I totally agree with you about keeping an open mind and I'm sorry if my response came across as being against that. Personally I don't think cables help as I have a number of aquariums that are supposed to 'need' cables (soils substrate and long term sand and other substrates) yet they do great without them. I'm not into EI and regularly changing everything either - purely becuase it doesn't suit me or the fish I keep.
bugs said:
But that then leads to yet another question to support the basis of your question, or more the point your observation that it does not make a difference... You based the outcome of your experience on an assumption that you have anaerobic areas. If, in fact, you don't have anaerobic areas then your observations and experience could be wrong.
I don't think it can possibly be the case due to various physical laws of diffusion that the O2 concentration in an area of significantly lower flow, such as a sand substrate, can have an O2 concentration equal to that of the water column therefore partial or complete anoxia is probable, but, I agree, not proven.
I'm merely assuming that I MAY have anearobic areas due to reduced water flow and bacterial respiration utilising O2 in the substrate leading to anoxic, or partially anoxic, areas possibly present in the substrate.
If they are present they don't seem to be causing problems. And, if they aren't then I don't need a heating cable to get rid of them...
bugs said:
To even come close to identifying whether or not a cable makes a difference we would need more people using cables to compare to those that are not and be looking specifically at substrate condition upon stripdown after a matching time period. And have sufficient numbers of people involved in a controlled experiment for the numbers to be meaningul. Plus a few other variables to refine the data. We would also need to be able to accurately recognise the anaerobic state. Alternatively, if someone has access to a lab and a real scientist...
Slightly take issue with the last sentence, but never mind...
To empirically prove whether a cable will help or not you are completely right would take lots of independently verifiable tests where the only dependant variable was the prescence or abscence of a cable. Rather hard to do in this hobby unless someone has 20+ tanks going spare and the same room and conditions to remove other independant variables...
Therefore we have to rely on people's experiences to see what happened when they tried out X, Y and Z. Not perfect, but not completely useless either.
bugs said:
This is a knotty issue and one we're not likely to resolve without keeping open minds to all possibilities. There's a real risk that only one version of success will be determined by people following a formula based on the experience and opinion of others - there seems to be a dwindling readiness to challenge and experiment with new ideas or reviewing previous opinion which could have simply been self-perpetuating. After all, the world IS flat....
I'd like to think no-one here would say something, such as cables, definitely don't work. I certainly would never say that. All people have ever said here, to my knowledge, is in their experience there is no benefit in adding them. Surely that can't be a bad thing?
Oh and I really like the Flat Earth Society reference but if you check out the horizon when you next go to the coast, you'll see the top of the ships on it first ergo the earth must be curved, or you'd see all the ship, just very, very small at the same time!
Evidence is the over-riding imperative and always should be.
bugs said:
Sure, we could all have beautiful algae free aquariums and we could believe that they crash, get algae, and need a stripdown after a period of time because the substrate is "exhausted". What if it were something else that causes this phenomenon? What if it were anaerobic substrate?
Do we just accept things because it seems the majority norm, supported by opinion, experience, and conjecture? Or do we keep the open mind that provides the framework for experimentation?
You could well be right with the anearobic substrate idea. But will heating cables stop an anearobic substrate? Where's the evidence for that? And if stopping anearobic conditions is so vital why don't undergravel filters work really well for planted tanks too?
In my opinion I agree that we should never accept things that people say on face value and going "with the majority" is just as bad in my opinion. We should listen to their experiences, consider their conditions and put all of that into the balance when deciding what to do. To take any person's 'method' as THE way to do something is, in my opinion, wrong and naive. Personally I can't get EI to work for me. I'm sure it works for others, in fact I've seen the tanks where it does, but for me - just doesn't work out. My experience may therefore be in opposition to many on here, but it's still valid surely? An open mind should be paramount, but maybe cables don't change things really either...
And finally, wouldn't the world be a boring place if we all agreed all the time. I hope you enjoy a healthy debate as much as me and it can be a real mechanism for good thinking IMO. Please don't take any of my comments as being negative towards you - I appreciate why you have made the comments and I hope you can appreciate mine.