[Seafan]

I think there is a wealth of knowledge about fishkeeping among the hobbyists who frequent web discussion forums like this one. There are some great books, but books can never cover all the details about each and every species. And not one person, even the professionals, authors and experts, can keep and observe each and every species for years and document everything. That’s where the first-hand experience from hobbyists proved to be invaluable.

When someone asks a question about a particular fish, there is always a fellow member lending a helping hand with some insights from his/her personal experience. However, I see an inherent limit of the format of web forum – some same questions are asked over and over again by different people, each getting a few responses, very often not the whole story. And if someone wants to research a fish on the forum by searching past posts, there would be dozens if not hundreds returns coming back. To go through all that information to get what is needed is time consuming to say the least. I have been thinking if there is a better/alternative way to share our experience and knowledge.

After some discussions among fellow hobbyists, I am starting an effort to build FAQ web pages for all common salt water aquarium fish species. The goal is to present experience and knowledge from hobbyists about each species in an easy-to-use format. The current plan is to start a discussion on a particular fish species every week on the Marine and Reef forum at Aqualink (Look for thread starting with “Fish Report #”), asking everybody for their experiences and observations with a questionnaire (see the current thread here). After a week the thread is moved to the new forum, “Fish Report”, where it will remain open for input (see the previous thread here). Then I will ask a volunteer who has had long term success keeping the fish to write a review/article about the species, and put together a FAQ web page about the species based on everybody’s input and the review. Here is the web site where I’ll put the FAQs: http://www22.brinkster.com/seafan

We just started this project last week and the first FAQ is online now. Anybody who has kept the species discussed could contribute, and we need as much input as possible to make this work. I hope you could stop by and contribute your experience and knowledge, and help all of us to learn more about the fish we love!