From: jimh@ultra.com (Jim Hurley)
Subject: Re: Assorted Questions... [F] [M]
Organization: Ultra Network Technologies
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 18:12:06 GMT

In <1992Apr7.183722.16714@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> erno@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Erno Pena) writes:

>This is going to be a long post. I came up with all these questions over the  
>weekend and the pet shop here couldn't answer them.

>1. Can you recycle water after a water change? 
[method to recycle deleted]

I think you may be overreacting - the water savings may be overcome by all
that electrical consumption. Besides, you may be building up other toxins
that are hard to measure.

I think the best thing to do with such waste water is to put in on your
lawn/plants/etc. I change about 5 gallons a day from my tank and it has
a lot of fertilizers, etc. In the last month that I've been doing his
I've been dumping that on some bushes - you should see them bloom now!
Significantly better-looking than the rest of the garden.

>2. Why don't the aquarium magazines do any equipment testing and evaluation  
>like computer magazines? 

I've complained about this several times in this newsgroup, too.
I suppose they don't want to irritate their advertisers by telling
the truth. I think a good bulk of the cost to produce magazines
is paid for by the advertising, not subscription rates. 

>3. What are people's thoughts about the book _The_Optimum_Aquarium_? Anyone  
>have good reviews? I plan on redoing my plant tank and somepeople  
>recommended I read the book.

I've read it a few times and refer to it often. I find it very difficult to
follow and hard to find where a fact is hidden. On the surface it appears
very well organized, but it really looks to me like a collection
of notes tacked together in a more-or-less logical order. A lot of information
is repeated in different ways.

It is quite expensive to implement all the recommendations in that book,
and difficult to decide where to draw the line on taking only a
few of the recommendations. For example, just how important is substrate
heating? Is it more important for certain plants?

In their 10 000 gallon test case, they give little reason for their 
setup conditions - why pick a KH of 10 and a pH of 7.0?

But these are nits, on the good side, it presents a consistent
philosophy, and covers a lot of ground. It is probably impossible
to not have success if you follow their advice.

You need to decide for yourself if you want to buy into that
philosophy - do you want a simple approach, or a rather technological
approach? Like putting your tank on a constant life-support system?

The aquarium is a rather unique microcosm, so you can't say that
by not putting technology into play you are making things more
natural. It's not natural - it doesn't even closely approximate
water flow rates, fish loading, or cleanliness in many real environments.

>4. [about Severums eating plants]. Is there anyone out  
>there with experience raising Severum?

I have no experience with cichlids, can't help you here.

>5. Is there a magazine just for keeping a marine aquarium?

Sure, at least one that I see in stores regularly. I think it's
called Marine Fish Monthly or something like that - I don't
read it or look at it - that's not my area of interest.

>Thanks for any thoughts or responses to these questions.

>--

>E r n e s t o   F.   B.   P e n a
>---------------------------------
>erno@uiuc.edu   NeXTmail accepted

-- 
Jim Hurley --> jimh@ultra.com  ...!ames!ultra!jimh  (408) 922-0100
Ultra Network Technologies / 101 Daggett Drive / San Jose CA 95134