old school vs. new school

hi all

this is just a bit of chat really
but....

as some or all may be aware there are
very differing opinions on planted tank
water conditions (or any tank for that matter)

old fishkeepers that have been at it for ages
will tell you things like, nitrates = algae
and that phosphates are the devils spawn etc etc

yet, the common thoughts of the newer breed
are quite the opposite, we dose nitrates and phosphates
and a deficiency is where your problems start

has anyone ditched their old knowledge
and moved to the newer methods
(they do have more sceintific backup after all)

i'm just curious, i have given advice by
people here on the forum that has been utterly
rubbished by the more dedicated plant sites

the best one is related to high nitrates
which we are led to believe will kill your FW fish,
i asked on a planty forum about my high nitrates
as i was concerned about my plants not using the
recommended doses and the effect on the fish,
whereupon the whole nitrate killing fish thing
was rubbished

i know there are many ways to skin a cat but
is there a conflict of interest here for
giving advice to newbies?

the mind boggles for newbies and then to be told
nitrates are bad by one person
and nitrates are good by another!

discuss........

rgds

4

hi john

a valid point indeed
and i am v. guilty of be a regurgitator

i glean info off the web and spew it out again
but will always "disclaim" myself
if its an important issue,

hey, if a newb has asked a question
and i have spent two years reading about it
i will save them that two years reading
and give them the "general concencus"!

I have had to put my faith in this general concencus
on planted tank issues until I get enough practical
experience for myself.

however, nowadays in the planted tank game
there seems to be fairly wide agreement on
fertz, flow, lights and co2 and all that
and the message is being hammered home
by the "experts" at least one of who is a credible source
with a career in setting up tanks and the very scientific end of it.

also, if you look at specs of the competition tanks
they are all quite similar in their approach
to the main elements of planted tanks
(obviously there is variation in brands and substrates etc)


regards

4

Hi y'all

I am, by qualification a Horticulturist and I am amused by the comments on the net etc re Plants both Aquatic and terrestrial.

I was trained in Plant identification, Nutrition, pathogens et al and never, not ever, have situations occurred where anyone could agree to a specific solution to a problem, in most cases soil ph figured highly in failures in plant growth, next were failures due to excessive Macro nutrients leading to burning of cells in leaves and roots.

My advice, if you are using a specialised substrate, go ahead, chose your plants carefully and only add nutrients as plants begin to show signs of the nutrients held in them are being depleted. Stick to recommended dosage rates.

Don't over crowed your plants, it is often the case that leaves etc, lower down the plant are deprived proper lighting, subsequently, they die off, rot and allow plant bacteria and fungi to proliferate, usually evident by patches of whitened out areas.

Aquatic plants want to spread, it's their nature, be prepared to divide and conquer, lift the plant out, remove the old part and replant the new.

I believe in Heater cables, they do what ug filters did, they made water course through the roots in the substrate leading to fresh water reaching the roots.

Mat forming plants will strive for the surface if lighting is inadequate, they will stay compact if they are getting enough light.

One important thing to note is that when you carry out water changes, you remove nutrients from the water, fish waste and other suspended nutrient, watch your plants, they will usually tell YOU!

Many people are successful doing absolutely nothing, the green finger brigade, more luck than intent.


Kev.

good topic.
it is my view that those who shout loudest usually know least (not just in fishkeeping).
for example johnh who has a wealth of knowledge shows great patience and has a nice polite way of answering posters who are having a problem. whereas anyone who rubbish's other peoples views or efforts publicly has no manners and usually little knowledge.
the problem with googling is that you are never sure of the pedigree of the writer and the info gleaned can be either great or poor, so you need to know enough in the first place to judge either way.

i would have thought that nitrates, phosphates, co2 in a planted tank are required as plant food and if kept in balance fish should also be fine. but in an unplanted tank all of these can be toxic and must be removed or reduced by water changes etc. the african lake fish, esp. tanganyikans are susceptible to even slightly raised nitrates. i usually keep these in check by using polyfilter.

koi keepers often use vegetable filters to remove toxins and the hyacinth type plants they use become saturated with poisons.

as for new v old school. i try to keep a foot in each.

There was a theory not so long ago that a globe, sealed with water and some particular nutrient, an organism and light would lead to a self sufficient, self sustaining environment, showing that if you can get everything in the right quantities and involve a degree of symbiosis there is little else you need to do. Don't believe me?

Check it out yourselves.




www.abundantearth.com/store/ecosphere.html

Kev

This is an interesting thread: for a number of reasons.

Old School vs New School (actually to show I'm trendy, I'll rephrase thar as 'Old School vs New Skool).

The definition of 'Old School' and 'New School' is a bit fuzzy.
There are equal (maybe even more) bits of rubbish and myyths about fishkeeping in New School as there were in Old School.
But that does leave me in a problem area....I'm not really sure what 'old school'is supposed to be.
If we talk about Science, then I would say that the percentage of scientifically correct information in fish keeping was much higher way back when than it is today. (and that is a bold statement from a old haggered scientist-fishkeeper).

I have a book from the 1930s (by William Innes) from which we can see a clear trend of copying that original (and great) work right up to present day.
There is a lot of continuing old ideas and limitations
eg it may have been difficult to maintain 86F for Discus when using a slate bottom tank and 50 candles as was needed in the 1930s......but it is madness to see people nowadays write on the difficulty in maintaining high temperatures even though we've had good heaters for years. That type of thing indicates that some notions are still carrying on through time.

I am amazed to see present writers quoting bacteria doing nitrification in marine tanks...yet the species they cite are freshwater- or soil-only bactera. What? has someone started writing the paragraph and then suddenly started copying a piece of text from a book on "Agricultural Soil and Ploughing implications"?

Probably not.
It is more likely plagerism of something that was wrong in the first place....and the new author doesn't realise that. Hence, the reason why one may find lots and lots of references to something....but all are not correct or are not actually scientifically based.

Nitrates? Nitrates are hazardous to fish.
However, many biochemical processes are competitive in nature or allow for some antagonism. Therefore, under some conditions there may be no noticable effect of water nitrates on fish......but that does not mean that nitrates are harmless to fish. If there are rampant elephants attacking everyones house in Africa, then I'm pretty safe here in Ireland. That doesn't mean that rampant elephants are harmless per se.

When it comes to water chemistry, I have seen some nonesense presented in quite long articles on the internet. It is one thing to give quickie answers on a forum that are partially correct or pseudo-science; but there is no excuse for authors to write a full book-like article and present it as 'the facts'.

I'm also quite suspicious of 'new school' being another name for 'marketing'.

Now, here's a thought that maverick scientists (like myself maybe) might through out there: "if we can show that science 50 years was wrong, then who is to say that we are correct now?"

ian