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Re: Thiel Laterite



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> 
> Thiel laterite (again)
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>    *  To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
>    *  Subject: Thiel laterite (again)
>    *  From: krogers at ES_COM (Keith Rogers)
>    *  Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 14:57:34 -0700
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I've been helping a guy at work design a nice plant tank.  He's been
> gathering materials for a while.  Today he brought in a jar of Thiel
> Aquatech laterite for me to see how it looked compared to Dupla.  I'd
> never seen TAT laterite before but have used Dupla's.
> 
> When I opend the jar I was expecting a dark red clay powder but found
> a brown colored sand-sized material instead.  The main thing I
> noticed, though, was the strong humus smell.  It sure didn't look or
> smell like any laterite I've seen before; it seemed to be more sand
> soaked in peatmoss extract.  My co-worker is concerned it's not "real"
> laterite and possibly not effective.
> 
> I rummaged through the archives of this list with Thiel as the search
> word and have found a few people who have used it (and Dupla) and
> reported good results with both.  But I guess my questions are:
> 
> 1) Is the TAT stuff really laterite (leached Fe/Mn/Al clay)?
> 
> 2) Does it matter so long as you get good results?
> 
> 3) Do the results last as long as Dupla?
> 
> Keith Rogers
> krogers at es_com


1.  Not sure at all.

2.  I have gotten good results thus far(better than the tank without any laterite 
    after 2 months or so.
3.  I have Dupla in one tank, Thiel in another, and none in one.  The results are 
    equivalent to Dupla thus far and no where near as well in the tank minus a 
    substrate additive.

Substrate in all tanks with and without laterite is Texblast sandblasting grit.

BTW:  Thiel screwed up my order the first time.  I ordered directly from them 1lb. 
of the chunk form(which is really more like a bulky powder).  In the mail, I 
received the POWDER form!!  I was sorta mad and let them know about it and they sent 
me 1lb. of the chunk form free of charge.  I was pleased with the response needless 
to say.

Tyson
tyson at phoenix_net