What Needs The Most Improvement In The Hobby?

[DSC reef]

The problem I see with this is that us Geezers who were here the day this hobby started in 1971, learned the hard way, years before computers were invented and many of our methods run contradictory to much of the ways things are done now.
I disagree with so much of how people do things today that I rarely try to give advice because of all the negative input from so many people who, (with good intentions) just don't have enough experience or just kept one of a type of fish for a year or two and give advice for it. I have been in the hobby for over 60 years and you wouldn't like the methods I advocate even though almost all my fish only die of old age, my reef is running for 46 years and all my fish are immune.
I have also read almost all the printed books and even wrote one myself and have 2 aquarium related patents.
Even old timers disagree with each other but certainly not as much as Noobs.
OK, Have a great day. I will shut up now. :cool:

You were a noob once too correct. Just because someone disagrees with your practice or quarantine there fish just shows there's more than one way to reef. I love learning new things from people who have been in the hobby a long time or a short time. Knowledge is valuable and I truly believe you don't need to be in the hobby for 30 plus years to give valuable information or help to fellow reefers.

 

[Forsaken77]

You were a noob once too correct. Just because someone disagrees with your practice or quarantine there fish just shows there's more than one way to reef. I love learning new things from people who have been in the hobby a long time or a short time. Knowledge is valuable and I truly believe you don't need to be in the hobby for 30 plus years to give valuable information or help to fellow reefers.

Very true. There have been new methods to things that have come along, but the old methods are still viable. Many roads lead to the same destination.

I think we should have a sticky called "What Works" that are proven procedures and information that is just factual, not up for debate. The only thing is that there's a bunch of DIY, like vodka dosing for example, that may not have publications behind it. It would be a very helpful thing to have a factual database on the site for sure. Kind of our own Saltwater Atlas of Info.

 

[Paul B]

It is true I was a Noob, but I was a different kind of Noob because there was absolutely no information then so we didn't have all the input of information of any kind. There were no LFSs, no experts, no books with any meaningful information so virtually everything was an experiment.
But if you have to experiment for many years before you figure out how to keep something alive you learn how to do it through, unfortunately a lot of mistakes. Much of my knowledge came from SCUBA diving with the creatures I wanted to keep. It was different and I think easier because you learned the way people have learned new things for millennia, through doing. I learned along with the LFS I was dealing with and I helped start 3 of them. I even brought them NSW in my boat to start their stores.

The disease forums on all these boards is loaded with sick fish. As many as there was at the start of the hobby. I know manufacturers have a little to do with that but I feel the enormous amount of information, good and bad is the cause.
Almost every bit of advice on forums is about curing some malady but almost nothing about keeping fish healthy so you don't need medications.

I like your idea about having a forum of people with a great deal of experience to answer questions without a lot of rumor information from good intentioned Noobs.
If for instance there is a thread about eliminating algae you will hear things like, Well I got rid of it by using sea hares, I did it by using hydrogen peroxide, I used urchins, I added more rock, I just kept changing water etc. How is a Noob going to get any information from that?

Don't get me wrong, I try to give as much advice as I can, just not on a open forum. (as I said, you won't like my methods) I get many PMs on 5 or 6 forums a day and I answer questions there. But as I said I am old and stubborn and don't like arguing and a bit of a "know it all." Yes, I can even admit that. (because my wife tells me :cool:) I also have PTSD which probably gives me less patience. But I am truly trying to help people in this hobby keep fish long enough and healthy enough to die of old age and keep spawning. without ever getting sick. Anything less is a failure in my eyes. I can do it and I am not that smart.
I hate to see all these beautiful fish dying in a few months when it is so easy for that to not happen.

There are very intelligent people with some gorgeous tanks on here but almost no one stays in this hobby for more than a few years. There is almost no one on here or any forum that I remember from 15 years ago. I think if we made this easier and people had less problems by keeping the livestock healthier with out battling something every day more people would stay in the hobby.

I guess that makes your idea of a forum of old timers more likable.
Maybe the Old timers could pool their information and possibly come up with methods that they feel are the best without input from so many people.

I am not saying my methods are the best or that I am the God of fish. Heck, I use an undergravel filter. :eek: But if you want to take advice from someone, I think you should find someone who keeps fish with absolutely no problems, no diseases and the fish only die of old age.
There are a few Geezers who know those methods but most of them left forums because of the arguments or the fact that so many people without too much experience advocate things because they tried it once or twice and it worked.

We just lost Albert Thiel, a fantastic fish keeper, author and a very nice, quiet man who would never argue. I bet very few people on here even heard of him but he was a friend of mine and we started the same time. When he died a few months ago there was hardly a mention of him here.

I think that's enough ranting from me now. It's 4 degrees here now and I am going to go huddle around my firefish and flame scallops. :rolleyes:

 

[Forsaken77]

One more HUGE thing I would like to see is the inclusion of a detailed instruction manual with complicated or complex items.

There's so many different skimmers, with different setups & features, available on the market and you're lucky if you get a flap of paper with two pictures on it! It's like they assume we automatically know how their products work or have assembled them before.

Or they put a piece of paper to an online manual that is just as bad. Half the time it feels like they are written by people that don't even speak English.

If I pay good money for your product, at least give me a detailed manual for it that points out all the features, how they work, how to assemble it, ect...

I understand about saving trees, but if you're going to have a web manual, it should be just as detailed and always be archived for future use. A lot of manufacturers take down the manual after a few years, which is why I prefer a paper one.

 

[miyags]

Pricing!!! From lights, protein skimmers to food.

 

[reefwiser]

Paul I find that many younger hobbyist don’t want to listen to older hobbyist anymore. They want to buy new equipment and throw money at their problems. You give them the answer and they don’t even acknowledge it then go with the hair brain answer of some other new hobbyist.

 

[Myk Verified Sponsor]

Not sure if this has already been discussed, but I would love to see more hobbyists understand their impact on the environment and how their choices affect the aquarium industry.

I see a lot of folks mention that they want stuff to be cheaper and that this doesn't have to be an expensive hobby. There is an old saying that you get what you pay for. As far as cost is concerned, sweat and time have move value than money. Things don't need to be expensive if you are willing to research, develop skills and take the time to build. On the other hand, one should not expect someone else to do all of that stuff and then not have to pay a good price for it. If I don't want to cook tonight I have some choices. I can swing through Mc D's or I could stop at a local small family owned restaurant and will likely get what I pay for. Either way if I just go home and cook I might pay less and possibly have a better and healthier meal than I would going through either of the above choices. :)

The costs involved in this hobby span far further than just spending money at an LFS or an online store. The industry as a whole provides a source of income for US citizens as well as for entire communities around the world. We can all see now what is happening in Fiji and WSI. Bringing precious and delicate living things from a stable environment halfway around the world is no small task and yes, this costs money. As an importer, I often pay more money just to get my livestock here than for the actual cost of the animals themselves. All along the chain from the native people that collect the fish, coral and inverts to the shipper, airlines, wholesalers and retailers. Everyone needs to make some form of compensation for their effort. All along the chain the only one that typically has to offer any sort of guarantee to the health and survival of the livestock is the retailer and in some cases the wholesaler.

Aquaculture is good, mariculture is good and sustainable wild collection is good. Just like with our display aquariums balance is key. Any one by itself is likely unsustainable over the long haul in the big picture. The natives of the island nations need an industry and financial support of US dollars from the aquarium industry can go towards rebuilding reefs like the A.D.E. Project was/is working to do. Mariculture is just simply "greener" than aquaculture, but from a research and development standpoint, aquaculture is vastly important. Sustainable wild collection keeps a steady injection of variety and new life and genes in the pool. Environment loss, warming and acidification are happening and I wonder what species may be lost as collection sites get shut down that could have been moved to a safe place to be aquacultured or maricultured and then perhaps returned when and if conditions improve.

When all three points are working together it becomes a very powerful and sustainable environmental force! All of this however is expensive and the money has to come from somewhere. The hobby does not need to be expensive, but we should be willing to spend our money not based solely on "that's a pretty frag" but also based on the big picture and the environmental impact that our hobby and industry has on the entire planet. Everyone's tank from the littlest cost effective pico to the largest reef tank with all the expensive and best toys may someday become a genetic catalogue for the future of a natural wonder that is quickly disappearing. That is an awesome responsibility and we should treat it as such.

 

[Paul B]

Hello Ed. :D
I only try to give answers of something I have done many times with success. I have had an aweful lot of failures also. But If I have kept something like copperband butterflies almost continuously since the 70s and post my log book to prove it, and presently have a very old one that I got as a baby, at least give "some" credence to my answer.
If I show pictures or video's of old mandarins spawning, it probably means I know how to keep them. Or If I have never had to go on a disease thread for anything I may have at least accidentally figured out how to keep fish immune.
Most people say it is luck.
I am really trying to help people because I am old and will be gone soon. I would like to think that in all these years I have discovered something that someone could learn from.
But, maybe not. :confused:

 

[miyags]

You get what you pay for?....Now that's funny!!!

 

[Myk Verified Sponsor]

Well...... I suppose there are exceptions to every rule. The rule assuming good integrity on the end of the seller.

 

[Paul B]

I think LED fixtures should be sold where you can easily change an individual LED without getting an entirely new fixture

 

[Flippers4pups]

I think LED fixtures should be sold where you can easily change an individual LED without getting an entirely new fixture

Chinese black boxes are fairly easy to replace diodes, but require some diy skills. It would be nice to be able to just pull out a diode and replace. But the light manufacturers probably won't ever do that.

 

[Mandelstam]

Paul and you other old timers, it would be amazing to document old proven ways and procedures that really work and that are tested by time. Otherwise we're going to wake up one day and no one has the knowledge anymore.

I'm a landscape architect and for one project I was working on we were designing this natural stone wall. On an old building close to me I had seen a really beautiful hand crafted finish to the stone base and I called up a supplier and showed them pictures of what I wanted. Even though they are really good craftsmen they flat out told me that no one knows how to do that particular finish today. And we're not talking about an old roman building, it was probably from around 1850. But that knowledge was lost and even though they can put a block of stone in a cnc machine and have it carv out whatever computer generated shape you want, the knowledge of how to do that finish was forever gone.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

A magical ointment which makes all kinds of algae disapear and never come back again.

I think that’s called beer.

 

[Paul B]

Mandelstam. Here in New York we have quite a few old stone buildings and bridges. (Not as many as Europe of course) But there is no one here any longer that can do that work as no one wants to learn it and as you say, the old craftsman died off. Everyone now wants to be a lawyer or software engineer whatever that is.
The point is that as the older generation die, the young people don't want to know those ways as there are much easier professions now where hard work is not part of it.
I was a construction electrician in Manhattan for 40 years, now retired. In school they teach these kids things like bending pipe as that is an electrician staple and you need to know how to do it.
The school teaches these ways with protractors, lasers, rulers and formulas. It takes forever, is complicated and doesn't give you a good bend. I show the Noobs a real simple way to do that with no tools (except a pipe bender) in a few seconds and they are floored. It is a skill that is now lost because even the teachers are very young and the old timers are out.

To Geezers like me Atoll and 4 or 5 others reefing is very easy. Not because we are very smart, just that we have already encountered every disease, hitch hiker, parasite and problem there is and we solved it many times so it is simple. But if your fish get ich after you dipped and quarantined them it is very hard to get good information due to all the theories. How many people still preach to add cleaner shrimp? Heck, at one time I thought that was the way to cure it.

Ich is not a new thing but most tanks crash from it and even if you don't get your fish immune, you can cure it in a day. I figured that out decades ago. I think something like Hypo salinity (whatever it is called ) is silly because ich can kill a fish in a few days and hypo takes much longer than that to get a cure.
If you want to cure ich in a day, get copper/formulin and mix quinicrine hydrocloride in the water (which is a malaria medication) and it is cured.
Does anyone do that? I doubt it but I don't know. I have used that mixture in stores and wholesalers many times. It is simple. But I feel it is much better to get your fish in such a state that they are immune from everything.

I get in trouble for that theory many times so I normally try to just keep it on my thread.
I would love to see everyone have immune fish so we wouldn't need disease forums. But people tell me it is to hard.
I don't know, maybe I am just lucky. :rolleyes:

Paul and you other old timers, it would be amazing to document old proven ways and procedures that really work and that are tested by time. Otherwise we're going to wake up one day and no one has the knowledge anymore.

Mandelstam, me and those other Geezers post those theories every day and have been for many years if anyone wants to read them. The information is there but it is not believed by many people even if you post pictures for proof. There is a big box in this hobby and many people stay in the box which is IMO the reason so many people, almost everyone gets out from frustration in a few years.
5 years with a reef tank is not a success as that is not even half the lifespan of a hermit crab. You need to be in it at least long enough to have many of your livestock die of old age. If they don't, how do you know if you are successful? :rolleyes:
Have a great day and I hope I am not offending too many people as that is not my intention. If I am. Let me know as I have thick skin and I will go on another forum and annoy them there. :eek:

 

[Forsaken77]

I think LED fixtures should be sold where you can easily change an individual LED without getting an entirely new fixture

Or at least make it a simple thing to replace zones of led's. I understand why they won't let people replace individual LED's, because if you don't know how it could be a potential fire hazzard, but at least make a zone of 5-10 LED's (depending on the size) plug n play by being able to pop them out as a small, replaceable block.

That would save them time any money as well.

 

[DSC reef]

Or at least make it a simple thing to replace zones of led's. I understand why they won't let people replace individual LED's, because if you don't know how it could be a potential fire hazzard, but at least make a zone of 5-10 LED's (depending on the size) plug n play by being able to pop them out as a small, replaceable block.

That would save them time any money as well.

Zoo med makes a light that does that;Hilarious

 

[Flippers4pups]

I think that’s called beer.

I've never tried it as an "ointment", does it cure fungus? Lol

 

[Forsaken77]

Zoo med makes a light that does that;Hilarious

Crap... There goes my patent. Those lights are such junk, but I applaud them for making the attempt for consumers. I would like to see a real light fixture make those removeable blocks and have multiple LED's and be a bit bigger. For example, a 48" light would have 8 removeable/replaceable zones.

The actual cool thing with the Zoo Med is that you can customize what color LED's go in there. Granted, you're limited to white & blue, but still. It's a step in forward thinking.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Books. Reefers need more books.

While I agree on books....it is so hard to put out a book with the quick and ever changing standards and methods in the industry.
We have new innovations and equipment annually which impact the industry in various ways and what comes out today as a proven method is quickly replaced by another in short time.