When I first got into this hobby, my mentor taught me to follow 4 rules:
1. Do water changes religiously.
2. More rock = better. 1lb/gallon minimum.
3. Get the best skimmer you can afford.
4. Only dose what you can test for, the rest comes in foods and salt mixes.
He used to call this the Berlin Method, and I can see from searching online that he was mostly pretty close to the more common definitions I see.
However, a lot of new tanks I see use minimal rockwork, waterchanges seem to be far less in vogue (as are skimmers), and people seem to dose far more products than I can remember back in the day. The testing seems to be a heck of a lot better, though.
Are those old tenants retired, replaced by new methods backed by science? The biggest shock for me now is seeing so little LR in people's systems, but the systems look very healthy and vibrant.
1. Do water changes religiously.
2. More rock = better. 1lb/gallon minimum.
3. Get the best skimmer you can afford.
4. Only dose what you can test for, the rest comes in foods and salt mixes.
He used to call this the Berlin Method, and I can see from searching online that he was mostly pretty close to the more common definitions I see.
However, a lot of new tanks I see use minimal rockwork, waterchanges seem to be far less in vogue (as are skimmers), and people seem to dose far more products than I can remember back in the day. The testing seems to be a heck of a lot better, though.
Are those old tenants retired, replaced by new methods backed by science? The biggest shock for me now is seeing so little LR in people's systems, but the systems look very healthy and vibrant.