Re: Cables, the debate -- Replies from George Booth

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

I'll try this one more time.  Yahoo's new anti spam
software hacked up the last transmission.

The text below is being posted for George Booth, of whom
not only is his existence suspect, but even that of his
computer .  I didn't edit, revise, or othewise change it,
except that, during copy/paste, the emailer word wrap might
have beat the heck out out it's visual symmetry.== 

== Re: Cables, the debate ===

Scott Hieber wrote:
> But heating cables won't
> work (literally) on that one tank during about 4-7 months
> of the year, depending on weather.  And the other tanks
> don't really *need* any heaters during the warmer months.

Granted, not being on at all for half the year negates the
value of the cables. 
But isn't having an air-conditoned fish room (or house, in
my case) part of the 
whole high-tech planted tank regimen? <g>

However, some peple seem to think that the cables should be
on ALL the time. 
This is NOT true. If the cable was on all the time, the
substrate would heat up 
uniformly and you would not have any heat gradients in the
substrate, thus no 
convection currents. You would then effectively have an
expensive reptile heater.   
Cables should cycle on and off to maintain the mythical
"warm and cool zones".  
If they cycle only at night and are off during the day,
wonderful!

That's why I think a higher heat density type cable is
better - It can quickly 
warm the area around the cable, start convection currents
flowing, boost the 
water temp a bit then shut off before the whole substrate
gets uniformly warm. 
 
> Creating mild convection currents in the
> substrate after several months of not doing so -- does
that
> kick up a lot of bad stuff that's been collecting?  

My mental image of "kicking up" seems to require a lot of
flow. Sort of like a 
reverse flow UGF on steroids.  I can't image the gentle
convection currents 
generated by a correctly set up heating cable as moving
anything more beefy than 
ions. 

Dennis Sheridan wrote:
> And if magma is "near the surface" the water
> seeping up through it is going to be way too hot to
support plant
> life. Tons of bateria and other things, but not higher
order plants.

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that magma is near the
surface and is directly 
heating things.  I meant indirectly warming water below the
surface, like 
geo-thermal stuff.  Sort of like the earths molten core
helps warm the surface. Pure 
conjecture based on geological ignorance.  Never mind. 

George

George Booth in Ft. Collins, CO (gbooth at frii dot com)
 The website for Aquatic Gardeners by Aquatic Gardeners
   http://aquaticconcepts.thekrib.com/  (mirror)
   http://www.frii.com/~gbooth/AquaticConcepts/


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