I am lucky to be born in the age of internet instead of the lack of fishkeeping information age.
Tbh, I'm lucky to been born in the non internet age... In that time period, a lot of good information was at hand but we needed books and papers. Internet is very practical but I do have to say that because of the easiness of the internet, a lot of misinformation has been copied all over and people just use that information as being good. But when I mentioned books, I meant the older books and not the commercial books we have nowadays. For a lot of information on the internet came from copies of commercial books.
I'm keeping myself already busy for 5 decades of fish keeping (my first own tank was in 1973). My parents started off in the 1960's. So, I grew up with it. I never worked as a profession in fish stores. But I do have to say that I have volunteered at two stores. One in Canada and one overhere in Holland. I did maintenance and sales (buying & selling). I've been to endemic areas on this globe to observe fish in their natural habitats. I'm participating relevant vivaristic events in Holland, Germany and Belgium. That can be shows and fairs where I offer my own bred rare livebearers. And at shows I do judge internationally. But I only judge livebearers (both wild and breeding forms). I write relevant articles for some relevant livebearer magazines Holland, Germany and France). I'm a board member at Poecilia Netherlands (the national society of livebearers) and I'm leading the national guppy working group in our country. And I do set up my own lines of guppy strains as well. That's a very time consuming hobby to get a new guppy line breed true before we may call it a strain. For there are people who think that with one cross, they have already a new strain. Which is not correct, of course. It takes more to get the job done.
I've learned a lot from my parents, old aquarium books and locals from areas I went to on this globe. And I do have contacts with the science world within the field of aquatics. That's a better way to learn than from only books. Btw, with my science friends, it's a bidirectional relationship. So, I can learn from them and they can learn from me. And it's pretty common that scientist (whatever field that might be) contact non-scientists to help eachother out. For there are a lot of scientific
Although, I've kept several kinds of coldwater, tropical and subtropical fish, my main focus has always been livebearers. And not just the known commercial varieties but also the rare ones.
I also deviate from many rules that many people take for granted regarding aquariums and fish. For I work from experience and what I've learned from nature and locals (at global areas where those fish occur in nature). That's why that from time to time, people at forums will contradict me. Which is okay, btw. But if one would only work with copied texts from commercial books (which has been copied millions of times on the internet), than there's still a lack of knowledge left. Not all needs of fish are well documented in commercial books.
