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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V3 #68
Steve Dixon wrote:
> Dave Gomberg wrote: >>>Mr. Giacosa, there is no doubt that Amano does
> good plants and pics. But
> we do not need a 100 line ad for his products here. I think this post
> is in extremely poor taste.>>>
>
> FWIW, I don't agree with Dave. [snip]
FWIW I do agree with Dave. After I started into the text of the letter
and realized that it read very much like advertising I simply skipped the
rest. I dislike advertising in my mailbox and typically delete it without
reading it. I didn't have the option in this case.
To the best of my knowledge, the list doesn't officially discourage
commercial posts. But I do wish that he had sent the review to those who
had actually asked for it, rather than pumping it out to the list.
> ------------------------------
Stephen Boulet wrote:
> >Most aquariums are on stands, and most CO2 reactors are under the aquarium.
> >At some point the reactor would have to produce too much pressure to force
> >the CO2 up the tube (would this kill the yeast or shorten their life?). I
> >find I get better CO2 production when I can raise the bottle a bit.
> >
I think yeast are capable of working well across pretty big pressure
differences. The pressure you put them under by putting your CO2 outlet
under water is very small. My CO2 outlet is about 6 inches under water,
so the pressure on the CO2 is equal to the weight of 6 inches of water. I
have friends who live on the other side of town at a higher elevation than
I do. The barometric pressure difference between their home and mine
is a little more than a foot of water. The pressure difference between my
home and sea level is close to four feet of water. Yeast works real well
for me, so if it were sensitive to that little bit of pressure then it
wouldn't work well at all for most other folks.
If you get fast CO2 production with your reactor off the floor, then the
difference might be due to a temperature change. Yeast seem sensitive to
temperature, and the temperature in many rooms increases off the floor.
> ------------------------------
Olga Betts wrote:
> >Noel Llopis wrote:
> >>Subject: Plant meltdown :(
> >>Three days ago I decide to re-fit my 29 gallon tank into an environment
> >>more suitable for plants. Right now it's something like this:
> >>- - 1.5" of natural clay (kitty litter) mixed with some Osmocote pellets.
> >
To the original problem... The only time I've seen anything like that, the
whole batch of plants were killed by high temperatures. A friend mailed
me some plants that sat in my mail box for a couple hours on a sunny
afternoon in May. They cooked. Some of it was mush when it came out of
the box. Some looked ok but rotted quickly afterwords.
'Course, that probably doesn't help Noel much.
> >You say "natural clay (kitty litter)". How do you know that the kitty
> >litter is "natural clay"? Are you sure you know what is in it? I am
> >disappointed to hear of so many going the "kitty litter" route. I'm sure
> >one can have success with it but there is no generic "kitty litter" made of
> >exactly the same stuff everywhere. Maybe the stuff you used has herbicides
> >to keep out mold, or pesticides to keep out bugs. Maybe it was made from
> >clay soaked with industrial waste. I'd be very surprized if there is any
> >law that kitty litter makers have to reveal all the ingredients. After all
> >-- it is made for cats to pee in! <g>
I think truth in packaging laws would require that if the bag is labeled
as "natural" or "all natural" that is won't contain fungacides, herbicides
and so on. A lot of what is sold as kitty litter is manufactured and sold
for a lot of other commercial and industrial purposes, not just for cats
to pee in. It is true that the composition of the clay product can vary
quite a bit and some kitty litters might contain additives that you don't
want in your tank.
> >>I was hoping this was going to be IT and be my most successful tank
> >>so far since it seemed to have all the requirements for good development.
> >
> >I'm surprized (if you have been gathering information from this list) that
> >you would go for kitty litter with Osmocote pellets as a tank that was
> >going to be "IT." I think that gravel with laterite, Paul K's soil soup or
> >just plain gravel with plant tablet fertilizer would have been a better
> >bet. I hope your tank recovers.
I see no reason why the kitty litter and Osmocote substrate couldn't be IT
for Noel's purposes. Kitty litter mixtures work fine, at least for some
people. In fact most all of the materials that are touted for building
substrates have variable properties and will produce different results for
different people. "Soil soup" for instance might have very different
properties depending on the soil that's used. Most of the other substrate
ingredients we talk about (e.g. soil, peat, potting soil, vermiculite, art
clay, sand blasting grit, gravels and so on) can all have highly variable
characteristics. Even laterite is after all just a kind of dirt and is
likely to have some significant variations in its properties.
------------------------------
Finally, I wrote:
> The substrate is a mix of potting soil, peat moss, Tex-Blast (sand
> blasting grit) and a fairly coarse sealed aquarium gravel. The stuff was
> mixed so the result had the texture of a gravelly soil. I originally
> layered that about 8 inches thick and I kept just a couple inches of water
Oops. This is misleading. It wasn't layered. It was all mixed
uniformly.
Adios.
Roger Miller