I have been looking over a few other forums where I wrote that I sometimes add, or used to add garden soil to my tank. I didn't invent that, it was Robert Straughn, The "Father of Salt Water Fish Keeping" and many people are aghast at that (I love that word and wonder where it came from)
Anyway as I was thinking about that I realized that for many years, long before Nancy Pelosi was born the sea has been coming in contact with garden soil. I realize this is very radical thinking but many people have never seen the sea. I personally think they should move but I digress.
The ocean normally contacts a beach which is in almost all cases just sand. It's sand because if it was soil, as many beaches were due to volcanoes, earthquakes and builders who make shopping centers near the shore, the organic material in the soil washed away leaving sand.
But all that soil including what runs off celebrities lawns including Seinfeld and Billy Joel, goes into the sea. Why is it such a foreign concept to see that soil is in the sea and always has been.
I added soil in the beginning for biodiversity. Do I know if any of that biodiversity lives in salt water or reproduces at all, No, I don't, but I still like the concept.
I know the tide pool where I collect things like mud, amphipods, messages in bottles etc. at low tide is almost all fresh water because it gets run off from a lake, but at high tide it is full salt water as the tide here rises 8'. Those amphipods, worms, crabs and I assume bacteria don't seem to mind the change and if I put my ear to the ground I can't hear them screaming when the water turns fresh. Even tiny horseshoe crabs are there by the thousands but I didn't really count them.
I think those small creatures can and do make the transformation to salt water quite easily, maybe not all of them but enough to add bio diversity to a tank. Just my thoughts of course and I could be totally wrong, especially about Mrs. Pelosi.
Anyway as I was thinking about that I realized that for many years, long before Nancy Pelosi was born the sea has been coming in contact with garden soil. I realize this is very radical thinking but many people have never seen the sea. I personally think they should move but I digress.
The ocean normally contacts a beach which is in almost all cases just sand. It's sand because if it was soil, as many beaches were due to volcanoes, earthquakes and builders who make shopping centers near the shore, the organic material in the soil washed away leaving sand.
But all that soil including what runs off celebrities lawns including Seinfeld and Billy Joel, goes into the sea. Why is it such a foreign concept to see that soil is in the sea and always has been.
I added soil in the beginning for biodiversity. Do I know if any of that biodiversity lives in salt water or reproduces at all, No, I don't, but I still like the concept.
I know the tide pool where I collect things like mud, amphipods, messages in bottles etc. at low tide is almost all fresh water because it gets run off from a lake, but at high tide it is full salt water as the tide here rises 8'. Those amphipods, worms, crabs and I assume bacteria don't seem to mind the change and if I put my ear to the ground I can't hear them screaming when the water turns fresh. Even tiny horseshoe crabs are there by the thousands but I didn't really count them.
I think those small creatures can and do make the transformation to salt water quite easily, maybe not all of them but enough to add bio diversity to a tank. Just my thoughts of course and I could be totally wrong, especially about Mrs. Pelosi.