Would you want to live with a wood burning stove?

I’ve probably beaten this subject to death but somehow people keep replying to my posts. So let’s bring it up to the top and start again fresh without all the deeply nested posts.

Here is the story, some people (ie Tom Barr) think that CO2 controllers are useless and some people (ie. Ray-the-pilot) think they are great.

Now here is the story from RTP.

When you control the CO2 in your tank with only a bubble counter, this is the same thing as heating your house with a wood burning stove.

While it is true that people have been heating their homes with wood burning stoves for centuries, there are some problems with wood burning stoves. For one thing it is hard to control the overall temperature of your home. You have to tweek the stove on hot and cold days. Another problem is that there are hot spots and cold spots in your home. This is a result of the nature of this type of system. When you rely on a heat in = heat out method of control you have to expect some places will be hot and some will be cold and you have to expect that on hot days, your house will be too hot and on cold days, your house will be too cold.

So how do people cope with these problems? Well they add a “Temperature Controller” (ie a thermostat) to their heating system. The thermostat goes on when the temperature is too low and goes off when the temperature is too hot. The result is that the temperature changes that occur in your house due to swings in outside temperature are almost non existent and the temperature differences in your home are dramatically reduced.

Now I realize that a wood burning stove is romantic and yes your pipes will not freeze if you heat your home with a wood burning stove but really do you want to heat your home with one?

Well a bubble counter is exactly the same thing. All it does is add CO2 to your tank. Like the wood burning stove all you can do is increase or decrease the CO2. There are hot spots and cold spots and the CO2 level changes with the activity of the plants and fish. The bubble counter relys on the same primitive technology CO2 in = CO2 out. So how do people cope with this problem?

Now I’d like to think that they would add a CO2 controller to their system but strange as it may seem they say:

1. Tom Barr doesn’t do that.
2. Fish can take it.
3. I don’t have one and everything is fine.
4. You (i.e. RTP) are an idiot

If anyone, including and especially Tom Barr, can say anything different from the above I’d like to hear from them.

One other important point: I‘ve said this before, Tom Barr is a talented and artistic aquarium keeper. I do not mean to imply that he cannot grow plants well. He is a pioneer. What I am saying is that there is a technology available that can revolutionize the aquatic plant growing hobby that needs to be developed.