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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