Hi Derek,
When addressing your first post I was really careful not to assume anything, I would have appreciated if you did the same in return. There are lots of assumptions in your part that are only valid if you knew the ins and outs of my tadpole care system, which you don’t.
I would have agreed with you if that applied to me, but it doesn’t. You don’t know what I consider to be inconsistent in terms of temperature and you have no insight in regards to my water quality.
That is your option and I believe based on experience, and that I cannot challenge, only thank you for sharing it, as I don’t know the ins and outs of your knowledge and yours systems. However being someone that has experimented with the temperature controlled system as well as, I have to state that in my experience, the tadpoles I kept at inconsistent temperatures morphed out better than those raise in controlled temperatures. Perhaps when you have the opportunity to experiment, you will then be in a position to input your findings, which again may differ from mine, due to people having different levels of knowledge and standards.
Regarding ammonia etc, if in the statement above you are referring to is in general I certainly agree, however if your comment was specificaly aimed at the system, I have to say that I have not disclosed how often I feed or how often I do water changes, therefore your comment would be unfounded and you should not assume that I have high levels of anything.
"little/ no heat " - "This causes large temperature swings during the photoperiod," Yet again you are making an statement based on assumptions, you don’t know that, you don’t know what my room temperature is like, you don’t know what I consider to be inconsistencies in temperatures. I believe that changes in temperature gradually as the day progresses to be beneficial to tadpoles, I didn’t disclose at what levels, that could have been 2 degrees variables or 10 degrees variables.
I also find your comment above contradictory, on the principle that in the same post you state a concern regarding ammonia levels, and then you mention about the sterility of the system.
One fact I would like to make clear is that I don’t disagree with you in general, the points you have raised are very relevant and current, it is just that it doesn’t apply to this system. I don’t have high levels of ammonia and I don’t expose the tadpoles to extreme inconstancies in temperatures. For you to say that “this does not seem to be the most efficient way of rearing them” is quite subjective. Effectiveness can be interpreted in many ways, but what I can disclose is that every tadpole that has ever went into the system came out as to my standards what I consider to be a very healthy froglet, and if you measure effectiveness in numbers I can also disclose that the figure would in the hundreds.
I think is beneficial to have exchange of options such as this, and I believe that different points of views make it for a better hobby.
One thing though I believe we will both agree on is that fact that our disagreement is based on preferences and experiences, and not on knowledge, with that say I think on this instance we will have to agree to disagree.
Kind regards
Flavs