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Is Brighty K a Bright Idea?

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sks said:
stevet,

that comparison is not fair. .

I said 'perilously close' and not the same thing. I understand the point you are trying to make though. I just feel ADA get away with charging a premium for branding - some would say this is just reward for Takashi's years of hard work and study....?
 
stevet said:
George Farmer said:
George Farmer said:
Any new pics, James? :)

I reckon this would make a nice PFK feature. Would you be interested in a reader visit? Maybe after you've stocked the fish and it's matured a little more.

Keep up the good work mate.

An attempt to keep this thread nice and on track...

I hope the implication here isnt that you think other people hijacked this thread without you being involved George...? ;)

I have apologised to James3200 via PM for my part.

I don't think James has an issue with me. If so I am sorry.

Thanks to Clive for the split too.
 
stevet said:
... I just feel ADA get away with charging a premium for branding - some would say this is just reward for Takashi's years of hard work and study....?

I think this is true to an extent.

In the US, ADA is not particularly expensive - relatively speaking.

I had a long telephone conversation with Richard from Aqua Essentials last night. We both think the US have a much better deal with ADA. Whether this is because ADG etc. (US ADA importers) have less profit margin is unclear. I suspect shipping etc. is cheaper also. I note ADG have recently had a shipment of 3 containers recently. That's a lot of ADA gear.... :drool:

Amano is a shrewd businessman, as well as a talented 'scaper and photographer.

Reward indeed.

BTW you can make up Brighty K yourself. Potassium carbonate and water.

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.p ... 24550cc256
 
I have apologised to James3200 via PM for my part.

I don't think James has an issue with me. If so I am sorry.

Nope, no problems.


Let me know your thoughts Tom, i probably have a couple of months before i need to decide which route i take.
 
George Farmer said:
stevet said:
... I just feel ADA get away with charging a premium for branding - some would say this is just reward for Takashi's years of hard work and study....?

BTW you can make up Brighty K yourself. Potassium carbonate and water.

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.p ... 24550cc256

I use this myself. It is good - though i find using it in Brighty K doses means my water is at about 6KH - slightly higher than i would like really. I have reduced the dosage slightly.
 
K2CO3 + H20? That's it? And 5 liters of this stuff cost £100? I guess it's time for a reality check :p The EI soup recipe includes the option to add K2SO4, which would have no effect on kH. Additionally, Barr feels that if you are adding sufficient quantities of KNO3 and KH2PO4 then you are adding more than enough K. It's hard to argue with success, and if the system works for you by eliminating guesswork etc then that's fine but what a price to pay for convenience.:wideyed:

Cheers,
 
I think ADA works in its system because it was all designed to work together. I would guess if you replaced one element with another brand (i.e. replace the potassium with Seachems version) the results might not be so good.

Likewise the Dennerle system maybe is designed so that the heater cables actually use the substrate to speed up ammonia production or something and then they reduce their N in their mixes. No idea.

I use JamesCs PMDD+PO4 mix at the mo and it is working superb for me. My water is like crystal!!! The plants were algae free until I moved house 1 week ago and am now experiencing algae springing up everywhere due to having a ridiculous amount of crypts which of course are rotting. I would water change every day but I have a lot of redecorating and sorting out to do.

I never really got on with EI but then I was always moving stuff and CO2 was up and down.

In the end if you've got the bucks and like the ADA system then go 4 it.

An answer to the 'I know why people get glassware comment' Its not because green pipes look bad after a while. Its because the glass looks nice (take a look at George's tanks where he leaves his glassware in for the pics!!!) and in most cases it works really well so this is the main reason (thinking of ceramic diffusors and Lily pipes mainly)

Andy
 
George Farmer said:
I said PFK are quite anti-tankbusters "these days". Not "those" days.

BTW there's at least two planted articles in there every month. But if you don't take PFK seriously then I guess you're not interested... :D

<<edited>>

<<edited>>

If I can get to what I want with EI or PMDD I'd probably not bother with trying other things because I would have achieved my objectives. The only reason would be if other methods has certain advantages, be it more robust or better plant growth.


SuperColey1 said:
Likewise the Dennerle system maybe is designed so that the heater cables actually use the substrate to speed up ammonia production or something and then they reduce their N in their mixes. No idea.

Well if you have no idea why do you bother? And if Dennerle can't prove it neither here nor there, then we've reached an unfalsifiable situation. And when that happens we might as well talk gibberish. I've got nothing against Dennerle, they make some nice stuff, but some of the stuff is obsolete and they should have the decency to acknowledge so.

George Farmer said:
BTW you can make up Brighty K yourself. Potassium carbonate and water.

yes, but similar does not mean equals. And similar in what way? Similar in concentration of K? Similar in what it does? I'm sure he has a lot more stuff in it that you don't know about and he won't divulge. But we as aquarists only care about the end result.
 
<<edited>>

<<edited>>

If I can get to what I want with EI or PMDD I'd probably not bother with trying other things because I would have achieved my objectives. The only reason would be if other methods has certain advantages, be it more robust or better plant growth.

Well if you have no idea why do you bother? And if Dennerle can't prove it neither here nor there, then we've reached an unfalsifiable situation. And when that happens we might as well talk gibberish.

If you never bother, you'll never know much at all.

yes, but similar does not mean equals. And similar in what way? Similar in concentration of K? Similar in what it does? I'm sure he has a lot more stuff in it that you don't know about and he won't divulge. But we as aquarists only care about the end result.

Again, if you never try you'll never know

I'm sure these were only suggestions, possibilities or people's opinions. Not a be all and end all of anything :rolleyes:
 
Tom,

it's not a question of trying, look up what the word "falsifiable" means and you know what context I am talking in. You've got the wrong end of the stick and taken what I said out of context.

As for the Brighty K comment I was only pointing out a similar does not mean equals. If they were one and the same then great, we now don't need to bother to buy Brighty K. We DON'T know that, and we may try it to see, but that does not change the fact that we have no proof (short of chemical analysis and/or confirmation from ADA themselves) that it is indeed what is claimed.
 
sks said:
We DON'T know that, and we may try it to see, but that does not change the fact that we have no proof (short of chemical analysis and/or confirmation from ADA themselves) that it is indeed what is claimed.

Tom Barr does - chemical analysis is his middle name, especially with the new gear he has.

Results will be published soon, I think.

http://www.barrreport.com/barr-report-newsletter/

But we as aquarists only care about the end result.

Not true, on the whole. Most folk enjoy the journey, as well as the destination.

BTW it was me that edited your libellous comments about PFK. You are close to libelling Dennerle also.

Be more careful in the future, please.
 
George Farmer said:
Not true, on the whole. Most folk enjoy the journey, as well as the destination.

Again, remark taken totally out of context. Tell me, when you use your canon eos 10d do you care to understand the jpeg implementation in terms of sines and cosines transforms, and would you like to know further about betters methods like using wavelets that gets rid of the edge alignment problems in the images? The issue is about how far you want to go, and my point is that there are a cut off point where most people's threshold tolerance gives up, and abstraction can be invoked.
 
I think I shall not bother anymore with thread seeing as the OP asking a question, seems to already have decided on his solution and is not interested in any opinion or suggestions other than that + I dont want to lose my temp on here again.
 
SKS - I've been a guest on this forum for quite some time and followed your journal and thought heres a guy who needs some help and guidance (judging by the plants) and then reading this thread you seem to be a bit of "know it all".
Given the state of your past efforts i would have thought that advise freely given by what seem to be very knowledgeable people would have been taken on board and not thrown back at them in less than constructive arguements.

This was not how i wanted my first post to be but couldn't let it go.

If i were you i'd read through your posts and try and decipher what it is that you are actually arguing about, alls that i can figure out is that you keep plants, in a tank and thats about it.
 
Hi guys,
A reliable indicator of thread failure is when one must continually read the thread title in order remind oneself of what the argument is about. Threads are in danger of being consigned to the dustbin of irrelevance when the posts become personal or when the content of the posts indicate disinterest and/or disillusionment.

I would rather that our forum develop a reputation as a source of accurate and insightful information as well as of inspired discussion. In an attempt to salvage what should be an intriguing debate regarding the merits of this ADA product, I took Woodsman's advice and attempted to reconstruct what valid arguments I could find:

Consistent with other ADA products, Brighty K is hideously expensive. Most EI anoraks find the purchase of this product, which I presume is essentially Potassium, hard to swallow. SuperCorley1 bought up a point that I had completely overlooked though, in that Brighty K is part of a system and therefore must be used in conjunction with other elements of the system in order to ensure success. EI is also a system and in the same way, KNO3 must be used in conjunction with the other powders in order to achieve success.

SKS has a valid point in that it may not be enough to merely come close in synthesizing Brighty K. There may be other nutrients in the mixture which, if left out, could cause the system to fail. The effort therefore is to determine exactly what Brighty K is composed of, to determine whether these other compounds are at all relevant to plant growth, and if so to reproduce them. Although it is beyond the capability of the average hobbyist to determine the content of Brighty it is far from impossible. Any Chemistry Lab with spectrometry tools can do this. In fact, Tom Barr is doing this very thing. SKS, this is why we should care about Tom Barr, Amano and others. They test or invent products, and they push back the boundaries of our knowledge. It is up to each individual to determine the limits of his/her knowledge. If someone is content to buy this product without understanding it's chemical composition, then fine. But possibly, by determining the composition I may learn something that I had not known before, or, I may confirm something that I already knew. I feel that it is therefore worth the bother.

Like many other ADA products, Brighty K surely has it's merits but if it has to be used in a system comprised of other hideously expensive products, then it's value diminishes.

Some time ago, during the dawn of aquatic gardening (remember the scene from 2001?) Dupla formulated a product called "Dupla Drops". It too was atrociously expensive and it seemed that on the rich and famous would ever have the privilege of lush growth. A chemical analysis revealed that Dupla Drops was composed of essentially Potassium Nitrate, Magnesium Sulfate, and some trace elements. This revelation led to the development of the home brew PMDD - Poor Man's Dupla Drops. After years of EI we take this for granted now but at the time it was revolutionary because it brought nutrient dosing within the grasp of the average (and less affluent) hobbyist. The high price of Dupla Drops actually stifled the growth of the hobby. Contemplating Brighty K generates a feeling of deja vu.

So is it worth it? Well, it seems if you use it within the context of the system - and are prepared to pony up the cash, and if you have an aversion to the dry powder or PMDD or PPS-Pro methods then yes. But you should purchase Brighty with eyes wide open - know that there are less expensive alternatives and that if you are just willing to study a bit more you can achieve equal levels of success with any of the alternative systems listed above.

Cheers,
 
SuperColey1 said:
I think I shall not bother anymore with thread seeing as the OP asking a question, seems to already have decided on his solution and is not interested in any opinion or suggestions other than that + I dont want to lose my temp on here again.

Edited by moderator.

SKS - I've been a guest on this forum for quite some time and followed your journal and thought heres a guy who needs some help and guidance (judging by the plants) and then reading this thread you seem to be a bit of "know it all".

No one gets to be a know it all! LOL. Again, you've also got the wrong end of the stick. Am I also rubbing you the wrong way as well?

I find all this preposterous. Shall we invoke censorship so that certain views and experiences are filtered so we don't rub certain individuals and companies the wrong way? If so, then we all might be reduced to a bunch of "polite" women who meet at tea parties who are ever so agreeable and charming, like a tedious Jane Austen novel. By the way, in case you are all wondering, feelings never went into this.

Thank you for your reply ceg4048, here is someone willing to "think". That's what's important to me.
 
Well done Ceg for an accurate and very helpful summation, the thread was going off the rails a tad and perhaps would be better locked now?

PS I did not know anything about PMDD, so cheers for that!
 
ceg4048 said:
SKS, this is why we should care about Tom Barr, Amano and others

you don't understand, I made that statement in the context that I don't care for them as personalities, or their status in the plant community. I care for what they can prove, and that is all. That's a depersonalising separation. Just like you might like the company of someone but not like their political views.

I'm sure Barr, Amano, the Dennerle family etc. . . are very nice if I get a chance to meet them. That does not change the fact that I don't like some of their products, or their philosophies.
 
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