LOL, my first "tank" was in the bottom of a wooden wine barrel.
I had freshwater fish, and in another barrel, I had water turtles and land tortoises in another. That was circa 1954 or so.
I have had a fish tank every day of my life, and I am older than Saint Theresa.
I started my reef in 1971, almost the day the hobby started in the US so I saw virtually every "new" idea, device, book, article or other creation to allow this hobby to either progress or decline.
I have seen hundreds of people get into the hobby and almost all of them leave.
Many of them most likely due to diseases. There were just as many disease problems in the 70s as there are now, even with all the information and medications. (Just look at the disease forum)
I feel that is our fault because many people got away from the basics and common sense doesn't mean much any longer.
The vast majority of information we get now is from Noobs who have been in the hobby for just a few years.
When I started there was no computers or internet, Just one black and white magazine and that information was mostly wrong. But it did have some common sense.
The only one in the hobby was Robert Straughn, "The Father of Salt Water Fish Keeping"
I still use common sense as much as I can and am not swayed by all the information and advertisements for new and innovative things.
When the hobby started we all had undergravel filters. They worked well but we used them incorrectly. I re designed it and still use one. It has been working in my reef for 55 years so far and it has never crashed.
They fell out of favor along with Wet Dry filters even though they worked well. But there isn't much money in them, and they never fail or break so commercially, they are a dead end.
I also use dolomite gravel, not available any more for the same reason.
Now instead of keeping the fish healthy through their own immune system we have multitudes of medications. I don't use any of them because I learned the secret decades ago and I learned much of it from my nearly 400 hours I spent underwater with these creatures. The fish can tell us everything we want to know if we just listen to them. They are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves as long as we don't try to cure things that don't need curing.
We make the fish sick, no one else. I don't want to get into that because of the arguments and this interesting thread which is moving along peacefully and nicely.
“I am not aware of any QUALITY books that have been released in the past 5 years(please let me know that I am wrong, I really hope that I am).
OOhhhNNNoo Sub. I think my book is the best thing that ever happened to this, and "ALL" hobbies.
I got a call from the
Amazon asking me to stop printing my book because they are running out of trees. The Gideons are thinking of replacing bibles in hotel rooms with my book
(Also 100% of the profits go to MS research)
All that’s out there now are self-published, poorly edited “vanity books”.
I agree that my book is poorly edited. I had 4 editors and every one re edited what the last one did. If I ever write another book, I will not have it edited, incorrect spelling and all.
What qualifies someone to give advice?
Someone who has been in the hobby since before last Tuesday and can keep some goldfish alive.
(OK not a goldfish, Looks like a Copperband/goldfish)
