Substrate health in the extreme long term.

[dougz]

I've been discussing with Mr. Barr the benefits, or lack thereof, of using cable heaters for your substrate.

The argument of the cable-users is, to quote one such advocate, Jeff Walmsley:

Heating cables create classic circulating convection currents, drawing cooler oxygenated water into the substrate to replace the warmed anaerobic water they send upward. This staves off the hydrogen sulphide-creating bacteria which can only live in oxygen-free conditions, and which cause such rot (and the nasty smells!), so enabling slow-growing plants a breathing space to get started.

He goes on to say that it is in the beginning of the tank's life that the cable heater is of the most benefit, and can even be turned off, once the tank is established..

What I would like to ask is, how many aquarists with GOOD, nutrient-rich substrates in their tanks have had said tanks set up for years, with no evidence of the ill-effects described above.

Thanks for your participation in this poll, and indeed any comments you would care to impart!

[fishman9809]

where can we fnd this article by Tom Barr?

[dougz]

There's no article by Tom on this..

But here's where we've been discussing it:

Who uses cable heaters? Why, or why not?

And here's an article on the pros of using cables, that tom comments at length on:

Practical Fishkeeping magazine | Blog: Do heater cables really work?

[Brian]

I have a friend with simple tank simple gravel and simple lightning with simple plantas (cryptos and oters) the tank not have filters and was cristal clear with the plants only and few fishes. The tank have 20 years recently he put a filter and unbalance the tank resulting in death for almost all plants

[Guillermo]

Great thread Doug.

I've had my 82 low tech tank for 4.5 years. The substrate is a mix of 20 % Azoo plant grower bed and 80 % regular gravel. The APGB is exhausted now (it only lasts 18-24 months), so let's say it has been with plain gravel 2.5 years. I have not experienced any trouble with it so far. The low light is my only drawback, I have to increase it. Filtration ? an Eheim Classic 2250.

I will read the links, thanks for sharing.

Cheers

[dougz]

Thanks for the feedback, Guillermo!

How would you describe the growth and over all health of your plants over that time frame? What kind of plants do you have in there?

[Guillermo]

You're welcome Doug.

I can say my "easy" plants have been doing well so far, the issues have come because of light, the tank is 24" tall, so some plants are not suitable for it.

As it is a low tech- low light setup I have crypts, java fern, limnophilla, hygro siamensis, bacopa monnieri, shinnersia rivularis (always green and thin leaves) rotala rotundifolia (without the pink tips), ammania gracillis (just with a little pink tips), recently added some Pogostemon Stellatus from my 10 gal nano, it's doing well until now.

I'm planning to modify the lighting, I only have 128 watts (1.56 w per gallon, .41 w per liter).

Regards

[plantbrain]

D-

You can say all new planted tanks take some extra work to get "established", cables do not help to that effect, plant growth helps.

In order for the new sediment to adjust, adding more O2 is no different than mineralizing the sediment prior to use.

So you set the soil in a shallow tray for a few weeks then use it and have the same effect(actually, better, it much less work than doing frequent water changes at the start!). you can boil it for 15 min or bake it for 1 hour etc.

What does this do?
Think about the NH4............bacteria need O2 to convert it to NO3.
You can do water changes, you can add zeolite or add zeosand, you can add lots of plants from the start and drive their growth rates fast, you can prep a new filter with old mature sponges from another tank, or use a bucket to prep the filter using NH3 ammonia(never do that on a tank), why spend the $ on something like cables? Just for the first 1-2 months and only with a soil based tank(the argument fails if you have a sand/flourite sediment, there's no NH4 down there or reduced carbon, so the conditions never become anaerobic). The same is true for ADA AS.
The grain sizes are large enough to allow plenty of circulation with ADA AS.
No cables needed.

But many folks use plain sand, well, there's no need to add circulation except to add mulm and dirt from plants and fish waste to the sediment.

So since that's the only two possible scenarios involved that might influence plant growth, you can quickly see that the aquarist can add some sediment at the start up phase that is mineralized or partially so, then never use cables ever. If you use plain old sand, add as much mulm as you can, then fill the tank.

In both cases, the issue has been resolved.
Provided you assume there was one to begin with

I've never had black root or poor growth in my tanks when I focused on the plant needs and circulation through the sediment is hardly a need.
Plants do it all on their own.

You might ask Claus, Troels from Tropica or Ole their opinions as well or any aquatic botanist, commercial grower.

Jeff has a huge ego but could not support a wet noodle in his arguments.
I really do not care about his or anyone's ego
I've met plenty of folks that have been in the hobby for 50 or more years, I myself, have been in 35 years. Time in the hobby does not imply you know a hill of beans about the subject. I've made the cables, I've talked to the researchers, I've done my own back ground searches, simple test, used them for 10 + years.

I cannot see a darn thing that I could say helped plants grow better.
That's nice someone might believe it. But you need to demonstrate it and show other folks how to see and tests the differences themselves. Faith is not a method to test something. I ask folks to test and prove things to themselves and see if they have common sense and logic. I do not list my time in the hobby, or my professional background , degrees and what not. I did not have the years/degrees nor did that when I was kid in this hobby and I do not it now.

I'd much rather have folks test and learn for themselves.
I know many will never bother to test, at least most will not, but some will.

But simple things, like how to test it etc are often hard to find.
Are such test reasonable? What background research is out there? Is it applicable for us? What trade offs do I get/gain for this method/device etc?
Does it do anything significant? Basic questions folks should and do ask.

There are many unknowns, but ruling out possible unknowns helps and teaches the next group not to make the same mistakes and poor assumptions.

So that's a good direction, not ego related dribble, not faith based or accolades and all the other stuff snake oil purveyors try and pull on you and appeal to your sense of fair play.......... think about how diet pills are marketed.

Do they work?

Regards,
Tom Barr

[trenac]

I've been using pool filter mixed with flourite for a few years without heating cables, with no problems. I've also in the past used straight Eco or Flourite absent heating cables with no problems.

[LauraLeeLLBP]

Had this tank going for 4 years, no ferts, no heater cable, 1.8 wpg, just plain Fluorite substrate, E. tenellus 'narrow'. I only took it down b/c I wanted to move all the E. tenellus to my 90gal, and I needed room to put up a 29gal in it's place- the plants were still going strong:

[plantbrain]

The longer out you get in terms of "time", the more a "rate of loading" becomes important as well. Fish waste, flow, routine, maintenance etc.

If you look at things over such long time spans, then it's really really hard to compare tanks as they are each different and there is simply no control in the comparison. You can say things like "I like the way the cables heat", "They make me feel better" , but I've yet to see any results due to the cables on plants, tank health etc.

Over time, a deep vacuuming of the organic material will help.
Exhausted sediments can be reenriched via the fish waste from above in slower growing lower light systems.

How much draw the plants are doing to the sediment, how much contribution the water column gives to the aquarium, plant types, and importantly how much waste is being added to a sediment are all very important factors, you have to address these issues.

George Booth you could talk to and he is wylie old goat, clever and practical. He had the best arguments I ever heard. But even he admitted they really do not do a significant effect on plants etc.

Also, what do you use as a gauge, a ruler for comparison, some might consider a success what another hobbyists calls a failure.........we all have different standards as to what is acceptable and nice over time.

Those views also change.
For each new crop of cable folks that appear, I've still hear the same old things and nothing new that suggest they work.

I've done enough test, both in the short and the long term(I stop wasting my time after 10 years of using cables and testing them every way I could come up with). I've looked up every plausible sediment parameter that might be influenced by thermal convection currents, talked to dozens of researchers who are the top aquatic plant researchers in the world, I've tried to dig up every paper I could find, I looked in various Horticulture, Aquatic and Botanical journals, spoke to nursery grows such as Brad at FAN and Claus at Tropica.

I got nothing that suggest they work.
Several suggested the opposite.
At this point, I get wryly myself , where's the evidence that show they work?

I'm not being argumentative, heck, after 20 some odds years, I really really want to know and what I missed if they do work. I am curious.



Regards,
Tom Barr

[beaslbob]

I have ran simple 10g leiden tanks for 4-6 years about 1/2 dozen cities while I moved around the US when in the air force.

In each case the tank extablished a stable population of 20-30 lieve bearers during that time.

So I guess the substrate as well as everything else in the tanks was fine.


my .02

[altaaffe]

I'm fairly new to the planted set-up, having only recently moved from plain gravel to enriched substrates, however, at the time the only articles I came across were from the likes of Jeff and so I set up my tank with an under gravel cable heater. As Tom has said though, there is no hard and fast test case here as I did not run 2 tanks side by side and after visiting this site (and seeing George Farmers subsequent articles), I realised how many mistakes I made for my set-up.

I did, however, get good plant growth although my carpeting plants seemed to be doing so slowly. After my CO2 delivery problems and things settling back down, things returned the way they were up until a few weeks ago. With the weather turning hot, I had to turn the heater off completely. Since then my Glossos has taken off and provided a rapidly thickening carpet with much healthier, bigger, bolder, brighter leaves.
However, this was also at the time I discovered this site, since then I am dosing double the nutrient I was and CO2 has been increased slightly with improved delivery system. So again, it's not the best test case, however, I too will not be adding any further cable heaters to tanks.

One point that Jeff made in his articles was that they helped promote steady growth for crypts when newly planted, the worst performance I've had from crypts are those which are in my planted tank which are only just showing up again now. Again perhaps a coincidence with the dosing or perhaps the heater ??

[Jur4ik]

i´ve done my last setup (about 2 years ago) with cable heaters, the tank is still running.
last weekend i replanted some crypts and one of them pulled out the cable heater .. so i had to cut of the roots and to push the cable under the gravel.

i wont use it again in my next scape because it didnt felt any benefit of it.

regards

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by altaaffe

One point that Jeff made in his articles was that they helped promote steady growth for crypts when newly planted, the worst performance I've had from crypts are those which are in my planted tank which are only just showing up again now. Again perhaps a coincidence with the dosing or perhaps the heater ??

My Horticultural skills are excellent with respect to Crypts. I have no issues with aquarium species and with others that many expert Crypt growers have troubles with as well. .......and this is without cables.

This is a mute point.
Jeff has troubles with some things, and success with others, however......how you conclude what is the cause of the success and the lack of growth in others is not supported in anything he's said.

He got into a personal exchange when I pointed this out and fell back into the old defense of being in the hobby for decades and writing for mags etc and all his credentials..... vs the merits of the argument and logic he presented.

This is always a red flag for me or any researcher.


If many hobbyists does well without cables for a wide range of Crypts, perhaps it is not the cables, perhaps it's Jeff's own errors.

The methods are not at fault here, however, we are/can be.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[altaaffe]

Probably misunderstood my quick last post slighly there Tom (reading it again now - I can see why).

I'm no longer an advocate of these heaters as I feel all of my plants (crypts included) have been better since it was switched off. As said though I have also adjusted my feeding & CO2 but in the summer months the extra heat was definitely doing nothing to help the tank. Since I have switched it off it's also helped the fish who are spawning freely again.