Strange ADA statements

[keymaker]

I have recently stumbled upon an ADA AquaJournal article, and have found some statements that seem to contradict my EI views.

Nitrogen and phosphorus are also nutrients required by algae, the archrival of an aquatic plant layout. The condition in which the body of water becomes enriched by dissolved nutrients is called eutrophication. When water becomes eutrophicated, algae tend to flourish.

Excuse me? Nutrients cause algae? I thought we are well past that theory.

Especially when an aquarium is just set up, the water becomes rich in nutrients and algae tend to proliferate, necessitating frequent water changes to remove them.

Absolutely not. Frequent water changes are needed to get rid of Ammonia. Then of course they reset nutrient levels, but that's not the main point.

(...) excess iron in an aquarium encourages the growth of thread algae, turns water yellow, and the brown deposits of iron hydroxide form on the internal surfaces of the aquarium and on equipment.

While I agree with the statement that algae growth is encouraged by nutrients, the ADA statement might mislead me into thinking that iron actually causes algae-bloom. It obviously does not. I have been having a stable 1.4 ppm Fe in my tanks for a long-long time with absolutely no thread algae growth, nor did I hear Tom Barr say that. In fact I heard him state the exact opposite: "No one has killed fish with Fe, nor does it cause algae."

I wonder about the brown deposit though. Do they refer to the iron toxication (precipitation) caused by iron being released from the week chelates and reacting with PO4?

 

[GreenNeedle]

I think it's more a case of the translation here.

Ammonia is a nutrient basically.

They sell Iron 'bars' to put in the substrate so that one's a gonner too. lol

Maybe be better to 'do as they do' rather than 'do as they say' where translations come into it.

AC

 

[keymaker]

You're absolutely right. When looking to what they actually do I tend to agree. When listening to them... Well. Even their catalogues are full of spelling mistakes and vague translations. I'm not a native English speaker, but this sometimes gets me too.

ADA! get a decent English-speaking interpreter or something.

 

[GreenNeedle]

ADA can be quite 'cheeky' when designing their items. One of Tom's favourites are their light systems which when tested turn out to be relatively low light. On paper they are highlight which of course means that not only the ADA addicts buy them but also the ones that would be put off by a 'technical detail' stating the 'WPG' think they are getting highlight.

These people are described by Tom as having 'HLD'..........(high light disease.) I would say it is an addiction rather than disease though

AC