Do you ever wonder where you fall on the Evolutionary Chain of Aquatic Gardening ? Lord knows I do !

We banter, and bicker about peak levels of efficiency, but lacking a clear personal mission statemet how exactly do we apply these parameters effectively ?

What exactly "Does" The perfect planted tank look like ?

Anyone here ever meander through the produce section and stumble over some of those Blue Ribbon Hot House Tomatoes ? I mean the great big red juicy muthas that look like they are about to achieve a criticality, and splatter all over everyone at ground zero !

You march them right up to the register pay the clerk, drive them home, dig out your sharpest mater slicing knife, and settle into a gluttonuos vivisection ritual, lay them all out perfectly on a plate, or simply shove one in your mouth and...
BLlAAAaaaaaahhhhh ! Cardboard !!! WTH ???

Has anyone else ever achieved this level of efficiency in Aquatic Gardening ?

All them prize winning AGA display pics were just so captivating, soo Intoxicating...What the hell was I thinking ???

The best time to fret over the tank is "Before" you set to work. Ask yourself what you want, and where you're going ? Unless you just absolutely have to walk away with that 800 lb. County Fair 4H Pumpkin...Well ? Bench racing biological mechanics may not gratify you with any measureable substance. All the testing merely establishes the ceiling. Peak Parameters are vastly different than "Optimum Parameters" Exercise a bit of discretion, and common sense. Set some goals for you and your tank, and most importantly be patient. You can maintain the system, but no amount of harrasment, or coercion on your part is very likely to produce the results that you set out to achieve with them plants ! HAGLOM, Prof M

It gets down to the aquarist's goals, many want to be better gardeners and better growers.

Aesthetics and agriculture.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Maybe the best analogy is the "World's biggest Pumpkin" contest. To grow one of those beasts is almost a full time job, with force feeding of fertilizers, heavy persistent pruning, and perfect gardening skills. Fun, I suppose, but harvest time would be a problem for me.

My goal as an aquatic plant grower is to create a healthy, natural-looking environment, in which the plants sustain themselves and where fish and other aquatic creatures live natural lives.

This goal is to be obtained with a minimum of input from me.

That is a pretty simple goal compared to those of others, and their results reflect their additional effort. Still, I am satisfied with what I achieve (often). <g>

Bill

Sounds like a non CO2 approach to me.
Or maybe Excel and low light and or CO2.

We grew a 420lbs Hungarian mammoth Pumpkin when I was a kid.
Took 4 men to lift it. We had the largest pumpkin on the block that year!!
But then we grew 90% of the food we ate other than meat and milk.
No, I was raised in suburbia, but we had 20 acre farm land in KY and when I moved to IN, we had a 70 acre hardwood forest. Seems I was a lucky little dirt bag

Regards,
Tom Barr

A 420 pound pumpkin makes for a big pumpkin pie. And, I would guess you could toast some pumpkin seeds. But, how long would even the most ardent love affair for things pumpkin last? The aquatic plant equivalent would be an Amazon Sword Plant?

I've lived amongst concrete and steel most my life. We have a bit of green nearby where I walk my dog and take my 2 year-old girl to the swings. Perhaps that's one of the biggest attractions to this hobby, the green.

My goal, more green, one way or the other - I'm learning all the time and my eyes have only just opened.

Every time I read through a thread on here, from start to finish (I'm on 14 hr night shifts, lots of time to kill) my eyes open that bit more. It stops me from sleeping on the job too.

Thanks!

I like to see my plants growing well. I hope I'm never truly satisfied with my tanks though, or else it would be all downhill from that moment.

I don't understand why that would happen. Why would it "be all downhill"? It needn't be.

Bill

If I thought my tanks could never look better, I'd lose interest in the hobby. As it stands, I shuffle things around, try new plants, trade stuff, etc. I'm not heavily into aquascaping but I guess in the back of my mind I always want it to look better. Not just that, but I want to understand the reasons why things work the way they do.

I play the guitar. Classical guitar. Have been for twenty years. If I could look at any music and just play it without effort, I wouldn't bother. It wouldn't hold my interest and I'd just move onto something else. A pretty lame analogy but it's the best I can come up with.

Thankfully there will always be new plants to try and new discoveries for us folks. So there's enough to keep my mind occupied for a few centuries