Hi
@GreggZ Fascinating post. I am not entirely sure that
@Happi is trying to extrapolate across the entire hobby (correct me if I am wrong
@Happi)... I always felt that he was trying to drive home the point that there are alternative ways to achieve great results - a conversation that's been somewhat absent in the short amount of time I've been a member here - and trying to go up against "dogmas" (or "myths" as the combatants call it, when the discussions gets heated)... For me Happi's and recently
@Sudipta input is
a shot in the arm.... we are not going to make much progress by embracing the status quo... But otherwise I agree with your thoughtful post -
many roads leads to Rome and thats how its always been and always going to be... And I certainly agree that hobbyists that do not wish to be on the bleeding edge of
alternative or experimental approaches can find plenty of almost bulletproof approaches prescribed by Barr and his followers (which includes me btw) and that is all fine.
Cheers,
Michael
Michael I agree most of this discussion is best for the cutting edge and folks who really know what they are doing. And that was kind of my point about extrapolating this across the entire hobby.
Let me expand on that.
When I say it's difficult to extrapolate that across the entire hobby, what I am referring to is questioning whether this is a method that can be reliably be followed by a wide group of people and can they expect to have similar results. In my opinion so far the answer is no. And I'm not doubting Happi's observation of his own tanks. But one or two people having success with a method tends to be an outlier. It's very interesting as like you said it's experimental and on the cutting edge. But in terms of the broader hobby I think you need to be careful.
As an example I have hundreds of friends in the hobby and hundreds of people who have reached out to me about their tanks over the years. A typical problem might be someone who is blasting very high light, has poor CO2 levels, and is dosing very lean. And they have a serious algae farm.
In some cases they are getting advice from a local fish store that is telling them that nutrients cause algae and they should starve algae to death. Or they even suggest something like a PO4 remover as they they tell them that the main cause of algae is too much PO4. Myths. Or they have read they need to limit NO3 to bring out reds, but they don't really understand what an N limited tank means. So they have a tank full of plants that are being driven hard and are starving for nutrients and CO2. Those starving plants are a magnet for algae.
Most times turning down the light, turning up the CO2, and dosing more nutrients brings their tank into balance. Plants are getting what they need and suddenly they start growing in healthy form. Pretty soon algae starts disappearing and the tank is on it's way to being successful. In general I have seen more algae as the result of under dosing not over dosing. No question about that to me over many, many years.
Now take that to the broader discussion of rich vs. lean dosing. First you need to define them. Standard EI dosing is NO3: PO4: K at 22:4:22 weekly. Buy very, very few successful people I know dose at that level. I dose at 12:4:15. Xiaozhaung's APT Complete is 6:2.8:16. But keep in mind that is for your average tank, not a very high light tank full of fast growing flowery stems. Also note K is almost 3 times NO3. And that mix is being used successfully and being sold in the tens of thousands of bottles. APT EI is at 15:4.5:14. Less than standard EI but still pretty high PO4. It would interest people to know that Tom Barr does not currently dose EI levels. It's something less. The point is today's "rich" dosing is not EI levels and is not terribly rich in the scheme of things.
And I could go on and on. Happi mentioned Merian Sterian and quoted him. What he left out is that Merian doses 5 x the daily dose right after a water change to bring nutrient levels back up. He believes in keeping nutrient levels stable which is something I also subscribe to. But his dosing is not what I would call lean when you add it all up.
The Vin Kutty rotala kill tank experiments are extremely interesting. Very rich soil and very low to no dosing. Works very well on some species. And it kills others. If you ask Vin how he doses his Dutch tank, it's with good nutrient levels in the water column. We were discussing this just the other day. He said that every time his dosing gets too low in that tank it declines, and when he increases dosing and it recovers.
So in the end I find the discussion interesting, and it is something to be explored. Can it be suggested to the masses and help them in their planted tank journey. My opinion is no. But again this only my opinion. Even in the example above where someone mentioned some improvement from dosing leaner, that person also just recently changed their soil. That will have a far greater impact than dosing and tanks with fresh soil need little dosing (other than PO4).
