Okay, it's come up once again... I had an aquarist ask me- or maybe it was even to lecture me- about why I don't offer/endorese/extoll the virtues of Rooibos tea or so-called "blackwater extracts." And of course, I had to address the issue without sounding too self-serving or even "defensive" of my viewpoint on NOT utilizing these things in my personal practice. Of course, I could tell after the first two minutes of DM with this guy that part of his goal was to elicit some sort of "sound bite" from me trashing the stuff, and being sort of self-promotional and defensive, extolling botanicals over anything else to achieve "blackwater" solely because I sell them and have built a business...
With far more than just a passing interest about tossing leaves and twigs and seed pods into my tanks, I'm a bit obsessed about some of the more "functional" aspects of these materials in the aquatic environment. And the reality is that there simply is no real body of work in the hobby upon which to draw for information on this aspect of our craft. Sure, there are the occasional articles about "How to aquascape with seed pods" (Okay, maybe not...) or pieces about selection of wood and stuff (barely)...but almost nothing about how these things affect the closed environment of an aquarium. (Okay, nothing that isn't found in this blog/podcast!)... Yet, as we all delve deeper and deeper into...