Penac W and Penac P---- Anything special?

[ibenu]

Creative aquascape union guys use it.. T.Amano is reputed to use it..Very grand claims about the W..
Here is the product description.. and content..

"Penac W helps to improve conditions within the substrate environment. I use Penac W and Penac P on every setup without fail. It works by sustaining the original oscillatory pattern of water. Penac W reactivates the aquarium water and stimulates the aerobic bacteria which are essential for balancing conditions within an aquarium. Applying Penac W in the substrate setup increases the amount of dissolved oxygen and activates the aerobic bacteria within the substrate. As a result the hardening of the substrate is prevented and amount of of sludge decreases which makes long term maintenance possible.

Usage: Using the supplied teaspoon simply add 2 level spoons (approx 2g) of penac for every 60L. Sprinkle powder of Penac W at very bottom of the substrate layer at setup stage beneath Power Sand, AquaSoil or Bacter 100.

Ingredients: SiO2 99.2%, K2O 0.11%, Al2O3 0.42%, Na2O 0.01%, Fe2O3 0.021%, CaO 0.02%, TiO2 0.03%, MgO0.02%"

Si02 is quartz/glass no? Many on planted tank forum have said this is Bentonite... Is that true?

As for the P I have not been able to source its analysis just as yet.. I feel like it's the magical amano fairy dust with such promise... Or worse yet magic beans.. I want to believe...Ahha x files....

For those who like research here are some statistics on some of their products tested on a large scale in Vietnam
http://katharosenviro.com/17_Plocher...mese_study.pdf I wonder if Amano now owns this line as it must have been a large scale product in 1998 when these tests were done

[Tom Barr]

Do not get me started.
This stuff is crack pot crazy BS.

SiO2 is silica, or glass.
The study is not peer reviewed.
Nor do they account for adding say plain old pumic or some zeolite or another that adds an increase in drainage to the soil, any porous material could account for the difference which in no support the Penac claims to the rational why it works.

I think it's all the BS talk about nature that caused Amano to buy into it. "Harmony, natural processes that are missing from farming......."
I see no error bars or stat's along with those graphs.





Regards,
Tom Barr

[ibenu]

It's funny stuff!! When data on product is translated from other countries it's say things like "informed quartz" sorry to poke you with what was a stick, with hopes it was a magic wand. I like sci fi so a fun read before bed last night it was. I was trying to figure out how a product that brought dead lakes back to life was being used in aquariums I thought the big TA had bought the rights to such an environmentally important discovery why on earth is he selling it to us for our tanks!!!

My favorite product from their line was the orange tube, regulates the oscillation between the plants and water replace ever 6 months and one orange stick per 60 ltres I think. Had I done more work I would have posted in a humour section for the orange sticks alone orange?? I'm still smiling...

[spider72]

Silca SiO2 is just plain sand. Natural sand contains about 96% of silca rest is just contaminants or molecules bound to or incorporated in sand grains. It looks like ADA magic sand is very clean and ironicly natural sand could be more beneficial to plants because of contaminants, some of them are organic. At the end it just does not matter because these contaminants are in very small quantity and never will have any impact on plant growth. Sand always will be just sand, no matter who is selling it and what the price is. Sometime because of price many will think that it can contain some magic, but this price is a mostly cost of product shiping and distribution.

Penac P contains over 90% of CaCO3, some MgCO3 and rest are natural contaminants. Cheap dolomite from gardening shop could be more valuable for plants because contains more MgCO3 than Penac P.

If there is anything special about these products, that could be only a price but no magic in the price included .

PS. I had a discussion on polish forum about Penac products few weeks ago, and you could be very surprised what people belive in what these products can do. Marketing is powerful tool to brainwash people and sell a product. Likely for us knowledge is even more powerful and this is a reason why many manufacturers/sellers are not specifing what thier products contains - ADA included.

[Tom Barr]

It's funny stuff!! When data on product is translated from other countries it's say things like "informed quartz" sorry to poke you with what was a stick, with hopes it was a magic wand. I like sci fi so a fun read before bed last night it was. I was trying to figure out how a product that brought dead lakes back to life was being used in aquariums I thought the big TA had bought the rights to such an environmentally important discovery why on earth is he selling it to us for our tanks!!!

My favorite product from their line was the orange tube, regulates the oscillation between the plants and water replace ever 6 months and one orange stick per 60 ltres I think. Had I done more work I would have posted in a humour section for the orange sticks alone orange?? I'm still smiling...

Near as I can tell, there was no control for those "dead lakes", maybe they got better by leaving them alone and with time, nature is self correctly if you leave it be for the most part.

Yes, why is this not more popular to the point that real environmental mangement is actually using it?
I mean if it is really a great discovery?

Conspiracy, other BS reasons why that's not happening is the typical answer. These are classic signs of crack pot quackery.

This however does not imply that all ADA products are crack pot............some seem to think that because I come down harsh on some products, they may or may not use, I'm being unfair.
This is NOT the case. I support other things and have actually promoted and extended the understanding for some. Funny, some die hard ADA loyalist seem to only respond, listen when I'm am critical, but not when I am supportive.

Of course I'm the one that is accused of having an "agenda".......geeze louis..........

Orange stick........that one is a funny one.
If you buy into that crap, heaven help you.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Tom Barr]

PS. I had a discussion on polish forum about Penac products few weeks ago, and you could be very surprised what people belive in what these products can do. Marketing is powerful tool to brainwash people and sell a product. Likely for us knowledge is even more powerful and this is a reason why many manufacturers/sellers are not specifing what thier products contains - ADA included.

Mark Twain once said "advertising is about getting people to spend money they do not have on products they do not need".

Do we even need aquariums?
No, but they are fun.
Some might argue that for Penac.
That is really about all anyone can really say about them.
But when it comes to helping plants, growign things better, less algae, better bacterial cycling, these..............these we can quantify and measure.
So this they cannot say much if anything about in respect to Penac, and there's typically NEVER any real control in any of these "test". A good control is key to any test and this was not done with ADA's sediment comparison(their's, not mine), nor any Penac test, nor with this study from Vietnam(why did they go there???), they said it was a control, but you needed to add some inert similar product without the special "Penac magic", but that was not done.
that's not a good control and their test methods have serious issues.

They cannot in honesty, make such conclusions based on what they tested.

Well they can.......but it does not follow logically that they are right

Regards,
Tom Barr