Im not trying to sway this thread ether way just so everyone knows ok. Nor blur its topic content.
Open to what ever anyone uses, cause its your own choices. So as long as youve researched its implications & your happy with it, then its all good!
ok, so in order to understand a chosen methodology, you have to view the journey that got you there. In my specific case, it started stereotypically - coldwater, basic com tropical, advanced com tropical, cichlid biotope, XL species native, marine , & now the reverse spectrum of acidic.
As with all of you, the path inevitably twists & turns through a full barrage of principles to absorb, & it hits in definite waves.
By allowing yourself to delve deeper into the hobby, the more you realise how much everything can be reactionary. You cant just impulse buy & then throw a golf ball into a glass filled shop & not expect to hit something you shouldn't of, you have to plan & visualise the path to throw accordingly.
Because everything is constantly in motion (shop keeper moving stuff around) you may have to correct the trajectory between bounces.
However due to the fact your not moving blind, the ball is where you expect it & its a simple case of slight adjustments to avoid a negative reaction. - It maybe a strange analogy,
but it makes sense.
Being one to actively research & understand as much as possible, if i can physically replicate it, chances are i'll do it just so i can see the test results first hand. It personally allows me to understand a concept and more importantly, potentially gives the ability to test any boundaries. I didn't ask to become a forced student or chemist by choice, my times better spent going to the beach or something, but it comes with the territory.
You ask my views on UG filtering. My view is it serves a purpose for the user. Its an age old principle that has stuck with the freshwater crew & sometimes still deployed today. Its duel role is to suck down particulates from the water column & oxygenate the bed for aerobic bacterium.
In my opinion, it should have died out well and truly in the early 90's at least. However once again, its getting back to what i mentioned earlier about entire scope & preferences vs natural approaches. Id much prefer my overflows to cleanse the water column, & to leave my sugar grain sized sand beds to the will of natural selection. That way it at least attempts to provide towards a total cycle. So to me, in this light, UG filtering is a gimmick that is only giving me half a picture.
Diffusion happens without your input. In simplistic examples, think of a tissue end in water, pretty soon the whole tissue will be wet. Nature attempts to create a state of equilibrium by default. It happens to every element around you.
In your aquarium its everything from the cellular structures within your fish, to the layering of your bed. Im surprised your not finding anything in your searches. Try the marine side, considering we're talking beds here, its research is far more advanced than freshwater currently. I'll be more than happy to go further into this at a later stage if you'd like. Its purely just a different approach.
FG, my systems are 90% closed down currently. Few months back I had a financial blip i like to call redundancy which caused a refocus of priorities for abit. My partner was the only one with proper systems still running in the house, which i just downgraded this weekend in actual fact due to her wanting a dog instead. well actually, truth be known it was a trade off, realisticly she is a play hobbiest, and after the 50 billionth time of me telling her to step up, she relinquished everything for my agreement on a dog.
So im happy, my theatre room is now clutter free.
Im still keeping the A. trifasciata, Ancistrus hoplogenys and Corydoras sterbai. The rest of the animals are going & hopefully 70% of the gear. Its amazing, over the years you just collect like a shop. ive got an entire room exclusively for aquatic related tanks, spares, bits & bobs.
Ive got a major south american biotope project coming up soon, so you'll see my efforts then ok.
