Back in the day we probably look at it through rose tinted glasses same as school days and summer holidays. Every summer was sunny and everything was great back then but we only remember the good times. Not much information was available either with no internet so PFK magazine which I subscribed to at my local newsagent was probably my only source of information, I remember going down on a Saturday morning hoping it had came in. I had various plants in my tanks because I've always liked the natural look, it's always floated my boat for some reason aesthetically rather then the benefits to a tank and the fishes welfare as I knew nothing about what they were doing.
I was already unknowingly running a low tech tank back then like
@Andrew Lindsay was. Relying on heavy loads, water changes once a month of about 25% and low lighting with T8 more to bring out fish colours than anything and some ferts were available which was probably just traces or iron looking back. The plants available were the usual stalwarts of ferns, crypts and swords which do well in low tech setups. I think the turning point for me was seeing some fancy looking plants in the LFS which dissolved in my tank within a couple of weeks, little did I know they weren't even aquatic plants but I just kept buying them anyway and trying various plant foods on offer, the guy at the LFS must have loved me but in all fairness he probably didn't know either. I managed to lay my hands on Dennerle Nature Aquaristic which I still have to this day and still proves invaluable for plant names and scape suggestions.
And this picture in particular, I even bought that chair and footstool
😀 and that was me hooked....
I couldn't afford all the gear in there so I tried to make up the equivalent using stuff I could like an Arcadia 125watt mercury pendant, a Dupla co2 reactor which destroyed flow on the end of a canister filter but that was fine because as Dennerle pointed out "plants don't grow in fast moving water, this is where algae thrive. Plants grow where water slows down where the river meanders" Some Tetra planting substrate with heating cable under to create flow around the roots and keep the plants feet warm and nitrate and phosphate were the enemy. The plants I had boomed (obviously other than the terrestrial plants which I no longer kept buying
😳) The key thing was, I was still growing low tech plants as they were the only ones available to me at my LFS so they were the "happy days"
Then the internet arrived, my first experience was a friend of mine had a Sega Dreamcast which you could play online and a browser. I searched for fish tanks and plants and that was me hooked again, I needed that in my life so I bought a computer and got me some dial up internet. I had a few bob at the time being single and no kids and now online shops had opened up to me some even in other countries. Off I went and bought all the gear but with no idea. Fair to say the hobby went downhill from there and I sort of gave up on it a bit plus work commitments meant I didn't have the time with working away a lot. Couldn't work out why spending all that money on equipment resulted in such a mess.
So then I stumbled across UKAPS and thought I'd have another go plus I was home more often. Obviously I got the baptism of fire from
@ceg4048 right from day one (I think everyone needs to go through this) and had all my current thinking debunked. I think that was more because I came in with hi-tech goals so he and many others advised me accordingly. After a while and the knowledgeable folk at UKAPS took the time to explain the science to a school dropout like me things soon became a lot clearer.
Ironically, after gaining all the information and asking at time what I thought were stupid questions I have sort of went back to where I was back at the beginning. My mantra now on planted tanks is to go back to keeping the lighting lower, keeps plants that aren't as fussy and many lovely species are more readily available but give them a dash of co2 and ferts anyway (Particularly nitrate and phosphate) Plants are happier, hobby is more enjoyable and the "Happy Days" are back again! I think the first thing people need to ask themselves when they turn up here is what they want and follow that path but also look at both sides of the hobby low-tech versus high. There's often elements of both sides that will put you in good stead regardless of which route you take. For sure, I'm totally jealous of some of the creations and works of art in here and I can only dream one day, probably when I'm retired to be fair
😀 But for now with the time I have to put into the hobby I tend to go for minimum effort and maximum enjoyment.
They're just my thoughts on why I think growing plants back in the day seemed to be a lot less complicated, lighting and plant species seems to have made it more complicated (Hence the Avatar) With bright lights, the Gremlins will come, oh, and don't feed plants after midnight and water is very important, if you are going to get water near them keep it clean
😉
Essentially plants sleep like we do so when they're sleeping in the dark they breath out co2 and consume oxygen. They get woke up by light and when there is enough of it or the LCP they then start consuming co2, producing sugar and releasing oxygen. The LCP going off Ceg's input there is round about 6 micromoles and that light saturation occurs at 50 so 6 wakes them up and 50 is as much as they need, any more than that not really being much use although that was only for certain plants (Ceg does say that he suspects most plants will be roughly the same)
