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Re: Muddy Thoughts



Why don't you stop changing the "Subject:"? That way people who want to
follow 
along would have an easier time. 

Let me address your last comment first since I have evidence that you don't
read
all that is posted before replying.

>George, you come out with this wild theory that laterite is fertile
>because heating cables draw nutrients into the substrate and you have 
>NO EVIDENCE to substantiate this claim. 

Bummer, you forgot to read the last part of my post. 

I have EVIDENCE that gravel+laterite+heatingcoils produces great growth. The 
evidence is in the three aquariums I maintain. 

Maybe we should reduce this discussion to a simpler question:

I hope you have looked at the photos on my web page. Do you think my
aquariums 
exhibit good growth? A simple yes or no will do. Please don't go off into a 
discussion of the physics of photographic film, the History of Camera
Optics or 
the chemistry of photographic processes.   

If you don't think my aquariums exhibit good growth then we have nothing
more to
discuss because we have no fundamental basis for a meaningful dialog. 



Regarding your other comments:

>you should perform an analysis of the AMOUNT of nutrient which >laterite is 
hypothetically capable of holding.

Steve, you certainly do miss the point a lot, don't you? <sigh>

What is the point of doing such an analysis if you do not know if the
answer is 
"good" or "bad"? Exactly what is the CEC value required for "better" plant 
growth? You have been ignoring that question for 2 or 3 years now. Perhaps
you 
have a table that shows CEC requirements for various plant families? That
would 
be handy, wouldn't it?

And while we're at it, why don't you trot out YOUR numbers? Then at least
we'll 
know how much is "too much".

I think I've conceded the point that "Steve's Dirt Substrate" has much more
CEC 
and and a higher level of nutrients than "George's Gravel and Laterite 
Substrate". So what? What does that matter? Is that good or bad? Why? 

>Given that 200 grams of the stuff in a rather large tank (what's it >rated
for 
70 gallons?) 

HEY, WAKE UP!!!  "250 grams per 25 gallons". Why is that so hard for you to 
remember? 

>indicates that it can't really hold a lot of nutrients, now can it?

What? "A small quantity indicates not a lot"? How about 1 gram of sulfur has 
about 6*10^23 atoms? One gram isn't very much but 10^23 sure seems like a
lot. 
That was really stupid, Steve.

How much is "a lot"? 1/2 million ions? 2 million ions? 10 billion ions? All 
those numbers sound like "a lot". Oh, wait, we still don't know what "a
lot" is,
do we? 

>On to the subject of convection currents. George again is treading on
>the slippery rocks (must be the clay on them) Please do enlighten us
>with the quantitative numbers. 

And if I did have a number of, say, "0.385 liters per hour per meter^2", what 
possible good would it do? Again, if you don't know what to do with the
answer, 
there is no point in looking for one.
 
>If you have no experimental values, then
>please do feel free to quote Reynolds Numbers and fluid mechanics
>formulae at length. Be sure to mention the co-efficient of thermal
>expansion of water and the resulting hydrostatic forces. Don't forget >to 
factor in the viscosity of water and the average path length >between
particles.

If you would put down your "Encyclopedia of Physics Terms" for a minute and
read
a book on thermodynamics, you might realize that there is no data relating to 
the properties of the substrate in question. Even if there was empirical data 
for water+gravel+laterite, the computations for convection currents are 
intractable. 

Cheers,
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/