Here's the thing

[PheonixKingZ]

There has been a modern revolution in fish keeping going on for around 50 years. ( Of which I have been apart of for 45 of them ).
Fish keeping has now been taken over by big business. You are encouraged to buy all sorts of things to improve your ability to keep fish alive and to grow plants. I have been watching this revolution take place.

New ideas come forward all the time which is a good thing. But all of these involve spending more money. You never or very rarely see a new idea that will mean you will spend less at the LFS.

We now vacuum tanks, change more water, add fertilizers for plants, use RO water in tanks, forget about pH concentrate on hardness, buy expensive test kits, get larger tanks with fewer fish, change our substrate for sand and the list goes on.

What I would ask everyone of you to do before you go and spend the next $50 at the LFS is to go to your second hand book store or online and buy a few old Aquarium Handbooks with that $50 and read them.

Then have a look at what you are doing. Fish keeping has been around along time and is very simple if you just follow some basic rules.

The issue is, is that all that information is outdated and is no longer used in the hobby.

I get that back then aquarists just used the trial and error method, but that’s a bad method to live by.

buy expensive test kits

As far as this goes, we buy “expensive” test kits so that our fish can live the healthiest possible life, and so that we don’t have any pH imbalances.

I’m not sure what test kits you’re buying, but most liquid color-match kits only cost around $15 each. (Or if you get the API kit, it’s around $30. However, the API is very inaccurate compared to other brands, such a Salifert)

The real expensive test kits come into play in reefing. In order to get ultra accurate results (which is what you need in a reef tank) you will have to spend $50 per test for a digital reader that will give you the accuracy that you need.

Fish keeping has now been taken over by big business. You are encouraged to buy all sorts of things to improve your ability to keep fish alive and to grow plants. I have been watching this revolution take place.

This is because you simply can’t buy the absolute minimum and expect it to work out! You get what you pay for, in the sense of equipment. If you buy a cheap and used tank off of Craigslist, you can’t expect it to be top notch quality and hold water forever. You can expect it to leak or shatter because of how used/old it is.

Same thing goes for equipment. If you buy a cheap heater (or buy a cheap used heater) you can’t expect the same amount of performance as compared to a $50 or $100 heater. Is the other more expensive? You bet it is. Will it last you longer and give you better results? Yes.

So my point is asking the members of this forum to go back and reevaluate what they are doing. Have a look at what was being done 40 years ago and compare it to today. Just make sure you are making the right decisions.

The “right decision” is based on research that has been done over the past 5-10 years. We can’t trust all that information all the way back in the 70’s-80’s, because they simply didn’t know what we knew now. Nitrogen cycle? They had never heard of it. LED lights? Nope. Digital water testers? A dream.

You did say "buying a chemistry lab full of stuff". Why?. And that you miss the simpler times. Why?.

You sometimes need medication. Sure, it might be expensive, but it can help your fish. You can expect everything to be solved from “easing the temperature of the water for 10 days” or “adding salt”. Those are the ways of the past, and need to be forgotten about.

——

And what’s your opinion on food? Should we just go back to the primitive days where we only feed live food, or we feed unhealthy bulk order flakes?

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

The issue is, is that all that information is outdated and is no longer used in the hobby.

Not all of it...not by a long shot.

I get that back then aquarists just used the trial and error method, but that’s a bad method to live by.

No argument here...and no argument by a lot of the aquarists back then.

As far as this goes, we buy “expensive” test kits so that our fish can live the healthiest possible life, and so that we don’t have any pH imbalances.

I'll agree that there are quality and affordable test kits available today.
Unfortunately, buying them does not mean that the fish will be saved. There are too many instances of that on this forum and if buyers were at least aware of the basics, things would be so much better for the fish.

The “right decision” is based on research that has been done over the past 5-10 years. We can’t trust all that information all the way back in the 70’s-80’s, because they simply didn’t know what we knew now. Nitrogen cycle? They had never heard of it.

Excuse me, but I was there and some of us did know all about the Nitrogen Cycle and applied it. Undergravel Filters were a 'thing' because of it, along with the 'new' plant-centric fishkeeping. Whilst much of the knowledge has been superseded, the basics remain and it would be disingenuous to dismiss it all, unless the wheel really was invented in 1995.

LED lights? Nope. Digital water testers? A dream.

I came across my first LED lights in '96.
I'd been using digital testers in a lab, way back in '82. They were available to the masses, but way too expensive. Said masses were yet to appreciate the Nitrogen Cycle and the importance of testing, so the demand wasn't yet there.
That said, the Aquarist Group to which I belonged had access to some serious lab equipment and we shared stuff around.

You sometimes need medication. Sure, it might be expensive, but it can help your fish. You can expect everything to be solved from “easing the temperature of the water for 10 days” or “adding salt”. Those are the ways of the past, and need to be forgotten about.

Yes...sometimes we need medication and the medication now on offer today is a great improvement on that of old.
When re-joining the hobby, I was surprised by just how much less meds and treatments there were on the shelves.
The med-free and 'old' ideas of temperature and salt remain valid and it is good to see that the hobby in general appears to embrace these as treatments, as opposed to chemicals.
That such methods should be 'forgotten about' is limiting and I don't think anyone would argue against the benefits of the simple water change.
Changing the water is as old as the Imperial Chinese and even today, the benefits are widely acknowledged. Whilst water was changed back in the 80s, there was much more emphasis on the clever new chemicals and medicines and the importance of the water change was not heralded as much as it is today.
That said, many aquarists from the 60s may well recognise what some of us now perceive to be innovative.

 

[Myraan]

I'm going to annoy you by saying.
The "Water is Key" statement which I think is 100% correct. Why then do we still tell members, that even though we know a fish likes acid water to not worry about it living in an Alkaline tank. 40 years ago that attitude would have been frowned upon in most Aquarium Societies.

Mostly agree with everything you say, but wasn't pH a proxy for hardness? Though I realise that is kind of the point you are making.

Spending money on things you don't need for fishkeeping stuff you don't need is sort of like buying clothes you might never wear. It's part of the fun of the hobby. The challenge is restricting it to things that either improve the fishes welfare or have no effect either way. Unnecessary use of resources is of course unethical, but that problem is not related to fishkeeping part of lives, unless you want to consider the whole hobby unethical for various reasons.

I think it all depends on the fish-keeper. If you enjoy the science aspect of "keeping water" then expensive tests are part of the fun. If you do not, liquid tests are a necessary evil if and when things go wrong.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I'll agree that there are quality and affordable test kits available today.
Unfortunately, buying them does not mean that the fish will be saved. There are too many instances of that on this forum and if buyers were at least aware of the basics, things would be so much better for the fish.

Even an experienced aquarists with 20+ years under his belt still needs quality test kits. I don’t care how much experience you have, or how long you have been keeping fish, you still need to frequent test your water.

Excuse me, but I was there and some of us did know all about the Nitrogen Cycle and applied it. Undergravel Filters were a 'thing' because of it, along with the 'new' plant-centric fishkeeping. Whilst much of the knowledge has been superseded, the basics remain and it would be disingenuous to dismiss it all,

Correction to my post: Not many people knew about it, and it was not a wide spread practice.

I came across my first LED lights in '96.
I'd been using digital testers in a lab, way back in '82. They were available to the masses, but way too expensive. Said masses were yet to appreciate the Nitrogen Cycle and the importance of testing, so the demand wasn't yet there.
That said, the Aquarist Group to which I belonged had access to some serious lab equipment and we shared stuff around.

This may be true, but it wasn’t common. Giant light structures with long bulbs were the common practice.

So telling experienced and novice aquarists to buy a $50 book that will tell them to get a giant and outdated light structure is idiotic.

LED’s are what everyone uses and what works best. Many often have Bluetooth which makes it extremely easy to adjust and track your PAR.

The med-free and 'old' ideas of temperature and salt remain valid and it is good to see that the hobby in general appears to embrace these as treatments, as opposed to chemicals.

It might still be “valid”, but it’s sometimes more complicated than medication. People on here sometimes don’t explain the whole process, which can lead to confusion. It’s a lot easier for a novice aquarist to read the instructions on the bottle, as opposed to reading someone's incorrect text.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Even an experienced aquarists with 20+ years under his belt still needs quality test kits. I don’t care how much experience you have, or how long you have been keeping fish, you still need to frequent test your water.

Yeah..... I agree.... but... Once I have a (freshwater) tank that is established and healthy I don't ever test the water.

If everything is kept the same and stable then there isn't a lot of point. In theory it might pick up a problem before it becomes a problem. In reality though if you are testing once a week you will most likely notice a problem with your fish, or algae or similar before the test is done anyway.

Most my freshwater tanks are heavily planted and over filtered anyway though so once they are a few months old there is never normally any problems with them. Testing the water on a tank that has been running trouble free for 3 years seems a little pointless.

On a reef tank though I tested everything I could at least once a week. If I was making any kind of changes that might effect water chemistry, ie phosphate removal, then I would be testing daily.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Even an experienced aquarists with 20+ years under his belt still needs quality test kits. I don’t care how much experience you have, or how long you have been keeping fish, you still need to frequent test your water.

I never suggested otherwise, anywhere, ever.

Correction to my post: Not many people knew about it, and it was not a wide spread practice.

I suppose it depends where you where at the time.

So telling experienced and novice aquarists to buy a $50 book that will tell them to get a giant and outdated light structure is idiotic.

It would be idiotic and I've never seen anyone do that.

LED’s are what everyone uses and what works best. Many often have Bluetooth which makes it extremely easy to adjust and track your PAR.

No, they're not what everyone uses.
It may also surprise you to learn that not everyone uses a smartphone, or even a computer.

It might still be “valid”, but it’s sometimes more complicated than medication. People on here sometimes don’t explain the whole process, which can lead to confusion. It’s a lot easier for a novice aquarist to read the instructions on the bottle, as opposed to reading someone's incorrect text.

I'd suggest that there's loads of instances reported in this very Forum that strongly suggest people simply can't read basic instructions. I struggle to see how turning the temperature up a degree a day, until you reach a suggested temperature, can be more complicated than calculating the actual volume of a tank and then performing the math necessary to administer the correct dosages of a medicine.

 

[ClownLurch]

To sum up: fish are loss leaders for the real money making that follows.

 

[itiwhetu]

The issue is, is that all that information is outdated and is no longer used in the hobby.

I get that back then aquarists just used the trial and error method, but that’s a bad method to live by.



As far as this goes, we buy “expensive” test kits so that our fish can live the healthiest possible life, and so that we don’t have any pH imbalances.

I’m not sure what test kits you’re buying, but most liquid color-match kits only cost around $15 each. (Or if you get the API kit, it’s around $30. However, the API is very inaccurate compared to other brands, such a Salifert)

The real expensive test kits come into play in reefing. In order to get ultra accurate results (which is what you need in a reef tank) you will have to spend $50 per test for a digital reader that will give you the accuracy that you need.



This is because you simply can’t buy the absolute minimum and expect it to work out! You get what you pay for, in the sense of equipment. If you buy a cheap and used tank off of Craigslist, you can’t expect it to be top notch quality and hold water forever. You can expect it to leak or shatter because of how used/old it is.

Same thing goes for equipment. If you buy a cheap heater (or buy a cheap used heater) you can’t expect the same amount of performance as compared to a $50 or $100 heater. Is the other more expensive? You bet it is. Will it last you longer and give you better results? Yes.



The “right decision” is based on research that has been done over the past 5-10 years. We can’t trust all that information all the way back in the 70’s-80’s, because they simply didn’t know what we knew now. Nitrogen cycle? They had never heard of it. LED lights? Nope. Digital water testers? A dream.



You sometimes need medication. Sure, it might be expensive, but it can help your fish. You can expect everything to be solved from “easing the temperature of the water for 10 days” or “adding salt”. Those are the ways of the past, and need to be forgotten about.

——

And what’s your opinion on food? Should we just go back to the primitive days where we only feed live food, or we feed unhealthy bulk order flakes?

Just to highlight some of your points.
I was taught how to keep fish by the Professor of Zoology at the local University in the 70;s we understood the nitrogen cycle and applied it
Saying that all the information from back then is outdated and needs to be forgotten is saying that I'm outdated and need to be forgotten.
Testing you say you need to test. What are you testing for and what do you do with the results. If you only testing to tell you that you need to water change your tank observation tells you that.
Bulk food is bulk food for a reason, Breeders use it and rely on it. I am still using the same brand of bulk food I was using 40 years ago and wouldn't change it.

 

[itiwhetu]

Test kits.
Ask yourself what are you testing for and what do you do with the results daily.
I would argue most aquarists have no idea how to fix the results of a test other than do a water change and hope the test result changes once it is completed.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

This thread is starting to look like another bait thread.

 

[itiwhetu]

This thread is starting to look like another bait thread.
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I don't understand what you mean by this post

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Wel, it might destroy my credibility as a grouchy old man, but I think we are living in a golden age of aquarium keeping, because there is so much good information available. That was not the case 50 years ago. You said you were educated in fishkeeping by a zoology professor. Do you think all of us had that advantage? Not 50 years ago. But now, we do. I can read the writings of any number of scientists on just about any topic I want to know about. These days, anyone who wants to keep fish responsibly can learn how to do so. If they choose not to educate themselves, that's their problem. That was not the case 40 or 50 years ago.

Sure, there's a ton of unnecessary junk on the market. There are a lot of irresponsible breeders and false experts. But that's nothing new; we had all those things back in the 70s and 80s, too. No one is forcing you to spend money on unnecessary junk.

 

[Myraan]

Test kits.
Ask yourself what are you testing for and what do you do with the results daily.
I would argue most aquarists have no idea how to fix the results of a test other than do a water change and hope the test result changes once it is completed.

For me, testing is part of the fun

But I totally get you. It's fairly obvious the reason most manufacturers sell test kits is to convince you to buy pH potions and magical nitrate removers that don't do anything.

 

[coriesinhawaii]

I agree that temperature and salt are useful but don’t forget that they are limited in what they can be used to treat though. Temperature elevation only serves to worsen most bacterial infections and salt will do nothing to help an internal infection and only puts additional stress on some fish.

 

[itiwhetu]

Wel, it might destroy my credibility as a grouchy old man, but I think we are living in a golden age of aquarium keeping, because there is so much good information available. That was not the case 50 years ago. You said you were educated in fishkeeping by a zoology professor. Do you think all of us had that advantage? Not 50 years ago. But now, we do. I can read the writings of any number of scientists on just about any topic I want to know about. These days, anyone who wants to keep fish responsibly can learn how to do so. If they choose not to educate themselves, that's their problem. That was not the case 40 or 50 years ago.

Sure, there's a ton of unnecessary junk on the market. There are a lot of irresponsible breeders and false experts. But that's nothing new; we had all those things back in the 70s and 80s, too. No one is forcing you to spend money on unnecessary junk.

A part from my story. What we had were active Aquarium Societies that people contributed to. We also had Libraries of books. The problem with the internet is that you learn only very selected pieces of information. In a book you are exposed to the whole picture.
The big shift is that:

We used to think that we new a little more than some and a lot less than most. Now people think they know a lot more than most and a little less than some.

Any body can google search and become a so called expert in a flash, and if questioned just do another google search.