The Puffer Forum

If you had actually read any of the thread correctly you would have seen that the substrates are not mixed,...they are side by side and separated by a divider....nothing to do with 'natural processes'. If they were one on top of the other then you would be correct but that is not the case.

And I always listened to wisdom offered by my parents or anyone else. The difference is that I don't think I know everything. That is arrogance not wisdom. Wisdom and knowledge are hardly the same. A truly wise person knows that they do not have all the answers.
And as also stated before...the tanks have all been set up and running for 5 years....I doubt that six months will make a difference at this point. I don't know everything but I know what works.

I think a research scientist like RTR with 50+ years in this hobby (especially working with puffers) makes him a very wise man, who deserves a great deal of respect. It is an honor to have him here as a Mentor.
Maybe you should read some of his articles: library/author/rtr/

Respect is earned...not deserved. I do not deny his knowledge, it is the arrogance and condescension with which he delivers his knowledge that I am disdainful of. That and being compared to a child who doesn't listen to his parents. Knowledge lends strength to an opinion....it doesn't make it correct. And 12-16 tanks running problem free for 5 years speaks much louder to me. That plus the fact that he was totally off base regarding the original topic of this thread.....which we have now succeeded in completely hijacking. My apologies to the originator.

I have known a few that have done the divided substrates and over time they will get mixed up by the fish(especially a fahaka) or during wc's.

I believe even with the divider, eventually it will mix up. Nice try though.

I have enough sand left over for the whole 125 so it will probably be all sand soon. I just wanted to try something I had never seen before.

Pretty much so. The lessons we learn the hard way are the most lasting.

But it is also an argument for a bit of self-education - many things which turn up on web forums sound reasonable - the many salt myths, the ads for slime coat enhancements, the complex mythology and pseudo-science of "natural' aquariums, the discussion of nitrate removers/reducers, etc. None of these thing are in and of themselves particularly malicious. Their danger is that the unaware hobbyist will think/believe that because they ave removed or blocked the indicator or the symptom, that they have resolved or corrected the underlying problem. The reality in most of those cases is that nothing positive has been accomplished other than hiding symptoms and indicators that the hobbyist really needs to see.

There is an unfortunate divide between folks with with analytical minds and those who get caught by unjustified advertising claims or eye-catching aquarium setups which are not really sustainable by the average hobbyist without massive upkeep. Everybody notices the pictures on the tiny-tank boxes showing multiple very young fish in the for-sale tank. Subconsciously it is extremely difficult to totally reject the advertising photo as an impossibility in the real world - it looks good and cute at a glance. The fact that is totally unsustainable is hard to accept. We all want a 'slice of nature' in our tanks. But the reality is that our microecologies are not at all a slice of nature. They are highly artificial and unnatural. We need to accept the artificiality and required upkeep needed routinely to keep the setup at least appearing to be sustainable, and which will provide the specimen(s) housed with factually "better" conditions that those in the wild - conditions and upkeep that will support the specimens better and healthier and hopefully longer than what they would have in the wild. To me those setups should be such that required care is as easy to provide as is possible. The fact that it is not "natural' at all is trivial. Captive housing of wet pets is unnatural - it does not and cannot occur in nature. But it can and should provide for the captives better than Mother Nature would do. We cannot always achieve that goal, but we have actually gotten a lot better at it than we used to be.

That dichotomy is awfully hard to get across to most hobbyists.

Well after 3 months of the gravel sand mix and the BS that came along with it my Fahakas tank is now all sand. She is a bit ticked off at me at the moment but I am sure she will be happy when she gets used to it. If I had to do it all over again I would just go for all sand right away.

Guess you figured that one out...

Pufferpunk wrote:Guess you figured that one out...

I knew all along. I just thought it would look good and it did but it was a pain.