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After a lot of reading on this forum, I've come to the conclusion that this hobby is very challenging for newbie and the experienced alike. It always boils down to a difficult balancing act of Lighting, CO2 and Nutrients. The reason why it's so difficult to balance our tank is because our tank parameter always change - i.e., changing biomass, plant growth, plant pruning, adding more fish, water change, and etc..
EI attempts to take nutrient out of this equation, by always supplying enough to the water column so that the plants won't starve and there's always an abundance of nutrients. This worked great for many people but not everyone because CO2 and lighting are the two variables that are out of balance. The other complaint I’ve read about this approach is the massive weekly water change. PPS approach attempt to add only what is needed, but the difficulty with this approach is that it involves a lot of testing and using reliable LaMott test kit which can get very expensive.
All this makes me wondering if there’s a more simple approach. I’ve read articles about how plants in Amazonia Jungle thrive in conditions of zero KH and water that are devoid of nutrients. Yet, plant growth is lush and green and algae is non-existent under intense lighting of the sun. Plants in those condition, gets all of their nutrients from soil. My approach is to mimic nature. I believe larger root mass equates to better growth and plant's health.
With that reasoning, my idea is to built a super deep tank that would have not inches but a FOOT of rich soil substrate like ADA aqua soil (maybe we can modify this a bit with super rich bottom layer and progressively less rich soil on the top to avoid nutrient leaching). The current issue I’ve read with Aqua soil users are that they become depleted after a year or two of use and that water column fertilization are still required such as 5ppm of Nitrate and Potassium dosing. Well, if we had a FOOT of substrate, I reason that plants can get all of their nutrients from the soil and it would take a long long time before all the nutrients are depleted. That way, water column nutrient can be kept to near zero and we can blast all the light that we want without causing algae. I've acutally tested this with my Metal Halide under condition of zero water nutrients and even running at 12 hours photoperiod, I did not get any aglae like GSA or GDA.
A very deep tank would not look very pleasing at first but we can certainly built a special housing that would cover most of the substrate and only show the planted section of the tank.
I like hear your thoughts on this idea.
EI attempts to take nutrient out of this equation, by always supplying enough to the water column so that the plants won't starve and there's always an abundance of nutrients. This worked great for many people but not everyone because CO2 and lighting are the two variables that are out of balance. The other complaint I’ve read about this approach is the massive weekly water change. PPS approach attempt to add only what is needed, but the difficulty with this approach is that it involves a lot of testing and using reliable LaMott test kit which can get very expensive.
All this makes me wondering if there’s a more simple approach. I’ve read articles about how plants in Amazonia Jungle thrive in conditions of zero KH and water that are devoid of nutrients. Yet, plant growth is lush and green and algae is non-existent under intense lighting of the sun. Plants in those condition, gets all of their nutrients from soil. My approach is to mimic nature. I believe larger root mass equates to better growth and plant's health.
With that reasoning, my idea is to built a super deep tank that would have not inches but a FOOT of rich soil substrate like ADA aqua soil (maybe we can modify this a bit with super rich bottom layer and progressively less rich soil on the top to avoid nutrient leaching). The current issue I’ve read with Aqua soil users are that they become depleted after a year or two of use and that water column fertilization are still required such as 5ppm of Nitrate and Potassium dosing. Well, if we had a FOOT of substrate, I reason that plants can get all of their nutrients from the soil and it would take a long long time before all the nutrients are depleted. That way, water column nutrient can be kept to near zero and we can blast all the light that we want without causing algae. I've acutally tested this with my Metal Halide under condition of zero water nutrients and even running at 12 hours photoperiod, I did not get any aglae like GSA or GDA.
A very deep tank would not look very pleasing at first but we can certainly built a special housing that would cover most of the substrate and only show the planted section of the tank.
I like hear your thoughts on this idea.
