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

[JSR]

Every post landing on the Dunning-Kruger Effect curve somewhere.

The most vocal are early on the x-axis.
Listen to those far along the x-axis.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

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).

Science is based on the scientific methods of observation, research of the question, hypothesis, test with experiment, analyze data, report conclusions, then back to the beginning of observation and ect. You have to be able to repeat the experiment and have similar results or it is not a credible method.

The whole process begins and returns to observation. Remember this is a hobby for the vast majority of consumers of the hobby so the concept of this is what works for me has some validation. Just as anecdotal evidence is rejected so is dogma in the scheme of science unless similar results are obtained across a wide range of experiments. There is just as much dogma as anecdote in the hobby. But just because of a college degree does not negate the experience of truly interested and methodical investigators who just happen to be hobbiest. I have witnessed the slamming of individuals here that "lack" the educational credentials but have successfully practiced husbandry of their aquariums for longer than many have been alive let along kept an aquarium.

In my case I have replicated the success of some of my methods across dozens of personal aquariums as well as customers aquariums over a long period of time. While I come from a family that were all medical professionals my degrees were in Dental Lab Science, and Business. But I can tell you my professional life has revolved around reading and applying the concepts needed to adapt to emerging technologies outside my degrees. Anyone with enough curiosity can do the same thing. Some of the most beautiful aquariums on these forums are kept and attended by hobbiest. Public aquariums pale by comparison to some of the most successful reef tanks featured in these pages. Whose "science" should you listen to and evaluate? For me I am here to look and learn from the actual humble hobbiests whose aquariums blow away any public aquarium I have ever visited.

The arrogance of the educated is that education in one area of study is that they are led believe they have arrived at truth and have lost the wonder of observation and discovery. They are often limited to uncovering practical truth by their "truth". If you do not see that in our world today you are asleep at the wheel.

Humility is an asset to scientific methods. Arrogance of the "settled" science is not conducive to further examination or improvement of results. There are many ways to success in this hobby but some are more repeatable than others.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Science is based on the scientific methods of observation, research of the question, hypothesis, test with experiment, analyze data, report conclusions, then back to the beginning of observation and ect. You have to be able to repeat the experiment and have similar results or it is not a credible method.

The whole process begins and returns to observation. Remember this is a hobby for the vast majority of consumers of the hobby so the concept of this is what works for me has some validation. Just as anecdotal evidence is rejected so is dogma in the scheme of science unless similar results are obtained across a wide range of experiments. There is just as much dogma as anecdote in the hobby. But just because of college degree does not negate the experience of truly interested and methodical investigators who just happen to be hobbiest. I have witnessed the slamming of individuals here that "lack" the educational credentials but have successfully practiced husbandry of their aquariums for longer than many have been alive let along kept an aquarium.

In my case I have replicated the success of some of my methods across dozens of personal aquariums as well as customers aquariums over a long period of time. While I come from a family that were all medical professionals my degrees were in Dental Lab Science, and Business. But I can tell you my professional life has revolved around reading and applying the concepts needed to adapt to emerging technologies outside my degrees. Anyone with enough curiosity can do the same thing. Some of the most beautiful aquariums on these forums are kept and attended by hobbiest. Public aquariums pale by comparison to some of the most successful reef tanks featured in these pages. Whose "science" should you listen to and evaluate? For me I am here to look and learn from the actual humble hobbiests whose aquariums blow away any public aquarium I have ever visited.

The arrogance of the educated is that education in one area of study is that they are led believe they have arrived at truth and have lost the wonder of observation and discovery. They are often limited to uncovering practical truth by their "truth". If you do not see that in our world today you are asleep at the wheel.

Humility is an asset to scientific methods. Arrogance of the "settled" science is not conducive to further examination or improvement of results. There are many ways to success in this hobby but some are more repeatable than others.

I didn't disagree with what you wrote, and what you wrote does not disagree with anything I have written. If you carefully read what I wrote, and not give a knee jerk reaction that assumes I am disregarding anyone's experience, you might realize that we are not disagreeing.

It is the extrapolation from an observation of 1 or 10 or 100 situations to all situations without any regard for why it may not translate to all that is clearly what I am writing about. Science does not ever change from tank to tank and is always behind all observations. It is the interpretation and extensions of those observations to other situations that one needs to be careful about,. I am careful, and simply list what I do to be careful in the first post. Perhaps you have a different way of being careful, or maybe you aren't as careful as may be needed, IMO.

FWIW, I personally HAVE NEVER, EVER, slammed someone for not having any particular background. I do frequently correct statements and assertions that are simply incorrect.

 

[Dan_P]

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.

I think you might have missed the point that I was agreeing with you. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

I think you might have missed the point that I was agreeing with you. Sorry for the confusion.

Ha I thought so but just wasn’t sure, sorry as well, yes everything is going well that’s honestly why I want to learn more from others now. I don’t have much left to turn over but connecting others anecdotes with my own experiences now. True science and papers and whatnot is great but moves really slow and once you’ve gotten up to speed on a lot of it then all we are left with is to listen to others anecdotes. I’m just rambling and ranting now so anyway, happy reefing.

 

[Dan_P]

Ha I thought so but just wasn’t sure, sorry as well, yes everything is going well that’s honestly why I want to learn more from others now. I don’t have much left to turn over but connecting others anecdotes with my own experiences now. True science and papers and whatnot is great but moves really slow and once you’ve gotten up to speed on a lot of it then all we are left with is to listen to others anecdotes. I’m just rambling and ranting now so anyway, happy reefing.

Happy Reefing!

 

[Joekovar]

Person A in Michigan doses something, works like a charm. Person B in Florida doses the same thing, it kills the whole tank. To make things even more interesting, persons C & D in Florida tried the same product from 3 different stores in 3 different tanks and they all crashed.

Certainly it's a bunk product and person A is full of it, right?

All of the Florida people got their product from different stores, however all of those stores got it from the same distributor, and somewhere along the line the shipment sent to that part of the country sat and was allowed to spoil.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Person A in Michigan doses something, works like a charm. Person B in Florida doses the same thing, it kills the whole tank. To make things even more interesting, persons C & D in Florida tried the same product from 3 different stores in 3 different tanks and they all crashed.

Obviously the conclusion is move out of Florida.

 

[Dan_P]

It is the interpretation and extensions of those observations to other situations that one needs to be careful about

I bet if we review contentious posts, we would find much of the battle is around the interpretation and extrapolation of the observation, not the observation itself.

 

[second_decimal]

Everyone who has confused correlation with causation winds up dead…

let’s face it. There are just so many ways ways to keep a successful reef. Anecdotal evidence of failure or success is highly individualistic and therefore not applicable to every tank. You pick best practices and build from there through trial and error.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Everyone who has confused correlation with causation winds up dead…

let’s face it. There are just so many ways ways to keep a successful reef. Anecdotal evidence of failure or success is highly individualistic and therefore not applicable to every tank. You pick best practices and build from there through trial and error.

Jus to be fair, everyone winds up dead eventually. lol

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Jus to be fair, everyone winds up dead eventually. lol

Citations please? Haha

 

[Cthulukelele]

I think this all comes down to the problem of specificity and causality. When you work a scientific career, you get asked a lot of questions about the field and are forced to give a lot of unsatisfying answers.

I study occupational lung injury and vaping occasional in the lab. When people come to you they ask broad causative questions like "does vaping cause lung cancer" or "is vaping better than smoking?" The easiest answer to give is "probably," but the right answer is to list several reasons why x may be the case and also present a few reasons as to why it may not be the case if those are present.

This is a run-around of thought that is incredibly unsatisfying and generally leaves more questions than answers. It's also the most intellectually honest and thoughtful way to break down different issues. Anecdote is useful in something like reefkeeping to notice trends, but until those trends are analyzed and some sort of causal link is found the anecdotes hold very little value in husbandry practices, and without complete information as to exactly the parameters in which the observations were found, it's impossible to say what was the ultimate contributor.

The ultimate point of this post is just take every opinion with a grain of salt, make changes to your specific system slowly and reasonably safely, and monitor changes in a way that allows you to test for causative links in your specific setup (I.E. monitoring your nitrate changes when carbon dosing or phosphates when running gfo)

 

[Miami Reef]

I have something that’s been bugging me.

I know a few reefers who keep 0 phosphates with no dinos. In fact, my own LFS has 0.00ppm phosphates (I tested it myself.) They don’t have dinos either.

I know of Roberto Denadai’s tanks, which don’t use any special chemicals. Just barely feeding their fish to get ULN and no dinos. He had MULTIPLE tanks with no nutrients, no dosing chemicals/special additives and did not get dinos.

However, people say 0 phosphates correlate to dinos.

Is this example like smoking? Not everyone who smokes will get cancer, but the risk goes up?

I recently decided to go zeovit solely because I am holding on to the hope that going low nutrients with zeovit won’t contribute to dinos. I’m holding on to the idea that something zeovit has that results in repeated” success with achieving ULN.

Man, I wish I could just know what causes dinos. Why would 2 seemingly similar methods of running a tank would result one with a dino bloom and the other not?

It keeps me up at night.

 

[TokenReefer]

I have something that’s been bugging me.

I know a few reefers who keep 0 phosphates with no dinos. In fact, my own LFS has 0.00ppm phosphates (I tested it myself.) They don’t have dinos either.

I know of Roberto Denadai’s tanks, which don’t use any special chemicals. Just barely feeding their fish to get ULN and no dinos. He had MULTIPLE tanks with no nutrients, no dosing chemicals/special additives and did not get dinos.

However, people say 0 phosphates correlate to dinos.

Is this example like smoking? Not everyone who smokes will get cancer, but the risk goes up?

I recently decided to go zeovit solely because I am holding on to the hope that going low nutrients with zeovit won’t contribute to dinos. I’m holding on to the idea that something zeovit has that results in repeated” success with achieving ULN.

Man, I wish I could just know what causes dinos. Why would 2 seemingly similar methods of running a tank would result one with a dino bloom and the other not?

It keeps me up at night.

This is a good example of information being misinterpreted (not specifically by you @Miami Reef).

0 nutrients = dinos
This is such a poor way to explain dinos imo and does not paint the full picture.

It's akin to the way we used to think that salamanders came from fire because when we threw firewood on a fire they crawled out. Correlation does not equal causation is a popular termed way to put it.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

I have something that’s been bugging me.

I know a few reefers who keep 0 phosphates with no dinos. In fact, my own LFS has 0.00ppm phosphates (I tested it myself.) They don’t have dinos either.

I know of Roberto Denadai’s tanks, which don’t use any special chemicals. Just barely feeding their fish to get ULN and no dinos. He had MULTIPLE tanks with no nutrients, no dosing chemicals/special additives and did not get dinos.

However, people say 0 phosphates correlate to dinos.

Is this example like smoking? Not everyone who smokes will get cancer, but the risk goes up?

I recently decided to go zeovit solely because I am holding on to the hope that going low nutrients with zeovit won’t contribute to dinos. I’m holding on to the idea that something zeovit has that results in repeated” success with achieving ULN.

Man, I wish I could just know what causes dinos. Why would 2 seemingly similar methods of running a tank would result one with a dino bloom and the other not?

It keeps me up at night.

You should watch reefbums last episode with the fauna Marin guy if you haven’t yet. It’ll probably make things even more confusing. Awesome stuff though.

 

[alain Bouchard]

I think almost all debated subjects have 2 sides with valid points. There is a difference between debating those subjects and accepting facts without researching arguments for both side. Having more people accepting something as a fact dont make it a fact. IE. I understand and agree with most arguments in favor of fallow and quarantine, but I prefer going without, because I understand and agree on many points on this side too, and it fits better with my ways of doing things. I think that science shouldnt be an argument to stop debate and everybody should keep its mind open about the possibility of being wrong.

 

[MoshJosh]

Title could just be:

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

Pretty much applies to everything!

 

[WVNed]

There seems to be a lot more truth now than there used to be.
Who can argue with the truth?
I don't anymore.

I took a lot of science classes. I don't remember the word truth being used much in them back then.
That was before science became settled like it is now.

 

[Dan_P]

I have something that’s been bugging me.

I know a few reefers who keep 0 phosphates with no dinos. In fact, my own LFS has 0.00ppm phosphates (I tested it myself.) They don’t have dinos either.

I know of Roberto Denadai’s tanks, which don’t use any special chemicals. Just barely feeding their fish to get ULN and no dinos. He had MULTIPLE tanks with no nutrients, no dosing chemicals/special additives and did not get dinos.

However, people say 0 phosphates correlate to dinos.

Is this example like smoking? Not everyone who smokes will get cancer, but the risk goes up?

I recently decided to go zeovit solely because I am holding on to the hope that going low nutrients with zeovit won’t contribute to dinos. I’m holding on to the idea that something zeovit has that results in repeated” success with achieving ULN.

Man, I wish I could just know what causes dinos. Why would 2 seemingly similar methods of running a tank would result one with a dino bloom and the other not?

It keeps me up at night.

The way that I am thinking about vigorous dinoflagellate growth is that multiple factors come into play but phosphate is the only thing we can measure. We force the correlation. Also, we mostly hear about dinoflagellate growth in the presence of low phosphate which further supports our biased view. Dinoflagellates caused by low phosphate is still in with the Bigfoot sightings for me. In the spirit of transparency, I have trouble growing dinoflagellates outside the aquarium. Maybe my views are tainted by this bad luck