Sorry I haven't checked back in a few days, there are several things I wish to respond to, I hope to touch them all.
Firstly, I don't mind answering your questions or comments or what not, but childish, mocking or otherwise rude comments will not be responded to whatsoever.
There are numerous methods you can use to set up a very successful planted tank. This method is simply a method that has worked for me at my pet store, and has worked for a friend of mine who used to run a LFS here with tanks setup exactly in this matter for more than 20 years.
I don't think it's necessary for me to explain Dr. Axelrod's qualifications for being an expert on fish care, as a simple google search will reveal him to have several best selling books on the fish hobby, as well as being owner and director of Tropical Fish Hobbyist. He also has several species of fish named after him. If those qualifications aren't enough for you, then I don't know what more to say. He did, however, pursue illegal activities in the past recent years dealing with tax fraud. He apparently sold violins (he was a collector) to some New Jersey symphony, and misclaimed the sale on his tax returns in an attempt to defraud the IRS. He did plead guilty. This illegal activity, however, was only a few years ago and should not negate our use of his information as a fish expert.
The talk from which this information was gathered was given way back in 1987 in St. Louis, so I'm sure there has been an improvement in the setting up of planted tanks. Also, we took the information from his talk and worked with several different variables, i.e. products, layer size, nutrients, etc., to find what best worked for our store. Now I present this information to you.
The reason we use this layer method as opposed to other substrates (Eco-Complete, etc.), is that we have tanks that were set up in the early 1990s, and are still going great, whereas we've never had a planted tank that uses any commercial substrate such as eco-complete, a mixture of laterite or anything last more than a few years. Of course, a few years is quite a long time, and may be sufficient for many of you.
I should have better explained my reasoning for RO water. I always recommend RO water to customers for two reasons. Firstly, the water around this area is absolutely horrible. Extremely hard, very high in particulate matter, a ton of heavy metals, etc. And secondly, using RO water gives you complete control of exactly what goes into your tank and you don't have to worry about fluctuations of chemicals within municipal water.
Like I said before, we gathered information from an expert within the fish hobby, and we tinkered with it until we got the results we liked. There are many other ways to get a planted tank to work, but this method has worked very well for us.
Please feel free to ask more questions, I just don't very much appreciate the mocking, and quite frankly it is frustrating to see that the forum where I have learned a lot of my own fish information has resorted to these depths. However, thank you to those who did post serious and informative responses.
