Need Better Help??

[J21kickster]

At saltwaterfish.com they have a message board like this one except it has several thousand members and a good group of experts to help. I've already read so much b/s on this board, if you need good reliable help check it out.

[Crakeur]

the title of your post should be "please flame the crap outta me."

 

While there will always be poor advice from so-called experts (check out the lfs post in the lounge), nobody here claims to be anything more than a hobbyist and the advice given here (and in all boards) should always be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Nobody here claims to know everything and even those that are viewed as experts will post questions of their own from time to time.

 

If you are sick of getting "poor" advice from the members of this board, ask for help elsewhere. No law saying you can't seek help from more than one source.

[J21kickster]

Yes you have a point about scepticizm, but when a newbie asks what to do about a problem in thier tank wthe mostly assume the info they are getting is fact. Now sometimes that info can be good but when its wrong it just creates more and more problems.

[Crakeur]

Agreed that bad advice can, and often will, exacerbate the problem however, I am a firm believer that you can only learn so much from the advice of others. I started keeping fish and then reefs several years ago and made many (many many many) mistakes before finding success. ( note to self, keep triggers out of reefs, angels love sponges, moray eels can, and will, eat smaller fish etc.) I have found that when someone posts an answer to a question on these boards, if the answer is a good one, others will either agree or not respond. When someone posts something that is viewed as a wrong answer, others quickly post their own responses. Sometimes, varying opinions allow for those of us that have faith in the posters to make our own conclusions based on ALL the information given. I doubt you will find one person on these boards that will profess to being an expert with the definitive answer.

 

Again, I stress that the best way to learn is from getting as many opinions as you can and formulating your own solution to the problem.

 

This is a hobby that has evolved rapidly in recent years and opinions are still evolving and things that the experts have deemed fact have since been re-evaluated. Many of the things that were supposed to work for me in the past, would be laughed at now. Several years ago it was thought to be impossible to house a reef with sps corals in a tank as small as 2.5 gallons but they exist.

 

I think that posting that there is better info at other sites is unneccsary. There is always another opinion (they're like #######s yada yada) and there is always more to learn. Instead of putting down the posters here, you would be better off pointing out that there are other sites that offer great advice.

 

No need to hurt the feelings of our fragile community.

[Metznreef]

i base accuity of opinions and advice on experience. someone does not nessesarily have to be an expert to have there advice respected. there are many members on this board who have years more experience than me and therefor i do not just take their advice with a grain of salt, but annalyze it and then try to carry it out to the best of my abbility. and what do you know, it works!

[tyoberg]

I see BS at every board. Plus, there's not a lot of hard facts in this hobby--there's seldom one right answer.

 

Ty

[Sahin]

I agree with tyoberg.

This is a nice little board. There is one thing that sorts this board out from MOST of the other--the lack of a need for mods. Thats one thing I REALLY like about this board.

 

I am a member of MANY saltwater board, including a UK based site (I live in the UK), but for some reason I still end up here all the time.

 

There are many knowledgable people here too--perhaps not in the numbers as in other boards. --Just have a look at some of thier tanks.

 

Reefcentral has got over 14,000 members and many of its members are top of the ranks in reefkeeping, if I wanted to go to another site, I'd go there. I may even go to saltwaterfish--who knows--but this place is fine, I would have never got my reef tank to the stage it is without the help of the members here--at least a few of this sites members must have given me the right advice or else my tank would still be crap as it looked before, and not what it is today.

 

Remember too that this board is still very young--its members are also mainly new to this fairly new concept of reefkeeping. I am sure when this board reaches the size of other large boards it will have more knowledgable members--who's understanding will also evolve with time and generally as the nanoreef reef concept ages.

 

I dont mind the suggestion of another reef board--thats fine, but the criticism and putdown of the community here is totally unnecessary.

 

Instead of doing the above, how about actually participating in this board and help the advancement of understanding.