Best advice is to find a reefer who has a build thread and a tank you like. Follow what they do to get it right. This gives you an understanding of how a system functions.
But does it?
Outcomes and understanding are two very different things.
This thread is about misinformation, not outcomes. People often conflate the two and say, “Well, there are many ways to do something,” as an excuse to avoid calling misinformation what it is. Or they simply cannot identify it as misinformation themselves. That is much of the problem here.
“I do an 80% water change after a cycle, and I wait for nitrate to be zero before adding fish because nitrate is toxic to marine fish. It always works for me because I have never lost a fish.”
That conflates an outcome with the factual information being passed along. Nitrate is not toxic at any reasonable or attainable level to marine fish. The water change may or may not be beneficial for other reasons, but the explanation being propagated is misinformation. It doesn't matter that the advice is not likely harmful, the damage is promoting that water changes must be done to reduce nitrate after a cycle to prevent nitrate toxicity. It is nonsense passed along here daily.
Things like this are part of the reason new reef keepers are mired in nonsense before they ever put a drop of water in their first tank:
You must dump in bottles of bacteria to cycle.
You must keep dumping in bottles of stuff to have “biodiversity.”
You must buy a PAR meter.
You must do ICP tests at least once a month.
You must dose trace elements.
You must dose N and P and maintain Redfield ratios.
You must get DNA testing done.
Don’t forget your amino acid supplements.
Don't forget all of the magic potions.
Every one of those topics, and the resulting “must-have” logic, is dominated by passed on misinformation conflated with outcomes.
If somebody is giving advice and doesn't have a build thread with a very successful tank, I disregard anything they have to say. Proof has to be in the pudding
I think that can be a tool, but here are countless reliable sources that do not have “build threads.” A nice tank may show that someone can keep a nice tank. It does not automatically make their explanations correct, nor does the absence of a build thread make someone’s information wrong.
Me: I don't pay much attention to people's tank photos or use the photo rank that person on a reefing knowledge scale. Some people have a knack for things without really every understanding much about them, others get lucky, and some have vast expertise and have a bad run.
in any case, I think the thread is straying from the topic:
This thread is about misinformation, not outcomes.
Claude from FM is a prime example. He maintains beautiful tanks. He has a tremendous following of people who repeat anything he says as reefing fact because he packages everything he says as “reefing science,” and his tanks are beautiful.
The problem is that much of what Claude says is demonstrably pseudoscientific nonsense, and it is amplified by his followers because they trust what he says based on his results. It gains authority through both volume and outcome, but it is still misinformation.
His methods and products are not the issue. The misinformation that he authoritatively pumps into the collective knowledge of the hobby is.
Maybe some of you don’t care what is misinformation and only care about outcomes. Fair enough. But don’t argue when somebody can substantiate that the information you are providing to others is misinformation.
