What Needs The Most Improvement In The Hobby?

[Forsaken77]

Just starting a topic for discussion so hopefully the folks that can make a difference will see it.

It can be anything that affects the home hobbyists.

I would say, off the top of my head, warranties, heaters and magnets.

Heaters have, and still are, the weak link in our tanks. It's almost a necessity that you have something controlling them.

Magnets can randomly rust underneath the coating without you even noticing, especially since most things have moved away from suction cups.

Warranties kinda speaks for itself. Tunze, as far as I know, is the only reputable company that stands behind their products with a great warranty. They get that expensive items aren't supposed to be disposable. You truly get what you pay for with a good warranty on your hard earned money.

So what are areas that you think need improvement in the hobby?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Books. Reefers need more books.

 

[rayn]

Sustainability. I know, it already happens. It is ongoing. But with the recent closing of Hawaii and the rumored/true closing of Fiji, we need to protect what we have and not just let it die off.

 

[40B Knasty]

1)Better collection methods of all species.
2)Less spontaneous buying with no knowledge of what a person is buying.
3)Properly cycling a tank.
4)Knowing when to say when so a tank is not over stocked.
5)Better LFS with knowledgeable works to sell you the right thing.
6)Better made tanks. The ones I see coming out of Petco on their $1 a gallon sale are so poorly made.

 

[dede]

New treatments for Ich and velvet especially that can be done in the DD.

 

[dede]

Better frag mounting system so I don't have to get glue everywhere and frags can still be moved easily around tank.

 

[dede]

Someone who can write prescriptions for Chloraquine Phosphate for members of this site.

 

[splix]

parasite/disease management of some kind. There really arent THAT many of them, and we know a lot about the ones that do exist. If there was some reef safe medication for the common parasites it would make reefing a lot less stressful.

Yeah I know there are always going to be side effects that will kill wanted livestock, you cant have the best of both worlds. Just dreaming is all

 

[Cornerboy]

Costs
Apps
Most gear could be wifi and controlled from a cell/app.
It would also be nice to see a software simulation program Which models changes you make in different tanks, livestock, gear, practices, chemistry...

 

[Forsaken77]

Books. Reefers need more books.

I completely agree!!! The books available are sooo outdated now. They're pretty much the ones that were available in the 90's to me, but were written in the 60's & 70's (the good ones at least). I used to have the Saltwater Almanac that gave so much detailed info on specific species. They need to make an updated version.

Any newer books seem to cover things very basicly. As soon as I got back into the hobby a few years ago, I bought as many good books as possible. Unfortunately any informative ones were extremely dated.

It seems people have resorted to YouTubing everything in hopes of making some money off it instead of writing a book.

 

[Forsaken77]

Costs
Apps
Most gear could be wifi and controlled from a cell/app.
It would also be nice to see a software simulation program Which models changes you make in different tanks, livestock, gear, practices, chemistry...

Another good point. The devices that are already wifi, specifically lighting, is a major headache. Makes you wonder why they don't have an app developer making these things instead of trying to do it themselves.

Up until recently, every time I rebooted my modem or router it would negate my entire AI light connection. Like the light couldn't find the network after a simple power cycle of the network. And God forbid if you have a secured network. You may as well not even bother lol. Then getting it to work with an Android device was a whole other issue because Android is such a fragmented ecosystem.

 

[Forsaken77]

parasite/disease management of some kind. There really arent THAT many of them, and we know a lot about the ones that do exist. If there was some reef safe medication for the common parasites it would make reefing a lot less stressful.

Yeah I know there are always going to be side effects that will kill wanted livestock, you cant have the best of both worlds. Just dreaming is all

True. Most of the treatments have been around for decades. It seems like the products started off with a science approach and then went into the snake-oil realm.

 

[Forsaken77]

Someone who can write prescriptions for Chloraquine Phosphate for members of this site.

Can't veterinarians write that? I've never asked, but is it a problem? Is it expensive btw?

 

[Forsaken77]

1)Better collection methods of all species.
2)Less spontaneous buying with no knowledge of what a person is buying.
3)Properly cycling a tank.
4)Knowing when to say when so a tank is not over stocked.
5)Better LFS with knowledgeable works to sell you the right thing.
6)Better made tanks. The ones I see coming out of Petco on their $1 a gallon sale are so poorly made.

People should be informed when asking about setting up a tank. Back in the 90's, before all the online info was available, I assumed stores would only sell fish that were sized for an aquarium. Not one LFS told me any of the 10 baby fish I had in a 72 bow tank would get over a foot long. They still won't ask what size tank you have! Unless you specifically ask, you're on your own, which isn't helpful to a beginner

 

[HB AL]

Although I've only bought acro frags online just a couple times, they should include a pill you drop in the tank to make it look like the pic on there site.

 

[Paul B]

Bigger plastic bags for the clean up crew.

 

[A Toadstool Leather]

In general people need to be informed and stop making impluse buys. We are taking care of animals not objects. I made the mistake of impluse buying many times, buying coral I should not have.

 

[jda]

Hell yes on the books.

IMO, what needs to change the most is the paradigm of not upsetting people. The internet has brought a ton of stuff, but it has made all contributors equal and the most experienced quietly disappear since they get sick of fighting with the noobies who know it all and get upset when you tell them that they are not right or do not have enough experience.

...this brings us back to books. The publication process vets people for knowledge and experience. There are two things that have hurt the hobby in the last decade and lack the rigor that the publication process offers:
1) The internet rewards the persistent and oftentimes the whiny who like to complain that their three months of non-cycled tanks make them the equal to somebody like Coppolino on the WWW.
2) Manufacturers and retailers using pseudoscience and stuff that they probably know is wrong to sell products. If I see another terrestrial plant stat or study used to sell a reef LED, I might puke. How many folks have fought year-long battles with nutrient issues because of retailer videos showing how awesome and sterile dry/dead rock is.

Read more books.

 

[ThunderGoose]

Lots of good ideas here. I have two that haven't been mentioned: energy efficiency and noise. Yes, I have LED lights but my power bill has gone up significantly. Yes, I have "quiet" pumps and have worked hard to adjust the overflow and the skimmer to cut down on noise but it's still noticeable.

 

[thaitopher]

Just starting a topic for discussion so hopefully the folks that can make a difference will see it.

It can be anything that affects the home hobbyists.

I would say, off the top of my head, warranties, heaters and magnets.

Heaters have, and still are, the weak link in our tanks. It's almost a necessity that you have something controlling them.

Magnets can randomly rust underneath the coating without you even noticing, especially since most things have moved away from suction cups.

Warranties kinda speaks for itself. Tunze, as far as I know, is the only reputable company that stands behind their products with a great warranty. They get that expensive items aren't supposed to be disposable. You truly get what you pay for with a good warranty on your hard earned money.

So what are areas that you think need improvement in the hobby?

A magical ointment which makes all kinds of algae disapear and never come back again.