 'pat on the back' implicit in this.  Often times, I
feel, that dissenting opinion from non-daily posters is met with skepticism
at best or total dismissive ness more often.

I, for one, miss the presence of Dan Quackenbush on the web.  Dan was a good
maverick.  Mostly if I don't agree with something I just don't post.  I
don't see how people have the time or energy to write multi page documents
and utilize things like refractometers, spectrometers or even test kits.

I guess that what I am saying is that sometimes there is a certain smugness
pervasive on the list.  I am very grateful for the APD, I contributed to the
defense fund, as should you if you haven't but planted tanks aren't even
much of a trick. There is a problem with thinking you know the answer and
that is that you may not be open to other solutions.  I have tried a lot of
methods that worked, from soil substrate and natural light to full on Dupla
style.  The APD does have a personality and a mood, it's a great resource
but it is not going to provide any kind of definitive answer, because there
aren't any.




Adam, who will bake bread today.