BRS Info Overload For Newbies

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Who? I'll take my info from experts, not a couple of guys that started out bagging up baking soda and driveway salt.

I remember reading those when I started my 1st saltwater tank on my own in the early 2000's. Checked them out from the library.

 

[Lyss]

Thats one thing about BRS videos... As a viewer, it is your responsibility to understand the fact that they are salesmen. A perfect example is black box LED's. There are people that have success with them and BRS says to stay away from them for the most part. They do have some bias as far as which products they need to move/profit the most on. But, I believe their experiments/informational videos to be factual and un bias.

"As a viewer, it is your responsibility to understand the fact that they are salesmen..." is 100%. I work in politics and marketing/advertising, and I want so badly to just help educate folks on how to be better consumers -- of everything, consumers of information, products and services, consumers when it comes to voting and understanding what is politicization and what is the real meat of an issue.

That doesn't mean that marketers don't have any responsibility, it just means you are the best person to protect you from wasting tons of money on stuff you didn't actually need.

 

[moorjames]

I'm a huge BRS fan- and get most of my info through them- love watching the videos. The mistake I made/currently fixing is I was so afraid of over feeding- that I may have starved my tank. I barely fed the fish and corals- and most likely had too much filtration.

I have a BioCube 32- and have 2 clown, fire fish, and a few snails, crab- along with a few torches, 1 hammer, a couple mushrooms. I fed reef roids maybe once a week right before a water change, and fed the fish a tiny amount once a day.

My filtration was first a filter polish pad (sorta like a filter sock) that is 100 microns that gets changed daily, then chemi pure blue, then some bacteria rocks, then through the fuge before coming back into the tank. I do 5 gallon water changes weekly that include sand vac each time (not just the top of the sand- but even down to glass)

My thought was any left over food is bad and needed to get out of the tank as quickly as possible- so my Nitrate and Phosphates were always really low.

I wasn't seeing too much growth in the corals- and did get coralline algae but that seemed to stop after a while. So I started to feed the fish twice a day now, feed reef roids 2-3 times a week, and started dosing PolypLab One (for calcium, mag and alk) everyday. I kept my same filtration and started to see improvement right away. I was just nervous on adding anything to the tank for fear of being "too much".

 

[WestonNanos]

"As a viewer, it is your responsibility to understand the fact that they are salesmen..." is 100%. I work in politics and marketing/advertising, and I want so badly to just help educate folks on how to be better consumers -- of everything, consumers of information, products and services, consumers when it comes to voting and understanding what is politicization and what is the real meat of an issue.

That doesn't mean that marketers don't have any responsibility, it just means you are the best person to protect you from wasting tons of money on stuff you didn't actually need.

Exactly! And I am a salesman. lol. (I import fruit from different countries and supply grocery stores like safeway/kroger/walmart etc.) I will say / do anything I need to, to move a product that I need to move, its my job. As a marketer, I think we can all agree that BRS is pretty much as ethical as they come... They arent shoving products down peoples throats like I would at my job lol

 

[3429810]

Everyone needs to keep it in the front of their minds that BRS is a retailer. Everything they're doing is designed to bring in revenue.

Which is why it is in their best interest to keep people in the hobby long term. In a recent stream Ryan mentioned when they bought marine depot 87% of their customers dropped off after one year. Brs numbers were way better than that I can’t remember them right now though. The main reason being their YouTube channel. Losing 87% even if that fluctuates down a bit per year of your customer base is a failing business model especially in such a niche industry. Probably part of the reason they got into the financial situation that resulted in them being bought.

Yes they are trying to promote certain products but at the end of the day if they can keep you in the hobby for 5+ years vs one year no matter what you are buying from them they make way more money per account. The only way to do that in this hobby is to get what you think is the best information out to all of your customers to keep them in long term then also benefit from new exposure to the hobby and ad revenue as the channel grows. The reason brs is so successful vs every other company is because they understood this early on and capitalized on it. Any other company could have done this model, and some did try, but they didn’t and brs won out.

 

[BanjoBandito]

BRS is really good at making you think you need high dollar equipment/supplies to be successful. Tropic Marin comes to mind. They spent a year putting out video after video, sometimes specifically about TM, praising that salt. I have no issues with TM, but IO will do just fine for almost every newbie.

 

[T-J]

I'd like to clearly state that my intention of this thread has nothing to do with the QUALITY of what BRS is putting out there. Personally, I find the majority of their videos very interesting. Yes, many are very sales-pitchy, but I understand why they do that. So again, THIS IS NOT A KNOCK AGAINST BRS, but more of a question about too much information and/or easily accessed information in a way that is hurting reefers. In particular, new reefers.

 

[Lyss]

I'd like to clearly state that my intention of this thread has nothing to do with the QUALITY of what BRS is putting out there. Personally, I find the majority of their videos very interesting. Yes, many are very sales-pitchy, but I understand why they do that. So again, THIS IS NOT A KNOCK AGAINST BRS, but more of a question about too much information and/or easily accessed information in a way that is hurting reefers. In particular, new reefers.

I got you. I guess my feeling is that having lots of info out there isn't a bad thing as long as it is good quality and from reputable sources. I do think there are a lot of new folks of all walks of pet ownership who don't bother doing much if any research at all, and sadly that ends with dogs and cats in shelters, and lots of unwanted pets across the industry b/c ppl didn't realize what is required to care for them properly. The more accessible the info, the more likely folks will be to access it before jumping into something they can't handle.

I think the main thing w/BRS is we all need to keep in mind that they're a retailer, not just offering free info and advice from the kindness of their hearts lol.

 

[JXNATC]

As a Noob to saltwater in this decade (I had a 120g 20 years ago), BRS blew my mind with how much the hobby has changed. I'm still in the process of setting my tank up and fell for a lot of the BRS equipment hype. I have spent a ton of money and haven't even got the tank wet yet! The equipment for what I'm planning is probably overkill. However, I'm going slowly and a lot of things will already be in place as my tank evolves.

I joined this forum as a way of obtaining information outside of BRS and I appreciate it even if my head starts to spin when y'all start discussing cycling!

 

[Rollman]

If you are solely relying on forums and BRS for information you are already at a disadvantage. These things are great, however, I’m glad I have some experienced reefers around me that I can learn from. Real world advice and visual experience is always the best.

 

[sogdog]

Most of the things we do is based on observations, as opposed to concrete data. It makes it difficult to have a “guide,” especially when each system really is unique and may have different needs.
You could have a general guide. For example I did not know apex existed when I started and so telling reefers about it for easy monitoring would help. But most people end up learning when mistakes are made. Who can honestly say they haven’t crashed a tank? I’d just mention general equipment guidelines, good habits for soaking equipment prior to use, how to do water changes with minimal disturbance to inhabitants. If people found their way here for a basic guide, they can manage to use the forums for any further questions. I personally think trying to overload people with information right at the start will back fire.
if you really want to do detailed write ups for necessary information, like say exactly how protein skimmers work or optimizing flow, I would put them as separate threads but stickies right below the intro guide. That way people don’t get overwhelmed but see the information there and can easily find it. Chapters to reef keeping if it helps to think of it like that.

 

[fish farmer]

If you are solely relying on forums and BRS for information you are already at a disadvantage. These things are great, however, I’m glad I have some experienced reefers around me that I can learn from. Real world advice and visual experience is always the best.

Where are you going to get that real world advice from though? Petco? LFS who does it this way and only this way?

When I started, my real world LFS was all about plenums. I told him a coral I bought from him was growing really well, he was like you mean putting on skeleton? I think he was shocked that I was doing so well, reading books, mags and forums and a biology background worked for me.

I rarely if ever ask LFS advice and don't know many reefers locally, it's been the same for 20 years. Of course reef only shops were few and far between 20 years ago.

 

[moz71]

i like there videos. It just really scares me when people take their word as gorpel! Case and point they had a video on things they would never use again and one of them said they would never use IO reef crystals again. And see people on her say “ well Randy said” like it is gospel. Same day I watched a podcast where I think Julian Sprung said that is all he uses and doesn’t even clean the container out ever. Lol. Randy even says over and over just his opinion

 

[rtparty]

I had aquarium books back in the day. Sure glad my success isn't tied to me reading them. I would have failed long ago. Picking up a book is the last thing I want to do on ANY subject.

 

[fish farmer]

Most of the things we do is based on observations, as opposed to concrete data. It makes it difficult to have a “guide,” especially when each system really is unique and may have different needs.
You could have a general guide. For example I did not know apex existed when I started and so telling reefers about it for easy monitoring would help. But most people end up learning when mistakes are made. Who can honestly say they haven’t crashed a tank? I’d just mention general equipment guidelines, good habits for soaking equipment prior to use, how to do water changes with minimal disturbance to inhabitants. If people found their way here for a basic guide, they can manage to use the forums for any further questions. I personally think trying to overload people with information right at the start will back fire.
if you really want to do detailed write ups for necessary information, like say exactly how protein skimmers work or optimizing flow, I would put them as separate threads but stickies right below the intro guide. That way people don’t get overwhelmed but see the information there and can easily find it. Chapters to reef keeping if it helps to think of it like that.

Good point about observation, how your coral/fish behave. Animal behavior will tell you just as much as your kit data and be just as valuable .

 

[Midrats]

I had aquarium books back in the day. Sure glad my success isn't tied to me reading them. I would have failed long ago. Picking up a book is the last thing I want to do on ANY subject.

Care to elaborate?

 

[defasum]

keeping a reef tank requires you to be a biologist, electrician, plumber, chemist, and veterinarian sometimes.

Had to quote this!
I'll use this when my friends/family want to join the hobby. Might just scare them away.

 

[rtparty]

Care to elaborate?

I don't care to read books. Forums are usually different for me since they are come and go and I usually jump on when I am doing something else as well. The books were nice for pictures and some things but overall I am not a book person. So, if I only relied on books early on in my reefing career, I would have failed long ago.

I found my local forum and met up with expereinced reefers instead. Learned directly from them and seeing their tanks in person. I would have never learned these things from a book. This is me personally.