Learn or get left behind! Is that a fair statement?
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sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
I voted close to a 100 because I stayed at a holiday inn.
In all seriousness I know some and well I know a don't know alot.
In all seriousness I know some and well I know a don't know alot.
Haydn
Active Member
This is one of those zen questions- impossible to answer.
If you use the analogy of your knowledge being like a balloon in the sense that knowledge is the breath you use to blow it up and the surface on outside of the balloon is the unknown. Therefor as you gain more knowledge the balloon gets larger and the surface area of the stuff you don't know increases.
So the more knowledge you gain the more things there are out there that you could learn about. Also, you realise there are more things that exist but you don't understand them, so need to learn.
Therefor the percentage of the 'more you know' decreases exponentially as you gain knowledge
I'll get my coat
If you use the analogy of your knowledge being like a balloon in the sense that knowledge is the breath you use to blow it up and the surface on outside of the balloon is the unknown. Therefor as you gain more knowledge the balloon gets larger and the surface area of the stuff you don't know increases.
So the more knowledge you gain the more things there are out there that you could learn about. Also, you realise there are more things that exist but you don't understand them, so need to learn.
Therefor the percentage of the 'more you know' decreases exponentially as you gain knowledge
I'll get my coat
I've been in the hobby for many years now and initially I wanted to rate myself higher, like 75%. But then I stopped and I thought about this forum. How many questions on this forum can I really answer? There are many things I don't know still and can't help with. I voted 50% as I figure I could answer maybe half of the questions I see on here. Maybe lol.
I have helped a few people locally get tanks set up and I feel I have a vast knowledge for the "beginner" things. Understanding basic relationships between organisms, chemistry, basic lighting things, etc. But the more advanced topics are still hard for me. I find the more I delve into a specific subject the more questions I have, and many are rather hard to find answers for still. Which tells me that this hobby is still evolving and learning together as a community so no one knows everything yet.
I do enjoy reading and researching various saltwater topics in my free time and that is my biggest pet peeve for some people in the hobby; they do absolutely no research. I just sold corals recently to a guy who, while telling me about his tank, mentioned he had a couple koran angelfish. I mentioned those fish will likely eat coral and his responses was that he had no idea. Really? A basic look online, 2 minutes max, will show these fish are likely to eat on corals.
Rant aside... I do feel if you don't do research into this hobby you will get left behind quickly. It is always changing. Few years ago people thought that ULN was ideal. Now we have changed into saying having small nitrate and phosphate is actually good for coral. Stuff like that is a great example I feel like.
I have helped a few people locally get tanks set up and I feel I have a vast knowledge for the "beginner" things. Understanding basic relationships between organisms, chemistry, basic lighting things, etc. But the more advanced topics are still hard for me. I find the more I delve into a specific subject the more questions I have, and many are rather hard to find answers for still. Which tells me that this hobby is still evolving and learning together as a community so no one knows everything yet.
I do enjoy reading and researching various saltwater topics in my free time and that is my biggest pet peeve for some people in the hobby; they do absolutely no research. I just sold corals recently to a guy who, while telling me about his tank, mentioned he had a couple koran angelfish. I mentioned those fish will likely eat coral and his responses was that he had no idea. Really? A basic look online, 2 minutes max, will show these fish are likely to eat on corals.
Rant aside... I do feel if you don't do research into this hobby you will get left behind quickly. It is always changing. Few years ago people thought that ULN was ideal. Now we have changed into saying having small nitrate and phosphate is actually good for coral. Stuff like that is a great example I feel like.
This is one of those zen questions- impossible to answer.
If you use the analogy of your knowledge being like a balloon in the sense that knowledge is the breath you use to blow it up and the surface on outside of the balloon is the unknown. Therefor as you gain more knowledge the balloon gets larger and the surface area of the stuff you don't know increases.
So the more knowledge you gain the more things there are out there that you could learn about. Also, you realise there are more things that exist but you don't understand them, so need to learn.
Therefor the percentage of the 'more you know' decreases exponentially as you gain knowledge
I'll get my coat
Just wanted to say this is probably the best analogy I have heard so far and I TOTALLY agree. The more I dive into a specific subject, the more questions I end up having. With many of those questions not being easy to find answers for!
Approximately five percent of the ocean has been discovered, which leaves 95 of the ocean unexplored. Depending on who you ask, there exists not one—but two—final frontiers of discovery.Jun 18, 2016
"The more you learn, the dumber you become" Paul Burges. The other Paul B
"The more you learn, the dumber you become" Paul Burges. The other Paul B
Brew12
Electrical Gru
I consider myself a very knowledgeable reefer but I am way under 10% on what I could learn in this hobby.
Chemistry: I know the basics of Alk and Calc. I know what role Mag plays, but can't do any calculations to prove it. I know I need trace elements, but I don't know which ones do what and why they are important. Only that they are. I would call that knowledge meager at best.
Lighting: I understand the basics of PAR and photosynthesis. I don't understand the chemical relationship between the coral and the zooxanthellae it hosts. Or how different spectrum of lighting causes that relationship to change. I understand why too much light can cause bleaching, but I don't understand why smaller changes in lighting cause the color of the coral to change, not fade.
Flow: Again, I know the importance of breaking down the boundary layer around a coral to allow the transfer of waste and nutrients. I couldn't even begin to describe the process by which it happens.
Fish: I have to rely on others to know which fish are reef safe and/or compatible with fish currently in my system. I have no idea (other than wrasses, anthias and clowns) which fish change sex. I don't know which anemone are the natural hosts for each strain of clownfish.
I'm a big fan of the Kruger Dunning study which showed how you need to have knowledge before you can figure out how little you actually know.
I'm also a fan of Lord Kelvin who said "When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science."
Chemistry: I know the basics of Alk and Calc. I know what role Mag plays, but can't do any calculations to prove it. I know I need trace elements, but I don't know which ones do what and why they are important. Only that they are. I would call that knowledge meager at best.
Lighting: I understand the basics of PAR and photosynthesis. I don't understand the chemical relationship between the coral and the zooxanthellae it hosts. Or how different spectrum of lighting causes that relationship to change. I understand why too much light can cause bleaching, but I don't understand why smaller changes in lighting cause the color of the coral to change, not fade.
Flow: Again, I know the importance of breaking down the boundary layer around a coral to allow the transfer of waste and nutrients. I couldn't even begin to describe the process by which it happens.
Fish: I have to rely on others to know which fish are reef safe and/or compatible with fish currently in my system. I have no idea (other than wrasses, anthias and clowns) which fish change sex. I don't know which anemone are the natural hosts for each strain of clownfish.
I'm a big fan of the Kruger Dunning study which showed how you need to have knowledge before you can figure out how little you actually know.
I'm also a fan of Lord Kelvin who said "When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science."
Paul B
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Rock Pool Reef Keepers
Brew, I totaly agree with you about understanding chemistry, lighting etc and I am totally sure you know much more about all than I do.
I got into the fish hobby in the fifties. Yes, we had fish then and they were called toy fish and you bought them in a toy store.
Then when salt water fish came out in the US in 1971 (in New York anyway) I got into the hobby.
I am a compulsive reader but there was just about nothing written at that time about salt fish except "The Marine Aquarist."
The Guru was Robert Straughn (The Father of Salt Water Fish Keeping)
I read his book multiple times and still follow many of the methods.
Of course when Robert kept fish in the 40s and 50s we did not keep corals. Most of us anyway because there was no asw and corals were not widely available.
As books and articles came out I soaked them up like a sponge.
But eventually, as you get older and more experienced, you start to have more experience than the people writing books. At the point, when you start to realize that you are disagreeing with a lot of the things in "print", you begin to go off on your own and use your own methods or methods that you learned years before that were successful.
For instance I remember when Axlerod and Burgess came out with their Ich articles and charts in the 90s. I read them all and did experiment with quarantine a little, I also used copper, formalin and whatever came out at the time.
It was horrible and I started losing fish and my hobby started to become a burden rather than a hobby.
At one time I had 14 tanks with fish in various medications .
Thank God my main tank was relatively healthy and I completely went back to my Ideas I had in the beginning when, although all fish came with parasites, I wasn't hardly losing anything.
I consider success in this hobby when all your fish only die from either jumping out, starving (because you stupidly bought something you can't care for properly,) or old age.
If "anything" in your or my tank dies from "any" disease, I consider that a total failure on our part. Not the store, wholesaler or guy in the canoe that collected it.
So, as to the original question I feel we should read all we can, but remember that virtually everyone writing those articles only has at the most 40 years of experience at this as that is when the hobby started and everyone else is in a nursing home.
Also remember most of the people writing these things are not hobbiests, but researchers in a lab. Researchers come up with things like charts that they make up by studying fish in a lab.
Fish in a lab live much differently than a home tank or the sea. Also Labs do experiments and are paid by corporations usually for food fish as there is very little money in ornamental fish.
So I believe we should find someone with a tank that we think looks great and the creatures seem to live a long time with no problems and certainly no diseases and follow them. Thats what I did with Robert Straughn who was a hobbyist and the man collected everything he kept using SCUBA
I got into the fish hobby in the fifties. Yes, we had fish then and they were called toy fish and you bought them in a toy store.
Then when salt water fish came out in the US in 1971 (in New York anyway) I got into the hobby.
I am a compulsive reader but there was just about nothing written at that time about salt fish except "The Marine Aquarist."
The Guru was Robert Straughn (The Father of Salt Water Fish Keeping)
I read his book multiple times and still follow many of the methods.
Of course when Robert kept fish in the 40s and 50s we did not keep corals. Most of us anyway because there was no asw and corals were not widely available.
As books and articles came out I soaked them up like a sponge.
But eventually, as you get older and more experienced, you start to have more experience than the people writing books. At the point, when you start to realize that you are disagreeing with a lot of the things in "print", you begin to go off on your own and use your own methods or methods that you learned years before that were successful.
For instance I remember when Axlerod and Burgess came out with their Ich articles and charts in the 90s. I read them all and did experiment with quarantine a little, I also used copper, formalin and whatever came out at the time.
It was horrible and I started losing fish and my hobby started to become a burden rather than a hobby.
At one time I had 14 tanks with fish in various medications .
Thank God my main tank was relatively healthy and I completely went back to my Ideas I had in the beginning when, although all fish came with parasites, I wasn't hardly losing anything.
I consider success in this hobby when all your fish only die from either jumping out, starving (because you stupidly bought something you can't care for properly,) or old age.
If "anything" in your or my tank dies from "any" disease, I consider that a total failure on our part. Not the store, wholesaler or guy in the canoe that collected it.
So, as to the original question I feel we should read all we can, but remember that virtually everyone writing those articles only has at the most 40 years of experience at this as that is when the hobby started and everyone else is in a nursing home.
Also remember most of the people writing these things are not hobbiests, but researchers in a lab. Researchers come up with things like charts that they make up by studying fish in a lab.
Fish in a lab live much differently than a home tank or the sea. Also Labs do experiments and are paid by corporations usually for food fish as there is very little money in ornamental fish.
So I believe we should find someone with a tank that we think looks great and the creatures seem to live a long time with no problems and certainly no diseases and follow them. Thats what I did with Robert Straughn who was a hobbyist and the man collected everything he kept using SCUBA
rusty hannon
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My knowledge is mostly from the past And I learned a lot from those day mostly from a good friend helping n her lfs but am learning so much more from the computer.RLearn or get left behind! Is that a fair statement?
IMO if you're not learning well......you're getting left behind. In this hobby there is so much to know and so much to learn. We can get into keeping aquariums with a basic knowledge that will help us be successful with a basic tank set up but if you ever want to be one of the best at maintaining a reef aquarium, growing corals, keeping expert fish etc. you must read, you must try, you must fail, you must learn!
What have you learned over the years? What did you learn last year? What did you learn yesterday? If you're content with what you have and the level of hobbyist you are then stop learning. But if you want more, if you want to be the best then LEARN!
So let's roll with this topic today. I would like to get your feedback on what I just said by answering the following questions.
1. How important is consistently reading and learning to you becoming the best aquarium keeper you can be?
2. Have you learned anything new recently? If so what was it? SHARE!
H3rm1tCr@b
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I know nothing compares to what there is to know. I may think I am getting the hang of something for the hobby to throw a curveball in my face. God has created a fantastic world that is impossible to fully understand.
I also enjoy a “book”. I have the Saltwater for Dummies which is a have to have book for beginners. I am looking for other books that not only talk saltwater but also beginner corals. Any suggestions?
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