Learn or get left behind! Is that a fair statement?

[vetteguy53081]

1. How important is consistently reading and learning to you becoming the best aquarium keeper you can be?
With new and ever changing innovation, each manufacturer has an intent for improvement whether it be diet, lighting or chemistry and we need to be and remain to be educated on new finding with PAR, nutrition and water chemistry


2. Have you learned anything new recently? If so what was it? SHARE!

The functionality and purpose of calcium reactors and importance of dialing in and monitoring for Ph.

 

[Greg P]

Learn or get left behind! Is that a fair statement?


1. How important is consistently reading and learning to you becoming the best aquarium keeper you can be?

2. Have you learned anything new recently? If so what was it? SHARE!

R2R is a very important part of my Reefing experience. I joined about 6 years after I started and should have joined much sooner !!

#1 Constantly reading/filtering info is very important to me
#2 Too many things come to mind. A couple are;
Furthering my understanding of the balance in my mixed reef between fish, corals, bacteria and N+P
Dealing with the harder to treat diseases/parasites and the new treatments/testing

 

[damselindistress]

Fair is where they judge livestock.

I used to tell my staff that fair was the place you go to eat cotton candy and step in pony...poop. lol.

 

[ca1ore]

Various studies have shown that if you ask people to rate themselves on a skill that they use often about 85% will rate themselves in the top 5%.

LOL, too true. Part of my job is using surveys .... alway need a peer rating question so you can normalize the responses. Otherwise the data is garbage.

For most people, if answering the question literally, the answers would be 10% or less. For the really knowledgeable and experienced, 25% or less. That’s the one I picked LOL.

 

[ca1ore]

1. How important is consistently reading and learning to you becoming the best aquarium keeper you can be?
Not just important, but where’s the fun in knowing everything ..... even if it were possible.

2. Have you learned anything new recently? If so what was it? SHARE!

Been in the hobby over 30 years and had never run a sulfur reactor until last year.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Need a Hanna low range option on the poll 0.01-0.05%

 

[MaugieDawgieCorals]

I learn new things everyday. I never stop. I get books on subjects that interest me and read them from cover to cover. Marine fish keeping was something I started studying back in 1989. Still have one coral book from back then. still trying to find a good coral book.

Book of coral propagation by Anthony calfo will blow your mind!!!

 

[Shawn_epicurious]

What have I learned today? Hmmmmm... hopefully more than just something this is a hobby : )

What have I learned about becoming a better aquarist today? Unfair question for me lol... I’ve been away from this hobby for too long. I’m reading a LOT.... especially since I found this websit! ....I own a thimble full of wisdom..... a need gallons : )

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

This hobby has only been able to incorporate a small percentage of corals that exist in the ocean. Until there are no more "impossible to keep" corals, the hobby itself is barely understood. I guesstimate that all of mankind understands less than 10% of all known corals. I know enough to keep about 5 types of corals, so I would guesstimate my knowledge to be somewhere less than 1% of what will be known in the next 100 years.

 

[DEWreefing]

I taught myself how never to do a water change and thrive for the last 2 years and lighting is very important black boxes dont cut it. HYDRA 64 HD's (4) bought in december 2019.

 

[Pny]

I believe there is a large void that nobody knows in the hobby. Bacteria, fish breeding and coral needs beyond Alk/Ca/Mg/Trace (such as amino acids) being a few examples there the collective knowledge could be much higher.

 

[ScottR]

Last week I got knocked off my high horse after making a pretty definitive statement that corals don't move. Except the post was asking about a plate coral, and as it turns out - plate corals move! Who knew?

There's wisdom in knowing that you don't know things. It's a mantra that my scuba instructors drilled into us, and the reason why we stick to depths, water conditions and activities underwater that we're certified for, because 60' down what you don't know could kill you.

I said 25%.

Funny thing is, I thought this. I’ve had xenia move off of plugs and attach themselves to rock on their stalks. Almost like they were going vine to vine like a monkey. Mushrooms can do this as well. Plate corals can fill up with water and move. Very odd. You don’t hear people talk about this much but when you see it happen in your tank, you scratch your head at first.

 

[Lorenzo Angotti]

Hi all, I voted 75% but perhaps thats probably too high according to the poll votes I’ve seen, you hope you are doing the best you can in keeping a reef tank or similar, not only fish or corals are demanding there’s all the equipment lights, pumps ,heaters etc. You can’t not never test your water parameters clean equipment and do your water changes, the lives of your fish and coral are in your hands you are constantly learning doing things better all the time and it’s web sites like R2R that is a tremendous help to all in this hobby, some people would say it sounds like hard work why bother but it’s the wow reaction you get when family and friends see your reef tank and that’s worth the time you spend looking after your pride possession.

 

[DarthSimon]

Been reefing for almost 17 years now. Patience is the single best virtue I could bestow on someone new to our hobby.

I can remember back so many times to mistakes I made, live stock deaths, algae outbreaks, bacterial blooms, you name it, I did it!! If I would have taken my time could have avoided big errors.

To @revtree point or question; we are all learning. Nobody can know 100% of the hobby.
I honestly think that’s why we are all hear on R2R....
Something I learned recently....
Just in my experience, Euphyllia don’t like phosphates over .15 range. They start to look unhappy and loose poly extension.

 

[StatelineReefer]

As much as I know about the hobby, I still place myself in the 25% range... I'm constantly learning or developing new ways to improve stability, water quality, photic quality, flow, nutrition...

I eat up everything I can from Dana Riddle's mind.

 

[DarthSimon]

We've got lots of problems left to solve... IHMO, the most important currently is the state of our import businesses. I DO NOT ACCEPT that it's OK to get sick animals from a vendor. Saying we need to quarantine everything is a cop out. Why should we accept that sick animals are normal, and that it's our responsibility to nurse them back to health? NO. I won't do it... and if that means that I pay double, or triple, f

This may be a topic for another thread but I totally agree. My LFS tells me in plain English, suggests you qt any fish from store, or risk disease. I mean what are you saying to me? This fish will die if you don’t qt?? Or I can’t guarantee an ich or velvet out break if you buy this fish??! I would pay more for a fully qt fish to save time and the aggravation.

 

[tamanning]

Learn or get left behind! Is that a fair statement?

IMO if you're not learning well......you're getting left behind. In this hobby there is so much to know and so much to learn. We can get into keeping aquariums with a basic knowledge that will help us be successful with a basic tank set up but if you ever want to be one of the best at maintaining a reef aquarium, growing corals, keeping expert fish etc. you must read, you must try, you must fail, you must learn!

What have you learned over the years? What did you learn last year? What did you learn yesterday? If you're content with what you have and the level of hobbyist you are then stop learning. But if you want more, if you want to be the best then LEARN!

So let's roll with this topic today. I would like to get your feedback on what I just said by answering the following questions.

1. How important is consistently reading and learning to you becoming the best aquarium keeper you can be?

2. Have you learned anything new recently? If so what was it? SHARE!

Hello I'm new here but I believe you stop learning when you die. How does the song go? And if I claim to be a wise man it surely means that I don't know!

 

[LadAShark]

Kind of funny that there is nothing between 75% and 100% when that is potentially magnitudes of difference.
I’d say I’m somewhere between 75% and 100%, probably in the 80s to maybe low 90s depending on how you really represent the percentages. I have a background in biochemistry and bioengineering so I’ve read many a paper on corals, but it’s really hard to actually quantify how much you know.

Knowing what it takes to have a successful reef? Does lots of experience count or does lack of ot disqualify you? It’s hard to quantify especially since even the more marine biologists and environmental scientists could easily argue that we can round down what we know to basically 0. But do we know enough to act on it? Yes, plenty.

Understanding the number of fringe cases or very specific cases that could occur is difficult. Keeping a reef tank successfully? Relatively easy compared to really having a solid grasp on everything.
I have a fairly solid understanding of reef chemistry and ecology but considering it’s a continuously evolving system with an incredible number of combinations of possibilities naturally let alone with conditions created by intermixing species that would never meet in the wild.

I digress, the amount one knows is unquantifiable. If you judge it based on your capability to run a successful reef and deal with issues while perhaps knowing the ins and outs of the science behind it, you could argue you’re close to 100%, but if you were to be brutally honest with yourself and point out that while actionable, what everyone knows combined is dwarfed by the knowledge that is unknowned (though the unknown knowledge may be inactionable), hence we all know nothing.


Being excessively humble when we know much of the actionable knowledge is unproductive and problematic, but the opposite is also unreallistic and closed-minded. I think a qualitative assessment is much more valuable (albeit not very poll-able); what we do and don’t know listed out on paper to have a rough idea of our respective standings.
I personally voted based roughly on how much of the currently actionable knowledge is out there that I know. I think I probably know about 90%, I voted close to 100%. But if we speak of just sheer knowledge, then I think nobody can vote higher than 0%. I am 100% but also 0%.

 

[Mark Novack]

Nothing to be behind on except for water changes. You can just enjoy or shoot for reef of the century.

 

[MartinWaite]

After 35+ years and I'm still learning and the day I stop learning is the day I will stop keeping an aquarium and even then I'll still be learning as I'm sure it will be my health that puts a stop to me keeping an aquarium but I'll continue to work with the many Facebook that I'm either a member or an Admin and I enjoy helping the new starters and giving them some of the knowledge that I have learned our the years.