Reefers may over-rely on personal experience to accept or reject truth

[bushdoc]

We are all guilty of being lazy and not examining the facts and not doing regular research.
I found though that relying on expert opinion without grain of doubt and healthy questioning is also a sin.
I love though reading reef2reef forums and trying to avoid problems, by learning from other's mistakes.

 

[Thales]

If you are interested in this stuff, look up the Skeptical Reefkeeping articles. They discuss in more depth

 

[Lowell Lemon]

So observation and repeated experience has no basis in science unless it squares with your science? What? Sounds like it is from today's headlines.

Who's truth your truth or my truth?

 

[Dan_P]

So observation and repeated experience has no basis in science unless it squares with your science? What? Sounds like it is from today's headlines.

Who's truth your truth or my truth?

Maybe an observation is not what makes for an interesting or controversial thread, even repeated observations, but the interpretation. If you see something you do not recognize and you tell someone “hey I saw something I don’t recognize”, nothing happens. Crickets. Go one step further and interpret what you see, then the fun can begin. At that point, the rationalization of what you see can align to or be heavily influenced by your world view and bingo, you have a lively debate.

 

[Acrofiend]

Every time I carbon dose my acros stn (lowest possible dose). For this reason I don’t recommend it to anyone. I know others have good success with it but why dose it when corals grow just fine without it.
If you’re dosing anything but the main three you run the possibility of killing your coral especially acros.

 

[Miami Reef]

Maybe an observation is not what makes for an interesting or controversial thread, even repeated observations, but the interpretation. If you see something you do not recognize and you tell someone “hey I saw something I don’t recognize”, nothing happens. Crickets. Go one step further and interpret what you see, then the fun can begin. At that point, the rationalization of what you see can align to or be heavily influenced by your world view and bingo, you have a lively debate.

Hey! I recognize that you have an approach where you make a list of your observations when someone makes a scientific statement.

It’s valuable to make statements like this, because many of the greatest findings were from accidental mistakes. One great example is how penicillin was a mold that contaminated a scientists bacterial culture when he was out for vacation.

When the scientist came back, he realized that wherever the mold was, the bacteria did not grow. Instead of trashing all of the “contaminated“ cultures in shame, he decided to study the mold. This was the discovery of the first ever antibiotic, penicillin.

This is an example of how seemingly random ideas that bounce off can make for great ideas!

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

If you are interested in this stuff, look up the Skeptical Reefkeeping articles. They discuss in more depth

 

[dstockwell]

When my nitrates bottomed out I asked the LFS if it had anything to raise nitrates. Response people don’t usually want to raise them so why? I have dealt with this store before so now I only go for what I hope they have when I need it.

 

[BigTimeIssues]

Well I guess it may be better to use as few products as possible for someone like myself.

I am really good at working on and repairing mechanical and electro mechanical equipment, cars, some electronics, etc. But chemistry wasn't a class I took ever. And biology I took in the 9th grade 30 years ago.

Basically I'm just gonna have to wait for tall to tell me what the heck is going on. Lol

 

[HomebroodExotics]

My favorite part of the hobby is when I say hey this is my experience what’s yours, and all I get back is your tank sucks and everything will die. Ok thanks for all the help. I’ll just sit here enjoying my tank then.

 

[Dan_P]

My favorite part of the hobby is when I say hey this is my experience what’s yours, and all I get back is your tank sucks and everything will die. Ok thanks for all the help. I’ll just sit here enjoying my tank then.

Yeah, that’s a bit of over confidence when you predict what is going to happen in someone else‘s aquarium knowing so very little about. Yes, there can be some obvious bad conditions that will lead to a sad ending, but many predictions seem too confident, like a fortune teller.

By the way, does your aquarium have a happy story after all?

 

[HomebroodExotics]

Yeah, that’s a bit of over confidence when you predict what is going to happen in someone else‘s aquarium knowing so very little about. Yes, there can be some obvious bad conditions that will lead to a sad ending, but many predictions seem too confident, like a fortune teller.

By the way, does your aquarium have a happy story after all?

Who is predicting what will happen in someone else's aquarium? And which aquarium of mine are you referring to? So far all my aquariums are going well unless you ask people in this forum.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So observation and repeated experience has no basis in science unless it squares with your science? What? Sounds like it is from today's headlines.

Who's truth your truth or my truth?

You can choose to intentional misconstrue what I wrote if you want, but that is obviously not what I said. Your post is EXACTLY why such threads as this are needed.

Your truth is an observation on your system. Your truth is not always (maybe not ever) extendable to other situations than your own aquarium and procedures.

That is the mistake I am warning about, and it is an issue that pervades the reefkeeping hobby.

Folks NEED to understand that something that works for someone may not work for others. Sometimes the causitive issue is obvious (such as using tap water and having any particular result) and sometimes less so (such as the carbon dosing mentioned above causing STN).

 

[atoll]

Sometimes is hard to get the facts esp what works for one may not for another. There is one thing much worse than personal experience in this hobby and that is something with no substance at all being banded about as fact even without personal experience of whatever it is.
Another is those with YouTube channels doing these unboxing videos telling us nothing that the manufacturer tells them to say. No experience of the nice new shiny product at all but the best thing since sliced bread. Strange we hardly ever see a followup of said item 3 or 6 months down the line, maybe it's because that has long been replaced by the next latest and greatest mist uave freebie to come their way.

 

[TokenReefer]

I get your point @atoll but that's the diff between an unboxing video and a product review; some level parsing of information falls on you. I say get the information out there and let people ingest it; whether they're capable or not is not a concern to me. The more good info that's out there, the less room there is for bad, imo.

 

[atoll]

Let's say you have been in the hobby 40 plus years, had numerous tanks in that time, found a way, method or whatever you want to call it thar works for you. You have theories as to why they work but of course they are not backed up with scientific research etc after all you're just a hobbiest who enjoys and gets great pleasure in what you achieve.

Some of those methods may go against the "accepted" norm and are controversial to many. You show your tank, photos and videos, explain what you do and why you do it. It's all based on your own personal experience over many years. Your tank is thriving, fish and corals live long lives breed and grow. Your ignoring the doubters as you firmly believe the results you achieve are what matters.

OK not 100% what Randy is suggesting but close. I don't think we should dismiss personal experience good or bad but not totally rely on others experiences as there are probably too many variables in many cases.

 

[atoll]

I get your point @atoll but that's the diff between an unboxing video and a product review; some level parsing of information falls on you. I say get the information out there and let people ingest it; whether they're capable or not is not a concern to me. The more good info that's out there, the less room there is for bad, imo.

I see these unboxing adverts as paid adverts not a genuine review at all. The vast majority of the info is on the manufacturers site with no real appraisal no follow-up, no results nothing. Me the thee might not be easily fooled by them but you can bet many a newbie to the hobby will be.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I see these unboxing adverts as paid adverts not a genuine review at all. The vast majority of the info is on the manufacturers site with no real appraisal no follow-up, no results nothing. Me the thee might not be easily fooled by them but you can bet many a newbie to the hobby will be.

I too have been disappointed with "reviews" that do not actually test anything, but repeat manufacturer claims.

 

[TokenReefer]

I think we just need better schooling lol. Hate to be that (old) guy but it seems that basic fundamentals are simply missing from some trains of thought and then argued against which makes things get very ugly very quickly

I see these unboxing adverts as paid adverts not a genuine review at all. The vast majority of the info is on the manufacturers site with no real appraisal no follow-up, no results nothing. Me the thee might not be easily fooled by them but you can bet many a newbie to the hobby will be.

Oh I agree that it's a bit unscrupulous and might be hard for some to discern but that is how advertising works since it's inception. If people worked on this as a skill they'd be better off imo; skill: how to detect bs

 

[Reefer Matt]

You can choose to intentional misconstrue what I wrote if you want, but that is obviously not what I said. Your post is EXACTLY why such threads as this are needed.

Your truth is an observation on your system. Your truth is not always (maybe not ever) extendable to other situations than your own aquarium and procedures.

That is the mistake I am warning about, and it is an issue that pervades the reefkeeping hobby.

Folks NEED to understand that something that works for someone may not work for others. Sometimes the causitive issue is obvious (such as using tap water and having any particular result) and sometimes less so (such as the carbon dosing mentioned above causing STN).

I agree with you, and am now more careful to tell people my advice is based on my opinion or experience, and their results may vary. I think most people don't realize when they give advice that the other person may interpret the information as a general fact, and they may not get the same results. A simple disclaimer helps differentiate personal observations from scientific studies.