Reefers may over-rely on personal experience to accept or reject truth

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Of course I like science, I think we all like science even if it just makes us think we are smart but there is a problem with science. Quite a few problems as a matter of fact. Science can tell us for instance the lifespan of a particular parasite at a specific temperature in a certain salinity while it is infecting a specific fish. That is great and we want to know that as it may help us determine what we should do to prevent an infection but it is very narrow minded and doesn't help much in a real hobbiests tank.

I feel personal experience is much more valuable because of the variables. When Burgess did that study of the parasite lifespan he discovered all sorts of interesting parasitic traits. But it doesn't correlate to much useful information because that study completely disregarded the state of health of the fish or if it could become immune to that parasite.

I recently went to a Neurologist talk about MS because my wife has it and there is no cure. There are numerous treatments that are supposed to slow down the progression but none really do much. I asked if there are any studies on any of those treatments being combined with each other.
I heard crickets because even though they are all scientists, that thought is foreign to them and besides no one would make money on it.

To me common sense and personal experience is more important than anything else we can learn from.

If someone told me their cats live for 25 years and all he feeds them is sawdust I would think they were nuts. But if I went to his house and saw those 25 year old cats eating sawdust and I had a cat. I would run out and buy sawdust no matter what the scientific community or anyone else said.

I think you have a narrow and incorrect view of what science is and can do, supported by a ludicrous fake anecdote.

Somehow you assume that scientists ignore real world experiences and focus on proving useless theories.

Science most often starts with those anecdotes and works to understand them. Find the reality of what is reproducible, what is statistical anomaly, and what one can learn from it.

As to the MS comments, I don’t know who you were talking to or about what, but combining small effects into larger effects and studying the cross effects between them is standard practice in science and engineering.

There is a huge field called statistically designed experiments to elucidate such effects. It is very hard to do in medical studies which are challenging enough for a single variable, but they are done and scientists certainly do not simply ignore the possibility.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Such a great thread. I try to always say “IMO” or “I have done this and it worked”. I try not to say this will work, or the other persons way will not work.

If a thread deals with an issue I dealt with I will give what I tried and what my outcome was. I also google just about everything I post as a question, but still rely heavily on the information I get here. This is because I believe those replying here are active hobbyist with personal experience.

The hardest part is when you ask a question and get three separate answers, or contradictory answers. I generally take those “suggestions” and apply what my search results gave and then try to make an informed opinion.

IMO answers we get in this or any forum are just that, suggestions or theories, not “fact”.

The only exceptions to this IMO is @Randy Holmes-Farley and @Jay Hemdal, as they are known experts in their field and have published works. Sorry if I am missing any experts, but those are the two who have contributed to my questions.

 

[jabberwock]

I think this all comes down to the problem of specificity and causality. When you work a scientific career, you get asked a lot of questions about the field and are forced to give a lot of unsatisfying answers.

I study occupational lung injury and vaping occasional in the lab. When people come to you they ask broad causative questions like "does vaping cause lung cancer" or "is vaping better than smoking?" The easiest answer to give is "probably," but the right answer is to list several reasons why x may be the case and also present a few reasons as to why it may not be the case if those are present.

This is a run-around of thought that is incredibly unsatisfying and generally leaves more questions than answers. It's also the most intellectually honest and thoughtful way to break down different issues. Anecdote is useful in something like reefkeeping to notice trends, but until those trends are analyzed and some sort of causal link is found the anecdotes hold very little value in husbandry practices, and without complete information as to exactly the parameters in which the observations were found, it's impossible to say what was the ultimate contributor.

The ultimate point of this post is just take every opinion with a grain of salt, make changes to your specific system slowly and reasonably safely, and monitor changes in a way that allows you to test for causative links in your specific setup (I.E. monitoring your nitrate changes when carbon dosing or phosphates when running gfo)

As a fellow scientist, my favorite response to a question is, "I don't know." It is very defendable.

 

[jabberwock]

There seems to be a lot more truth now than there used to be.
Who can argue with the truth?
I don't anymore.

I took a lot of science classes. I don't remember the word truth being used much in them back then.
That was before science became settled like it is now.

I don't think of truth as a scientific term. Science is a language we use to explain things that we observe.

I think of truth as biblical.

 

[Sean Clark]

Person A in Michigan doses something, works like a charm. Person B in Florida doses the same thing, it kills the whole tank. To make things even more interesting, persons C & D in Florida tried the same product from 3 different stores in 3 different tanks and they all crashed.

Certainly it's a bunk product and person A is full of it, right?

All of the Florida people got their product from different stores, however all of those stores got it from the same distributor, and somewhere along the line the shipment sent to that part of the country sat and was allowed to spoil.

This is easy. Person A in Michigan is correct. I am in Michigan and whateverit was worked for me. This makes it scientifically verifiable; indisputable fact. Science.

 

[Dan_P]

I think you have a narrow and incorrect view of what science is and can do, supported by a ludicrous fake anecdote.

Somehow you assume that scientists ignore real world experiences and focus on proving useless theories.

Science most often starts with those anecdotes and works to understand them. Find the reality of what is reproducible, what is statistical anomaly, and what one can learn from it.

As to the MS comments, I don’t know who you were talking to or about what, but combining small effects into larger effects and studying the cross effects between them is standard practice in science and engineering.

There is a huge field called statistically designed experiments to elucidate such effects. It is very hard to do in medical studies which are challenging enough for a single variable, but they are done and scientists certainly do not simply ignore the possibility.

Thanks for this.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Such a great thread. I try to always say “IMO” or “I have done this and it worked”. I try not to say this will work, or the other persons way will not work.

If a thread deals with an issue I dealt with I will give what I tried and what my outcome was. I also google just about everything I post as a question, but still rely heavily on the information I get here. This is because I believe those replying here are active hobbyist with personal experience.

The hardest part is when you ask a question and get three separate answers, or contradictory answers. I generally take those “suggestions” and apply what my search results gave and then try to make an informed opinion.

IMO answers we get in this or any forum are just that, suggestions or theories, not “fact”.

The only exceptions to this IMO is @Randy Holmes-Farley and @Jay Hemdal, as they are known experts in their field and have published works. Sorry if I am missing any experts, but those are the two who have contributed to my questions.

I still say "IMO" as often as I can when giving fish disease advice, even more often if I delve into reef chemistry (grin).

In some cases though, I find if I am not definitive enough in my answer, I'm not able to get my point across to the OP. They then might follow less accurate advice from a more assertive person.

Jay

 

[StatelineReefer]

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I still say "IMO" as often as I can when giving fish disease advice, even more often if I delve into reef chemistry (grin).

In some cases though, I find if I am not definitive enough in my answer, I'm not able to get my point across to the OP. They then might follow less accurate advice from a more assertive person.

Jay

Exactly this. I notice this all the time within the forum, and out in the world as well. Confidence and assertiveness trump anyone whom appears to be “wishy washy” by stating things like imo, ime, or anything to the effect of not always, it depends on many factors, and so on. No matter the expertise or knowledge of said person.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Obviously the conclusion is move out of Florida.

But not to Michigan

 

[BirdFish5000]

Thanks for this.

100% agreed

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I have something that’s been bugging me.

I know a few reefers who keep 0 phosphates with no dinos. In fact, my own LFS has 0.00ppm phosphates (I tested it myself.) They don’t have dinos either.

I know of Roberto Denadai’s tanks, which don’t use any special chemicals. Just barely feeding their fish to get ULN and no dinos. He had MULTIPLE tanks with no nutrients, no dosing chemicals/special additives and did not get dinos.

However, people say 0 phosphates correlate to dinos.

Is this example like smoking? Not everyone who smokes will get cancer, but the risk goes up?

I recently decided to go zeovit solely because I am holding on to the hope that going low nutrients with zeovit won’t contribute to dinos. I’m holding on to the idea that something zeovit has that results in repeated” success with achieving ULN.

Man, I wish I could just know what causes dinos. Why would 2 seemingly similar methods of running a tank would result one with a dino bloom and the other not?

It keeps me up at night.

Honestly, I always interpreted the situation to mean a rapid reduction to almost 0 nutrients can lead to dinos, not that well maintained, stable ULN tanks are at risk...

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Such a great thread. I try to always say “IMO” or “I have done this and it worked”. I try not to say this will work, or the other persons way will not work.

If a thread deals with an issue I dealt with I will give what I tried and what my outcome was. I also google just about everything I post as a question, but still rely heavily on the information I get here. This is because I believe those replying here are active hobbyist with personal experience.

The hardest part is when you ask a question and get three separate answers, or contradictory answers. I generally take those “suggestions” and apply what my search results gave and then try to make an informed opinion.

IMO answers we get in this or any forum are just that, suggestions or theories, not “fact”.

The only exceptions to this IMO is @Randy Holmes-Farley and @Jay Hemdal, as they are known experts in their field and have published works. Sorry if I am missing any experts, but those are the two who have contributed to my questions.

And it's hard when people's posts imply "absolutes" (whether intentional or not); I know I feel the need to correct the person, not to bring them down, but for the sake of anyone else who reads the thread... to try to level set back to what Randy is talking about so many of the "absolutes" are removed. (I hope that makes sense...)

 

[Reefer Dan]

I’ve encountered prominent “bro science” in two main hobbies/activities — gym culture and reefing. I do my best not to spread bro science as it frustrates me endlessly (but like any, it happens), in fact I generally ask questions (on forums, etc) after exhausting other resources and then either not finding a clear solution, or specifically wanting the experience and/or opinion (different perspective) options.

Unfortunately, I think this prominent problem for various reasons, but it is refreshing to know a lot of people realize it! I think it would take a huge culture shift to correct, but would love to be proven wrong.

 

[WVNed]

I don't think of truth as a scientific term. Science is a language we use to explain things that we observe.

I think of truth as biblical.

and I am not religious

I tend to avoid people that throw the word truth around.

 

[Miami Reef]

Honestly, I always interpreted the situation to mean a rapid reduction to almost 0 nutrients can lead to dinos, not that well maintained, stable ULN tanks are at risk...

Hmm. This makes sense! Especially how zeovit doesn’t allow GFO, and their carbon source seems very mild/diluted. It means a very slow reduction. I feel MUCH better now! Thanks!

 

[MyFirstCar]

Great thread, well said Randy.

Its pretty clear, at least to me that reef aquaria are complex systems (in the scientific sense: a number of agents with simple rules that have emergent properties). Unfortunately sometimes the only/best way to study these systems is perturbation, which in reefs can often result in tank crashes and deaths. A lot of people (myself definitely included) really don't want to do a post-mortem on a pretty huge emotional and financial hit, and a lot of information can be lost. However, If everyone who dosed vibrant had recorded and shared it in their build thread, we might have caught on to its mis-labeling earlier.

One thought might be to have a template for a monthly update for a build thread or something, similar to the one used when posting in the emergency forum. It might help bring more clarity on tank issues to those who use it, and people who read those threads.

 

[JSR]

I enjoy the anti-science tone discussing a hobby based on biology and chemistry only made possible by advances in engineering and manufacturing on a platform born out of physics, mathematics, and computing.

 

[jakefitz]

OK, I know that's a provocative title, but hear me out.

From many, many discussions I have had with reefers over the past 25 years, it is clear to me that many folks easily accept ideas that mesh with their experience, and strongly reject those that do not.

Unfortunately, this reliance on personal experience can blind people to real facts.

Suppose I made this claim:

Product Y can kill corals. It killed my XXX coral.​

And suppose that you used that same product with no issue with the same coral. In fact, you know of six other reefers who used it and who did not experience that problem with the same coral.

What is your most likely thought on reading my claim? Be honest....

That it doesn't kill corals and the coral died for some other reason?​

That I am making it up, perhaps because I sell a competing product?​

That maybe I dosed it wrong? (too much, wrong time of day, not enough mixing, whatever)​

That the bottle I got might have been contaminated, especially if I used a DIY version?​

That the coral was probably already stressed and easier to kill than usual?​

etc.​

​

Now suppose I ask exactly the same form of question with the same results and your same experiences, would you respond the same way?

Smoking cigarettes can kill people. My sister died from lung cancer due to smoking.​

​

But you smoke and are fine. In fact, everyone in your family smokes and is fine.​

​

Do you likely conclude any of these things from your experiences?

That smoking doesn't cause lung cancer and my sister likely died for some other reason?​

That I am making it up, perhaps because I sell cigarettes?​

That maybe she smoked it wrong?​

That the cigarettes she used might have been contaminated, especially if she rolled her own?​

That she was probably already stressed and easier to kill than usual?​

etc.​

​

So what can one do with a range of results from different reefers that seem at odds with each other?

My contention is that one should, if possible:

1. Look to see if the claim that Product Y kills a coral is consistent with generally accepted scientific facts. If it is (say, it contains possible known toxins like nickel), I might be more likely to look into why there is a divergence of results. In a reef tank, it is obvious what many of these differences are, ranging from testing errors to different husbandry techniques to incorrectly identified species. Some of the important differences may be unknown at the time. For example, maybe Product Y binds to aluminum oxide phosphate binders, so tanks using this type of binder will never have an issue with it?

2. If the claim that Product Y kills a coral seems inconsistent with accepted scientific fact (say, it is diced chunks of shrimp), I might spend more time trying to determine why the death happened in the one tank more than why it didn't happen in others. Maybe the product was contaminated with a pathogenic bacteria?

Anyway, just food for thought, with a hope that folks might think about ways that your own experiences may not necessarily define the underlying "truth".

Happy Reefing.

​

True to all things and experiences in life....not just reef keeping.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Hmm. This makes sense! Especially how zeovit doesn’t allow GFO, and their carbon source seems very mild/diluted. It means a very slow reduction. I feel MUCH better now! Thanks!

Don't thank me, I could be wrong, lol