Would It Be Possible To Have A Section Dedicated To Marine Fish Emerge

[OohFeeshy]

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Firstly we already have 5 marine subforums, and 4 is less than 5, so it wouldn't be adding another one even if I had said another forum rather than a sub-forum. The livebearer forum, for example, is divided into two so if you've got a common livebearer or a rare one, you know exactly where to go and there's no confusion. Similarly is Chit Chat was divided into 'Nano reef chit chat' and 'other marine chit chat' (or some other better name), if you've got a nano tank you go to the nano bit and if you've not got a nano tank you don't.

Personally I would *prefer* it as the 4 nmonks mentioned plus nano reefs, keeping it at 5 subforums and as what I said on the last page (and where you will notice that you quoted my entire post, only to write under it exactly what I had already said minus the capital letters).

 

[Truck]

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Firstly we already have 5 marine subforums, and 4 is less than 5, so it wouldn't be adding another one even if I had said another forum rather than a sub-forum. The livebearer forum, for example, is divided into two so if you've got a common livebearer or a rare one, you know exactly where to go and there's no confusion. Similarly is Chit Chat was divided into 'Nano reef chit chat' and 'other marine chit chat' (or some other better name), if you've got a nano tank you go to the nano bit and if you've not got a nano tank you don't.

yeah but below that there is marine aquarium journals

 

[OohFeeshy]

Yes. But the way this has gone it's now turned into a complete overhaul of the entire SW section.

 

[nmonks]

This seems true superficially, but in reality I think it's a pointless distinction.

The only thing "special" about a nano tank is that it's small, so you have to choose livestock and adopt a maintenance regime that reflects that. Otherwise it's no different to any other marine aquarium. If someone is looking for info about treating marine whitespot, or breeding clownfish, or providing enough light for button polyps, does it matter if they're keeping a nano tank or a regular tank? I think not.

As for the livebearer sub-forum, it serves a very specific purpose. The people who keep "rare" livebearers generally do not keep the "big four" (guppies, mollies, platies and swordtails). There are good and bad sides to this. On the plus side, putting the "rare" livebearer messages in their own sub-forum ensures they don't get swamped by the hundreds of times more common (and commonly replied to) messages about the "big four". Before, if someone posted something about goodeids or halfbeaks, those messages were lost.

The downside is serious though. The expert fishkeepers who keep the "rare" livebearers don't bother to read the messages in the common livebearers sub-forum. A whole body of expertise is lost to that sub-forum, and so you end up with (to some extent) less expert fishkeepers advising one another. Certainly, I hardly ever look at the common livebearer sub-forum.

Splitting forums sounds good, but you have to be extremely careful that you don't end up dividing the site visitors into smaller and smaller groups, such that they end up ignoring one another.

Cheers, Neale

if you've got a nano tank you go to the nano bit and if you've not got a nano tank you don't.