Is this hobby losing the plot?

[Chris Jackson]

This could be contentious but I am really curious. Since joining this forum last year I have noticed a huge focus towards flow, distribution and high levels of CO2 and EI ferts. I'm not saying any of this is wrong but it also doesn't seem to have made things any easier for beginners

Beginners regularly post new threads following this advice with their whirlpools of CO2 micro bubbles with green drop checkers, plenty of ferts. yet still with plants melting and algae issues... When did it become so difficult? My first planted tanks had T8 lights, bubble ladder reactors and the plants grew like crazy without any of these dramas. I might have given up otherwise.

This is my tank form April 2003, it's 1200 x 60 x 60. Lighting is 4 x T5 Tubes (staggered through a 10 hour photo period). Substrate is Dennerle Deponit Mix with gravel overlay and a heater cable. CO2 operated by a PH controller set at 6.6 with 3dkh water with injection at 2BPS directly in to the filter inlet of one canister filter.

The simple open pipe outlet of the single Eheim 2226 filter is at the back right corner so that the water circulates gently round the whole tank a bit like stirring a bucket but there was little visible movement of the plants in the flow except at the back near the outlet. Now I'm not saying this is anywhere near Amano quality but by the same token I don't think many would complain about a tank with growth as lush as this. Fertilisation was mostly pinches of KNO3 as and when it seemed appropriate, with some Tropica liquid from time to time also when it seemed necessary. All a bit seat of the pants really but no atomiser, ugly co2 mist, no mega flow and few algae issues. Full lighting on for 5 hours in the afternoon.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Now I'm not saying this is anywhere near Amano quality but by the same token I don't think many would complain about a tank with growth as lush as this.

Perfect tank. I think that is probably a result of "good things come to those who wait".

Personally I think that is what a lot of people want from their planted tanks. I think some of the difficulties come when people want instant results from Iwagumi lay-outs etc, where there is a relatively low plant biomass.

How did you get on with your Aphyocharax nattereri?

cheers Darrel

 

[Patrick Buff.]

I completely agree with you Chris. It's somethings looking that we are making it far to difficult and technical to follow instead enjoying the progressing and learning curve of keeping aquariums.

Patrick

 

[Chris Jackson]

How did you get on with your Aphyocharax nattereri?

(Dawn Tetra) Aggressive little guys as I recall.. had some other tanks mates running for cover.

 

[Edvet]

This hobby lost a lot of it with the invention of the new lights. I am from the Netherlands (origin of the Dutch style). There used to be a lot of nice tanks with just 2-4 rows of T8 lights. preferably a few months old so with some light loss already. We used plants wich did well/great under these circumstances, a bit of ferts (often in the bottom only), some fish/fishfood, maybe some bio CO2. Slow growing tanks with lots of plantmass. WE learned from the old experienced fishkeepers.
Then T5 and a bit later LED came into the hobby. People replaced their T8's with T5's HO and started melting their plants. The new small aquascape tanks with the beautifull scapes became popular, people wanted a beautifull tank in 6 weeks and in order to get there fast wanted fast growth so used a lot of light, and hence needed CO2 in large amounts in order to protect their plants. In stead of learning to drive in a small car they wanted to step in a formula3 car and drive away immediately. No learning, it just needs to be perfect, and quick please.........

 

[Sk3lly]

I completely agree with all this. When i entered the hobby a couple of years ago i wanted to run before i could walk. It did not take me long to get the most powerful light i could lay my hands on. After a year of this approach i have now scaled back to a lower energy tank. I still use EI and co2 but i limit the light to slow my growth rates. My tank has never been as healthy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Jackson]

Yes it's the lights...

When you read of Tropica's advanced plants needing high light I think its more that actually they need reasonable light but definitely also CO2. For instance I had Pogostemon Stellata growing so vigorously in a 60cm deep tank under T5's that I got fed up with it and composted it.

The scapes that made Amano famous were lit by T8's after all and complete with carpets of Glosso and Riccia

 

[greenmac75]

I thought I needed high light and went for 4xt5, now at the moment I use 1 and put 2nd tube on for 2 hours in the middle of my photo period .

 

[Wizard]

I'm new and this would be my 1st planted tank ....but the information here is invaluable , I started out thinking , tank water gravel and fish .....now I'm using co2, getting the flow just right and looking into fertilizers, i have learned a lot and I'm sure iv only just touched the tip of the iceberg,

 

[Chris Jackson]

I'm new and this would be my 1st planted tank ....but the information here is invaluable , I started out thinking , tank water gravel and fish .....now I'm using co2, getting the flow just right and looking into fertilizers, i have learned a lot and I'm sure iv only just touched the tip of the iceberg,

Exciting... beware the light salesmen, and plant densely from the start!

 

[Patrick Buff.]

I don't think it's only the light and the questions about it. In the past it was the same with T8 and T5. But nowadays it's more concentrated about what we are using and how instead of what we are growing or keeping.

Patrick

 

[scootamum]

I recently started a new set up, using CO2 for the first time. I chose to go down this route because I wanted to move out of my comfort zone, and try to grow some more demanding plants. For years I was scared by the idea of using CO2 in case I got it wrong and ended up killing my livestock. In my very first set up I was even scared of dosing ferts in case I poisoned my fish.

Before I purchased the kit that I've got now, I went to several shops to price up CO2 kits. Fortunately I'd done my research before hand, so when one shop tried to sell me a super duper, high end CO2 kit, costing £500 I knew to thank them politely and walk out of the shop.

It's very easy to get sucked into believing the hype, and think that your results will be better if you spend lots of money on hardware. I could quite easily have fallen into this trap if it wasn't for the fact that I'd had good results from just planting up my aquariums using low demand plants, and dosing ferts & liquid carbon. Even then the liquid carbon is dosed on an as and when I remember basis. Do my aquariums have algae in them? A little, but I find that weekly maintenance is enough to keep it under control.

I'm fully aware that nothing happens quickly in this hobby. It takes time and patience, and a lot of hard work to get good results.

 

[parotet]

When i entered the hobby a couple of years ago i wanted to run before i could walk.

Unfortunately this is what I see around me and IMO why the hobby is kicking off like a rocket in Spain but won't last too long. All the marketing is based on temporary super tanks with loads of lights and lots of maintenance that are only algae free in expert hands (exactly the same that happens with fashion supermodels in TV and young girls and boys... wrong model to follow!). But learning is long and most people think it is boring. In my local forum we are a handful of hobbyist that keep planted tanks, the rest os slowly moving to Malawi and Tanganyika setups. Frustration is IMO behind this and frustration happens when you don't want to follow the learning curve and advice is crappy. This forum saved me from abandoning years ago and now I won't quit the hobby... but local advice is for crying, both in shops and forums. Very difficult to find the good answers to your problem, very high chance to fail.

When I was young I had a 60 liters tank in my bedroom where I had every critter I could find on the irrigation channels around home. Fish tanks were very boring to me and this is why I left the hobby for some years. Now when people come home and see my planted tanks, pond, WK, etc, and ask me why I have this "strange hobby" I just reply that it is a good excuse to learn about plants, fish, chemistry, physics, light, etc. But my guess is that it also has a therapeutic role... I feel very happy when my worries at the end of the day are more related with how to solve a particular problem in my tank rather than with my job!

Jordi

 

[Chris Jackson]

I feel very happy when my worries at the end of the day are more related with how to solve a particular problem in my tank rather than with my job!

Oh yes! My daily trim is like a form of meditation....

 

[Marcel G]

Since joining this forum last year I have noticed a huge focus towards flow, distribution and high levels of CO2 and EI ferts. I'm not saying any of this is wrong but it also doesn't seem to have made things any easier for beginners.

I do not like where this hobby is heading. But in my opinion it's just natural and in a way inevitable. Most people succumb to fashion. High light is fashion, EI is fashion, flow mania is but fashion. Go here 5 years later, and I'm sure there will be different fashion demands. It can be really liberating if you are able to rise above all this. The main problem I see causing all this is our human nature, and our tendency to seek simple explanations of our questions. As was said already, many people want it nice and fast (yesterday was already late). And rather they spend huge amounts of money for some better hardware than to learn something. It's much easier to invest money than to invest time into gathering some valuable knowledge and experiences. How many hobbyists do you know who are doing any experiments with growing aquarium plants under different levels of nutrients, light intensity, flow, etc? And how many hobbyists do you know who seek to solve their problems by seeking instant answers on different forums, by investing their money into better hardware, or by endless speculative discussions on different topics? Tom Barr says that 95% of our problems relate to wrong CO2 management. I would say that 95% or our problems relate to our unwillingness to think, watch and learn ... and stay objective. Even if you get to know something, it's easy to be focused and fascinated just by "your own truth" and ignore other facts. This tendency of ours is called "confirmation bias". Tom Barr advocates his own findings (EI and CO2), Christian Rubilar advocates his own findings (MCI), Takashi Amano advocates his own findings (ADA system), everyone else is advocating his own findings (?) ... and we all think that what we have found out is much better (or closer to the ultimate truth) that what others have found. So we ourselves (our bad tendencies) are the biggest enemies of our hobby.

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

What Jordi said reminds me something I have frustration with when I wanted to have nice planted tank, and have it quickly.
There are a lot of beautiful pictures of amazing tanks all over the internet, contest entries, sometimes they tell what fertilization regime they're used, what light, filter, etc. But! Nobody tell you about daily maintenance. This is one major point where my frustration with aquascaping begins. Especially trimming moss. And then removing cuttings.
I think this hobby needs more examples of slow growing tanks, with less demand on maintenance. Some people think that even every week water changes is too much for them.
"Why is water [in your tank] is so crystal clear?" - they often asked.
Probably there is need to educate people about "no pain - no gain". And stop pretend that beautiful planted tank is very easy thing. Because for too many people it's not.
Making the layout, put the plants into tank - that only tip of iceberg. Of course, I often saw total absence of artistic skills, even when I sold ready-to-use composition (hardscape+plants) and people failed to simply reproduce what I planned for them. But at the end of the day, somebody has to do a maintenance. Every week. Week by week. To keep the tank healthy and pleasing to eye.

 

[zozo]

Difficult is a very relative understanding. 🙂 It's more like we make it look to easy.

And it's also very easy to come by in our society, the whole commercial aspect is aimed for, make it look easy. If you want to keep plants and fish, you make a list, run into an aquarium shop and in majority nobody asks you a question. It doesn't work that way, you ask, and they put the record on you want to hear.

Oh yes! My daily trim is like a form of meditation....

There you strike the most sensitive point. 🙂

With this approach, difficulty isn't a question.. if the interest and the heart is in the right place it ain't an effort nor obligation it makes the hobby worthwhile, the love for it makes it easier to understand. This is a routine based gathering of knowledge which first starts and comes from the heart and in time passes to the mind. It's effortless learning on automatic pilot, happens to all of us with things we realy want.

I see it happen ammong my personal friends as well. And it's a rather extreme example. He wants an aquarium, he has an aquarium. But mainaining it, is an obligation for him. It's an effort in the back of his aganda in his bussy life. He shows me proudly his aquarium and i tell him, "hey you got fish in there which do not realy go together and your tank is to small for them". Then he acts a little offended, he doesn't believe me because the expert in the aquarium shop told him otherwhise. He rather expects a compliment, like "Nice Job". When we come to the cleaning part, he says, Yes i know i have to do that more, but i got little time. When i send him reads about issues we've discussed, there is no time to read them. Other things in life are more important.

He's one of my best friends and i hope we stay like that for the rest of our lives. But when it comes to keeping an aquarium i sincerely doubt his motivations and interest. Only thing i can do is accept he thinks differntly.. I do not know where his real interest lay when it comes to keeping fish and plants. If other things in live are more important, why the hell do you want an aquarium? I guess he's just one of those people who have seen it some where and have it just because they can and there's not much more to it. He just doens't have the same love for it as i have. For me it's peanuts and obvious it's my TV replacement a relaxation. For him it's difficult, an effort and an obligation he's strugling to understand and to keep up with. Sometimes you have to make choises in live and be honnest to yourself.

You can't have it all even if the world tells you otherwhise. 🙂

 

[flygja]

I'm trying to figure this out myself. Previously I could grow relatively nice looking aquascapes with some algae but not crazy amounts. Recently I can't even grow ferns or glosso or simple stems. Equipment has remained largely the same. I still live in the same house so same water supply. Not really sure what's wrong with me. It's quite disheartening to read all the advice on forums and say "I've done that" but without the proper results.

The only thing I have not done is anal-retentive attention to detail. Don't have time for that anymore unfortunately, but I still do weekly water changes.

Now my Eheim Pro 3 2080 has finally packed in and is leaking from inside the head. Known issue a few years ago but local dealer doesn't know anything and won't replace/repair it for me. Really feels like its close to the final nail in the coffin for me in this hobby!

 

[Wizard]

For me it started out with friends and family getting fish , the bug spread to the point where I thought "stuff it il show them how its done " lol but instead of taking the same route all my friends and family have taken iv decided to build an aquascape with fish in it .....I'm a tinkerer always have been and this hobby is a great way to release , for the moment I have literally built my setup from the ground up , as iv said before this forum is a world of knowledge and experience you just can't find , yeah you do get those that will just read , go and buy all the expensive unnecessary stuff and then wonder why it didn't work, but for people like myself I like the challenge to build it and learn as I go , its just being able to read something then to apply it to what you need and your own setup

 

[Jose]

I will say what I think. I think that problems come not only with high light but also with CO2 (related to what others have said about fast results). I think there should be something explaining people that if they use co2 at the beginning its not going to be nice. There are soooo many problems that arise with co2 and so much more work which I think newbies dont know about so they take the plunge out of ignorance really and then start looking for shortcuts. A high tech tank is hard work whether made byT Amano or By T Barr or by Oliver Knott or Viktor LLantos. The only reason why I enjoy the work going into a high tech is because I like science, biology, engineering, chemistry etc etc but many people hate those fields which is fine. But my point is that if you learn to enjoy the ride instead of getting focussed on the results then it suddenly becomes more enjoyable having an algae farm in your living room. If newbies knew what they were getting into theyd probably just keep a low tech tank which is a 100 times easier and can look just as nice and actually does at any given time look much better than a high tech.