What VOIDS are in this hobby and where can we improve?

Samina

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 6, 2017
Messages
1,077
Reaction score
3,739
Location
Long Valley
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I would say the void is the target market and it being a limiting factor. And that is why the prices on the equipment we want to put on our tanks is so outrageous. It’s just the nature of business.

Cost of R&D and then production needs to be at a ratio to the target market that allows companies to lower their price point, so they can still make a profit. Having a smaller market, high R&D and possibly production costs leads to higher pricing. That and the lack of competition. A company makes a new product/equipment and it’s marked high in price, once competitors start building/selling similar products/equipment, the original company lowers their pricing. But still, the price still is in a high range. Goes back to the fact that there’s a small market.

So, the hobby needs to grow with more people entering! That’s where the void lies in my opinion.
 

AdamNC

Lawnmower Blenny says nom nom
View Badges
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Messages
4,117
Reaction score
3,234
Location
Winston Salem NC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
A light that actually mimics the movement of the sun. There is one out there sort of that pivots from left to right. But I’m talking one that say moves on a set of rails that physically moves from one side of the tank to the other. Maybe have some stationary and then one spotlight that curves and angles as the appearance of the sun does over the horizons.
 

lion king

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 3, 2016
Messages
6,797
Reaction score
8,649
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
LFS needs to be held to similar standards as other pet industry retailers, as reptile retailers. They need to track their losses and held to a standard, most of the lfs I visit needs to be shut down. Every stop along the way from collector to lfs needs to be cleaned up, the buckets and buckets of dead and diseased fish are sickening. Personally I've lost 5 fish in qt in the last several months and 15 of my 23 fish have been treated for disease. I speak to hobbyist where not one fish from 2 of the busiest lfs in town every live, if they do live they inexplicably die within a few months. My theory is likely due to over medication. Every time we've cut them open they've had some sort of organ damage. I've been around for 30 years and this is not the hobby I started enjoying years ago.
 

chipmunkofdoom2

Always Making Something
View Badges
Joined
Jun 6, 2017
Messages
2,417
Reaction score
4,497
Location
Baltimore, MD
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I would like a better understanding of the science. We have lots of rules of thumb in the hobby, and most of them are good enough guidelines and you can keep a successful tank if you follow them. But, we don't yet know the actual science or mechanism behind a lot of them. A good example of this is organic carbon dosing (biopellets, vodka, vinegar, sugar, etc). We know that it reduces nitrates and phosphates to some degree. We believe that a bacterium or bacteria are responsible for the reduction. We haven't, to the best of my knowledge, described these bacteria, nor do we know much about them or how they grow. The only thing we know for sure is to ramp up the organic carbon dose slowly, keep the water well oxygenated, and ramp it down slowly.

While knowing the exact bacteria that grow from organic carbon dosing might not be the most useful, especially if the dosing accomplishes the results, there are other topics where more understanding would help a lot. For example, lots of reefers that start tanks with dry rock have trouble getting corals (particularly SPS) to grow. Even Mike Paletta, a legend in the hobby, failed to grow SPS successfully for almost a year after setting up a tank with dry rock. By his own account, he only started seeing success after he introduced some live rock and Miracle Mud. Mike theorizes that dry rock lacks biodiversity, and that adding the live rock and Miracle Mud gave his tank the biodiversity it needed to be successful. Again, an interesting theory, and the results seem to be reproducible.. but how can we translate that into usable information in the hobby? We're left with a rule of thumb (always add live rock or Miracle Mud to a dry rock-only tank), which works well enough.. but what specifically is this "biodiversity?" How does it specifically help SPS grow in a reef aquaria? Clearly there's something we don't understand about the micro flora and fauna populations in a reef tank. I think the hobby would benefit greatly by getting away from "rules of thumb" and starting to understand why things work instead of just what to do and when.
 

Scott Fellman

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 1, 2016
Messages
395
Reaction score
710
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Wow, don’t know if you can call it a “void”, per se, but I’d like to see more of a return to looking at a reef aquarium as a little microcosm. I’d love to see a return to an emphasis on biodiversity.. and maybe a mind set shift among reefers that embraces- rather than reviles- stuff like microalgae and a little detritus here and there. Just understanding that a reef tank really can work beautifully with all of these elements..

Oh, and maybe a few more “biotope-style” reef tanks, modeling some of those cool niches- like seagrasses beds, muck zones, Mangrove estuaries, etc. so much talent in this hobby; would be fun to see more “slightly off the beaten path” kind of stuff!
 

Jr'sReef

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 20, 2018
Messages
432
Reaction score
394
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I think the void is the outrageous prices on equipment. Scares off the beginner thinking he needs to buy more than 1-2k in equipment before he can throw a fish in his aquarium.
 

squampton

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 1, 2016
Messages
297
Reaction score
330
Location
Canada
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
No more MAP pricing and permit retailers to sell products at a price point they desire and let retailers actually compete.
 

Dom274

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 28, 2015
Messages
987
Reaction score
293
Location
Ohio
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Lol, just one more issue with that. If the dinos are on the corals, wouldnt they come back when u put the corals back in?


That's the thing, I'm not trying to eliminate them. They're still there even though I can't see them, my lights have gotten stuck on and caused flare ups before. The point is that when the tank stabilizes, there's "something else" that out-competes them. This "something else" obviously takes longer to take hold in the tank than the dinos, but once they do, the dinos go back to their small part in the ecosystem.
 

Forsaken77

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 26, 2016
Messages
1,961
Reaction score
1,223
Location
Long Island, NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I created a thread like this not too long ago. But I've thought of something else...

I think we need more research on meds and definitive medications that will work 100%. Ex.. If you have parasites, regardless of the type, this will wipe them out and be safe for all fish.

Better yet, I would love to see a QT medication that does the work of copper, prazipro, and an antibacterial med that is all-in-one. One med that can treat fish safely for EVERYTHING all at once, at the same time. No adding "this" for 4 weeks, then "this" for another week and then "this" for 2 more weeks, all while testing and doing water changes.

One med to treat the most common fish ailments in a single bottle.

I can dream, can't I?
 

PmCarbrey

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 15, 2013
Messages
406
Reaction score
168
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I created a thread like this not too long ago. But I've thought of something else...

I think we need more research on meds and definitive medications that will work 100%. Ex.. If you have parasites, regardless of the type, this will wipe them out and be safe for all fish.

Better yet, I would love to see a QT medication that does the work of copper, prazipro, and an antibacterial med that is all-in-one. One med that can treat fish safely for EVERYTHING all at once, at the same time. No adding "this" for 4 weeks, then "this" for another week and then "this" for 2 more weeks, all while testing and doing water changes.

One med to treat the most common fish ailments in a single bottle.

I can dream, can't I?
unfortunately until medicine like this becomes available for people, one that wont kill fish is just a far off dream. It is exceedingly difficult to treat multiple diseases at the same time in a safe manner, and that is not something that will change anytime soon.
 

Nobbygas

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
89
Reaction score
149
Location
Offenbach nr Frankfurt, Germany
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I created a thread like this not too long ago. But I've thought of something else...

I think we need more research on meds and definitive medications that will work 100%. Ex.. If you have parasites, regardless of the type, this will wipe them out and be safe for all fish.

Better yet, I would love to see a QT medication that does the work of copper, prazipro, and an antibacterial med that is all-in-one. One med that can treat fish safely for EVERYTHING all at once, at the same time. No adding "this" for 4 weeks, then "this" for another week and then "this" for 2 more weeks, all while testing and doing water changes.

One med to treat the most common fish ailments in a single bottle.

I can dream, can't I?
As an aside to this, how about a way of identifying exactly what disease the fish have? I've seen pictures put on the internet, with replies stating it is Ich. Another will say it's Velvet. Others may say it's Brook etc etc. Identifying disease is really very difficult, and until you know what the disease is, it is very difficult to treat. But I do like the thought of a single medication to treat everything :)
 

Forsaken77

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 26, 2016
Messages
1,961
Reaction score
1,223
Location
Long Island, NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
unfortunately until medicine like this becomes available for people, one that wont kill fish is just a far off dream. It is exceedingly difficult to treat multiple diseases at the same time in a safe manner, and that is not something that will change anytime soon.

Humans have a much more complex set of diseases. Fish most commonly either have parasites like ich or velvet, flukes, or a fungal disease.

Maybe not treat EVERY disease for fish, just one that people QT for. The ones that run rampant in the hobby.
 

Forsaken77

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 26, 2016
Messages
1,961
Reaction score
1,223
Location
Long Island, NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
As an aside to this, how about a way of identifying exactly what disease the fish have? I've seen pictures put on the internet, with replies stating it is Ich. Another will say it's Velvet. Others may say it's Brook etc etc. Identifying disease is really very difficult, and until you know what the disease is, it is very difficult to treat. But I do like the thought of a single medication to treat everything :)

Yeah... I mean we are still using meds from 20 years ago. There's barely been any advancement in this area, especially with disease so commonplace nowadays.

The worst part is that these meds are not from pharmaceutical companies that treat animals like dogs, they're from companies that make supplements. So there's some science, but little research progression anymore.
 

PmCarbrey

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 15, 2013
Messages
406
Reaction score
168
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Humans have a much more complex set of diseases. Fish most commonly either have parasites like ich or velvet, flukes, or a fungal disease.

Maybe not treat EVERY disease for fish, just one that people QT for. The ones that run rampant in the hobby.

So at simplest you want a combined antifungal, antibiotic that treats a variety of gram negative bacteria (since the majority of what we deal with in qt is gram negative) and antiparasitic. And all that needs to not interact with eachother, and be easy on animals that are fragile and already experiencing high levels of stress.

Drugs like this unfortunately are a long ways out. That's why methods such as hypo were developed as an alternative. It's easy to find a medicine that does one thing, it's hard to find one that does five.

Better medicines would be a great boon to the hobby, but realistic expectations need to be set.
 

Forsaken77

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 26, 2016
Messages
1,961
Reaction score
1,223
Location
Long Island, NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I would love more captive-bred fish. I have no problem paying double or triple the cost to get a captive-bred fish. Seems like other than clownfish there are very few captive-bred options.

Heck, we need a way to be able to sex the fish better so more breeding can occur.
 

Belgian Anthias

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 31, 2017
Messages
1,480
Reaction score
675
Location
Aarschot Belgium
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My first seawater aquarium was started up in 1974 based on the publications of Frank De Graaf, conservator of Artis aquaria Amsterdam
Frank De Graaf, 1969. Handboek voor het tropisch zeeaquarium, Tweede druk. ed. A.J.G. Strengholt N.V. Amsterdam. His book was published in English in 1973 Graaf, F. de, 1973. Marine Aquarium guide. Pet Library, Harrison, N.J. Long before the bio was interduced in the US. The system later commercialized as the Dutch system was probably based on this publication.

A big bio with compartments containing sand, GAC and oystershell grit, an air driven counter current skimmer and an UV light was used in my first tank. We had no means to test for nitrogen compounds, affordable test kits did not exist. For the rest, not much more is needed today to run a reef aquarium successfully.
 

jackson6745

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 15, 2012
Messages
1,413
Reaction score
1,146
Location
NJ
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The biggest VOID is in lighting. The good LED fixtures are too expensive and must be stacked for proper coverage in stony reefs. There are many reefs that are very under lit IMO. I cringe when I see a 24" cube being lit by one kessil or something to that extent. It wasn't very long ago when we all ran halide, T5, or both (many still do obviously). Current technology is chasing the effects of older technology while trying to be more efficient. I think ecotech nailed it with their current G4 pros, but the cost to light a large future reef is keeping me away. I realize that many of the newer hobbyists may think I'm crazy, but until you turn a tank full of boogers to large colonies in a year under 400w radium, it maybe impossible to see my perspective. Keep in mind I'm not talking about a tank full of seriatopora, Stylo, hydno, or montis (these are weeds).
 

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,952
Reaction score
60,799
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
More choices of live foods that can be cultured at home.
 
Back
Top