Re: LFS vs APD wisdom - or dialectics and didactics

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Roger Miller said:

> I don't hear the words "effetism" or "effete" very often
> -- not much at all 
> since the late Spiro Agnew called some press members an
> "effete corps of 
> impudent snobs."  I had to go and look it up.  Is that
> really the word you 
> meant to use there?

Don't read too much into my weirder gambols with language;
not totally off the mark, I was having fun and mainly
poking fun at my own snobbery about UGFs.  But, hey, if I
got you just one person to look just one thing up, then
somebody learned something and it was a good a day.  I like
it better when *I* learn something, but whattayagonnado?

> You guys are making it sound a lot like you can't
> maintain plants in the long 
> term without internet-recommended methods; CO2, 3+ wpg,
> no UGF, no aeration, 
> restricted circulation, heavy fertilizer dosing, large,
> frequent water 
> changes and so on.  Put simply, you're wrong, and I have
> some 15-year old 
> crypts and anubias that stand as proof.

But who said it can't be done.  Haven't a number of active
posters stepped up and said, sure it can be done.  Even me,
and I have this thing about UGFs.

That those methods are not promoted as often as other
methods is true, but that's not the same thing.  I don't
know who is down on UGFs besides me and I've been reading
the list for a while.  Maybe the paint on that brush
belongs only on me.

> There are plants that will not grow very well under the
> conditions that 
> Kirk's LFS promotes . . . The problem with the LFS 
> approach is that the sales
> people usually know 
> little about what they are recommending.  They sell
> plants that won't grow 
> under those conditions at the same time they recommend
> those conditions; they 
> don't tell customers that the plants are grown emersed
> and will go through a 
> period of adaptation to submersed growth; they don't tell
> customers that some 
> common fish will damage or destroy the plants; above all
> they don't tell 
> customers to be patient.

I agree with all of that (except for leaving out the part
about UGFs clogging up the substrate unless you keep a very
low fish load) and I'm glad.  Roger knows more about most,
maybe all of this stuff than I -- no joke; he's more
experienced and has more science under his belt.  So it's
somewhat comforting to me when I find that we agree.  I
don't know if it's a comfort or an alert for Roger ;-)

I still would like to see a good summary of the several
basic methods for gardening  -- using UGFs would be one of
the methods.  The couple of times that I've brought this
up, I've been, er, informed of my missunderstanding that
there are no "codifiable" methods, that every tank is
different, that each gardener must find his own groove,
etc.  There's some advice that'll make a lfs rich, "Put
these in water and then find your groove, every tank is
different."

Okay, I'm overstating the case.  But "slow-grow: and
"fast-grow" cut a bit too broadly.  I know there are
infinite (or anyway a lot) of variations that one can do
with each of the different aspects of aquatic gardening,
especially if one is willing to make adjustments in the
other aspects.  But I think a set of rules of thumb (not
the Laws of Hammurabi but guidelines) can be listed for
each of the several basic methods.

I think APD is pretty much willing to entertain them all
(No one said, "Because that lfs is nuts, it won't work.")
but there is a preference for CO2 tanks.  The newest
newbies seem to have lots of light (sometimes too much) and
no added CO2 -- maybe the advice, more often than it is,
should be, to help reduce algae growth, remove one of those
bulbs and turn your patience up a couple notches.

I hope Roger is one of the folks that makes (continues to
make) those sorts of suggestions when the occassions arise
-- it's nice to have him back more actively on the list,
even if he's going to say things that are absolutely
patently false [i.e., disagree with me ;-)  ].  

Now who sounds like a nattering nabob of negativism ?  :-)

And Ol' Spiro, he had no respect for Hammurabi's code.

Scott H.

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