"BruceKGeist" wrote in message
...
Question: what studies are out there regarding substrate heating?

Has anyone ever set up two duplicate tanks with one difference between them:
one tank with, the other tank without cable heaters? How about something
related: 1/2 the tank with a cable heater, the other without? I am wondering
what the real benefit of these rather expensive accessories are.

If there are no such systematic studies out there, anyone have suggestions on
carrying out such a study? What things would you need to be wary of?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. -Bruce Geist


There is a good article by George Booth on the topic of substrate heaters he
http://faq.thekrib.com/plant-cables.html

I will now take the liberty to copy and paste here a couple of sentences from
that URL:


***********************
We have three ~100g tanks with coils and one 85g tank with UGF. All grow plants
equally well but the 85g is much more unstable. We think it is sensitive to too
much detritus building up in the gravel; a thorough vacuuming every 6-9 months
perks it up. The coil tanks require no gravel vacuuming and the 90g tank was
rock solid biologically for at least three years. We replanted at that point
because some of the plants had gotten out of control but we didn't "tear down"
the tank - just replanted.
I think this is the key to the cables - long term stability

***********************

Reading the George Booth's article inspired me to get a substrate heater as
well. I set up my 90g with cable heaters but unfortunately few weeks later the
heater stopped working. Now I'm using under tank heating mat which is most
likely not as good as functioning substrate cable heaters.

--
Marvin
hlavac (at) rogers (dot) com