I have been going to Seriously fish for many years now. WHen I would exchange emails with Byron we talked about the site and how he as helping update fish profiles. Having already learned to respect Byron's opinions, I knew that SF was probab;ly a good place to go for info on species with which I had little of no familiarity.
I got my 1st PC in 1987. There was not internet for the public back then. There was online for which one used a phone modem and then dialed directly into he computer system of a bank or gaming site etc. To leave a site and go someplace else you basically hung up the phone and dialed up the next site which you wished to visit. I did my taxes using Turbotax when it was a DOS based program before it was bought by Intuit in 1993.
I did not go onto the internet until the end of 1998. I was doing my parents banking and financial stuff because they no longer could. I dialed into Citibank using my modem to bank. And then I got the notice that Citi was moving their online banking to the net. So I got a new PC with WIndows 98 to replace my old Window 3.1 system. So I have been inline for a lot of years,
It is important to explain that I did not set up my first tank until the end of Jan. 2001. But, leading up to that point and since, I have used the net to find information I needed to know about hobby related things. Back then there was not the huge universe of sites and "YouTube was only launched on February 14, 2005." So, information was much different back then.
What there was were a lot of Fish Forums and Chat rooms. But, most of them were not very good. I started on Aquaria Central but very quickly move to a site where there were some real experts. I was very lucky that they put up with my ignorance and were willing to teach me. But, nothing lasts forever and I soon found myself on other sites, including here. But strange thing happend to me along the way in my early years.
I had cycled my first tanks with fish (UGH!). When my livebearers gifted me with tons of fry, I needed a grow tank. I had learned about ammonia and cycling and one day a light went off in my head. I wondered if I could use ammonia instead of fish to cycle. So I went looking for info on. I found some papers (not scientific ones) but close. Back then the idea was to dose so many drops of store bought ammonia per 10 gals of water. One did this daily. So my second tank was done this was. By then I had started having live pkants so I cyled with them in place. Down the road I learned about ammonia NH3 abd Ammonium NH4 and that I could cycle using the latter.
Because I am somewhat of a skeptic I did not trust the forums which all said the same things. I had been a psych major in college where I took a course on Experimental Psychology. This led me to wonder if there was any science behind all the things I was learning and reading about on forums. Then I discovered Google Scholar which led me to the work of Dr. Timothy Hovanec among others.
I am not on social media which is the very last place I would ever go for accurate information. I use Youtube mostly to watch/listen to live concerts from the past. The only fish related YouTube site I visited reglarly was the one that belonged to Rachel O'Leary aka msjinzd. This was because I had met her at one of my early fish weekend events and we became friends. I knew her well enough to know her Youtube channel had reliable information.
During my first few years of keeping fish and being online I realized that finding the best sites for information was critical to my knowing I was getting good information. I also was ramping my way up to 20+ tanks, so I was buying a lot of equipment. There was a time when, for many specific tank hardware supplies, I could tell you who sold them and even more importantly, who had the lowest price on them at that time. Those days are gone.
What I also did do was to compile bookmarks for 100s of scientific papers as well as for those sites where I knew I could trust the information. Over the years some of these have changed, but,at the time I found them, the info was usually A+. O also managed to meet online or at weekend events some of the major names in the hobby. I did not hesitate to ask them a lot of Qs whan I had the chance.
The reason. I like to read the research papers is because they involved scientist who have spent years learning and practicing. This does not guarantee what they conclude is always 100% accurate or even when it is, that what is leaned down the road won't cause what was "known" to change. But, all we have is the information available today.
So I will continue to trust the science over most sites and Youtube channels. I will trust the information that comes from PlanetCatfish, Corydorasworld etc. over any general fish site,
And on sites like here I know the names I can trust for the most part. All of us get it wrong sometimes especially if it is on things less close to what interests us the most. I kept a few discus for a couple of years almost 15 years ago, I am not even close to well informed about these fish. I am not a catfish expert or even a pleco expert. But, I do know a ton about the B&W p;lecos from the Big Bend of the Rio Xingu. I laso have accumulated a fair amount of knowledge about cycling and the nitrifying organisms in our FW tanks.
I am thankful most for bookmarks than almost anything else created by the digital age. Here is a quick experiment you can try.
Most informed fish keepers know that Ian Fuller and his Corydorasworld.com site are one of the best sources for information about corydoaras available to us. So, head on over to Google Search and enter "Information about corydoras" and see what you get back. For me Ian's Site appeared on the lower portion of page 4. But it did not include his name.
When I searched for "corydoras experts", Ian's site is the first link I saw. So I guess Google thinks his site's information is not the best for corys but that he is the best expert on them? Maybe it is the AI? Maybe it is what potentially makes Google the most money?
I ran the same experiement on Duck DUck Go which I use and they were worse than Google in terms of seeing anything Ina related.
What I do know is we have to work hard to find the best information. It is almost never in the first thing Google or alternatives might show us.
