Quote:
|
Originally Posted by EagleEyes ok, is there an internet link to the lee eng chin method of this system? because if what you say is correct Witfull, then Lee eng Chin must have failed, where the theory still stands. |
Here is another link that includes information about Lee Chin Eng's methods.
http://www.garf.org/news6p3.html
What I remember very little was ever published about his methods. You have a few general articles in TFH, and some metions in TFH books, but it's only in much later books, long after Lee Chin Eng passed away, that you see a full description. If you can find some of the old material around and look at the pictures of those early natural systems, most don't look like much by today's standards. Just a few fish and LR that seems to be overgrown with algea.
He was also reputed to be secretive about his exact methods. I'm not sure if this was true or if it was because the method was so simple.
We do have to give the man a lot of credit for being first. He also got people thinking in a different direction.
We also need to consider what the state of the art was in the mid 1960's. SW tanks were fish only, and set up with bare bottoms, dead coral, and rocks. Nothing was know about the nitrate cycle, and if all the fish died a month or so into the project, it was usually blamed on something in the tank being toxic. Filtration was simply carried over from FW systems at the time, and were mechanical with maybe some carbon. If you used undergravel filters, you were cutting edge. About the only parameters you could measure were SG and pH. We know how poor hydrometers are today. They were no better back then. The pH test kits available then were pooly made, and many always read toward the acid side. Nothing was known about the relationship of buffering and pH and often the wrong chemical was used to try to adjust it. You were doing really well if you could keep a tough fish like a damsel alive for 18 months. You were an expert if you kept a tang or trigger alive for a year.
Considering this, the method Lee Chin Eng used seemed to be fantastic. Yet few, if any, could duplicate the results, even when they imported their fish and LR from him.