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Re: Muddy thoughts

>Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 03:49:25 -0700
>From: Steve Pushak <teban at powersonic_bc.ca>
>
>Look, if you're mixing laterite clay into your substrate you are
>creating mud. That's a fact.

[You know, every time you write "That's a fact" it annoys me because it
usually 
is NOT a fact] 

OK, fine, maybe we should define what "we" mean by mud. 

When I hear the word "mud", I think of thick, gooey, wet soil or clay. Stuff 
that would ooze between your toes if you stepped in it. Stuff that would turn 
water murky if added to an aquarium. Is that a fair definition? 

When I mix Duplarit "laterite" with gravel, I get none of the above. I
believe 
you have never seen Duplarit, to say nothing of actually using it. So I
fail to 
see how you can sit there at your keyboard and fantasize what it might be.
And 
then proclaim that your fantasies are "fact". Bogus, Steve, very bogus.   

>You're not getting very much mud 

Or none, in the case of Duplarit.

>nor very much micro nutrients and so the effect is similar to using a small
>amount of any clay (say 200 grams, a half cup no less!) with your sand
>for your substrate. 

I use 1 kg of Duplarit in my 100 gallon tanks. And perhaps we should define 
"sand" and "gravel". Sand is what goes in a child's sandbox. It is too fine
to 
use as a substrate except in special circumstances. Gravel, as used in an 
aquarium, is typically crushed quartz and has a grain size of 2-3 mm. If we 
can agree on those terms, could we please use them? 

>The plain fact is you're not going to get very many
>nutrients from it. You will be relying upon supplying all the nutrients
>in solution, in the water. And there is nothing wrong with that.

This fact is not that plain. In fact, once the Duplarit has been in the
tank for
awhile AND the nutrients in solution have been carried down into the
substrate 
by substrate heating cables where they bound by negative binding sites in the 
laterite, THEN, if fact, the laterite IS providing nutrients AND in a
controlled
manner at that.   
 
>It's perfectly fine and does not conflict at all with the statement that
>"aquatic plants grow better in mud".

OK, fine, define "better".  Faster? Larger? More colorful? Cheaper? Let's cut 
the crap and say what you really mean. 

>You can probably find soil ...

I would rather pay my $50 and have someone else send me a kilogram of
material 
that has been proven to work. I don't have the time nor patience to collect
soil
samples from the four corners of the Earth or even the four corners of Ft. 
Collins and try each one under carefully controlled conditions to see what
works
"best". 

>> I don't have mud in my tanks and I would opine that my plants grow better
>> than your plants. Dueling photos at High Noon?
>
>Fine with me. Take a look at the pictures at
>http://home.infinet.net/teban/Oct97/oct97.html There are some more at
>http://www.geocities.com/PicketFence/4275/index.html I've seen your
>pictures, and I opine that mine look better than yours anyhow. <g> =
>(giggle)

I'm glad you added the <g> or I would have thought you were serious about
your 
pictures of so-called better growing plants.  

>Oh, that red slimy sticky stuff mixed into the lower 1/3 of your
>substrate is not mud? Gee, we better check the dictionary on this term.
>Its pretty technical. Let's see....

I've discussed this fantasy of yours already. 

>> Yes, mud may have more nutrients than sand, sand+laterite or sand+laterite+
>> proper fertilizers. In fact, mud has TOO MANY nutrients and will, in fact,
>> lead to algae problems.
>
>Where do you get this from? 

From your next sentence.

>There certainly are some soils, that when
>you mix them with water, they would have too many nutrients to be
>appropriate for the typical aquarium. 

>Also, if we use mud, why can't we choose to mix it with sand...

Because then it would not be sticky, gooey, oozy mud, would it? I'm not
against 
mixing some "stuff" in with the gravel but that's NOT what we are
discussing. We
are discussing a MUD SUBSTRATE. Six cm of sticky, gooey, oozy wet soil.
Have you 
missed that part of the discussion in your fervor to defend your use of soil 
mixed with gravel as a substrate? 

[lengthy "soil mixed with gravel substrate" defense deleted]

George Booth, Ft. Collins, Colorado (booth at frii_com)
  Back on-line! New URL! Slightly new look! Same good data!
    http://www.frii.com/~booth/AquaticConcepts/