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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Water Change


Charith1986

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That’s a great bit of kit to measure your salinity.

 

You can pick up test kits fairly cheaply.  You will need Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate kits as a minimum and should test regularly.  Also PH, KH and calcium, but I would urge you to test your water ASAP.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hopefully waking this thread back up is a good thing.  🙂 

 

On 9/19/2019 at 3:32 AM, xM3THODx said:

ya, it's a hobby...let's keep it light hearted and fun! 

I mostly agree, especially about the fun part.  Please share your thoughts on any of this, whether you agree or not, as I think it's a conversation worth having!  🙂 

 

@Charith1986Don't take any of this personally, going off-topic from you and your tank somewhat on this tangent that is speaking more about the hobby than any individual, but I hope it's "worth it" or interesting to your thread!  🙂 

 

....

 

The thing is, our hobby isn't something light-hearted like stamp-collecting, watching Friends re-runs or being a brony. 🦄 (What?!)

 

We're creating whole ecosystems as well as keeping (and breeding) animals!   

 

In doing so, there are aspects of physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, nutrition and husbandry (just to name a few of the disciplines) all mixed up in what we do. 

 

It's fun as all-get-out, but it's not really very suited to a light-hearted approach.  ( ⬅️Or that thread just linked wouldn't be to almost 400 pages now.  Holy moly!!  I'm shocked and it's my thread.)  

 

Folks here on nano reef to their credit don't ever seem to get upset or rude over these things. 

 

And newbs only rarely chaffe at being set straight.  99% of the time a person will be thankful when you tell them there's egg on their face.  

 

But folks here are right as rain IMO to have feelings about what we do being done properly and with respect for the reef and the animals we place in our tanks. 

 

I think newbs should be exposed to that kind of passion by folks with more experience so they know what's normal and healthy.

 

The "light-hearted thing" is pretty much pegging the meter all the time anyway -- it's not something folks generally seem to need encouragement on.

 

On the contrary, I wish lots of us would take this hobby lots more seriously when we decide to get involved and (for example) read a dang book or ten (or even some magazines) before they get started

 

There are some GREAT books out there specifically for beginners after all!

 

Most libraries have something on reefing or keeping aquariums generally. 

 

Used books are sooooo cheap. 

 

Just for a start, look for these author last names and pick anything they've written (beginner book or not) to start with...anything you can find: 

  • Moe
  • Straughan
  • Tullock
  • Borneman
  • Fenner
  • Delbeek & Sprung
  • Fossa and Nilsen
  • Baensch and Debelius
  • Riddle
  • I know I've left off some....

On the contrary it seems like the thing to do when learning to start a tank "these days" is to waste 100% of the available learning time on Facebook, youtube and who knows what other informational backwater rather than reading a book or asking questions at the LFS.  (Or even dialoging on a forum!)

 

Learning how to start a tank from TOTM threads is only slightly better since you don't get much more into your head from most of those write-ups than unreal-looking photos of an unrealistically spic-and-span tank and an equipment list.  Not always good examples to follow.  Often very trendy, especially in the direction of so-called "zero nutrient" propaganda. 

 

And rarely are the good examples one CAN find in TOTM threads well-enough explained so that a newb could fully understand how to emulate them (or why they'd want to) anyway. 

 

A newbie is as likely to come down with FOMO from the unreal photo (and photoshop) skills that are always on display in those threads, as they are to learn anything particularly useful about starting a tank IMO.

 

As a result, IMO, we have what seems like half-baked TOTM emulations (400 pages worth?) where brand new tanks are getting set up with carbon dosing, activated carbon, GFO, macro algae refugiums, extra detritration media, etc, all at the very beginning just because newbies see "successful" TOTM tanks doing those things.  What could go wrong with all those things working for you, eh?  Mm-hm.

 

Learning this stuff online is the hard way especially if you don't have at least some background to use for judging what you read online. 

 

No book, even with it's finite, dated information, would steer a newbie down the absolutely crazy paths that newbies sometimes get steered down while following the typical online sources, whatever they are. 

 

So if someone gets driven away from nano reef over an attempt at being straightened out by someone's polite but impassioned words here, then to me it seems they were probably a bit too light-hearted in the first place.  And that's okay!  They are many GREAT hobbies, including other EXCELLENT aspects of the aquarium hobby, that are far more suited to a light-hearted approach than what we do.

 

What would really be rude is to let a newb post "egg on their face" and just be left walking around like that.  "Oh your new Flab Blabby Rubarb "named coral" looks so nice" while the tank declines due to "egg on the face" lack of fundamentals.  What's so "social" about that?

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