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| Advice: Consider The Source By: Scott Zachow
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In this age of Internet technology and commerce there is an overwhelming amount of people giving advice on how to best setup and maintain saltwater aquariums. Regardless of their experience level or background, at some point everyone interested or actively involved with saltwater aquariums has questions or curiosities to satisfy. For every question, there are literally 1,000’s of people willing to provide a response. With so many people willing to give advice and answer queries, to whom should we listen? Sure, there are many excellent literary resources available to us but one thing that makes this hobby so great is the relationships and camaraderie amongst reef aquarists, one that is not matched in many other “hobbies.” Besides, it’s not likely that one’s particular situation, which prompts a question, has an answer that is already provided somewhere in a text. While there are plenty of resources to find out how to treat Cryptocaryon irritans or how to remove “red slime” algae from a newly setup aquarium, what about when you’re interested in another’s personal experience with caring for a particular fish, or which protein skimmer you should buy? There simply isn’t a definitive answer for these types of questions. There may be, however, some wrong answers, and here I hope to guide you in determining the right from wrong, or how much weight to apply towards suggestions by various sources.
“Could you help me please?”
It is most common for people to seek advice from local stores that sell and provide marine aquarium products and services. This is typically the same store that has a beautiful display tank that was the inspiration for you to get salt on your hands. With this beautiful display, the store staff must know what they are doing, right? Well, that is not always the case. That beautiful display tank could very well be stocked with new, cherry picked corals, as often as is needed to keep it’s stellar appearance. Additionally, there is an ample amount of free maintenance labor available to keep the tank appearance optimal. This, however, is not any indication of the health of the tank or experience of the keepers. It could simply be a mask developed to convince you to make deposits into their cash registers. With enough effort and money, any tank can have a beautiful appearance. Don’t let the display tank, size of the store or size of the staff make your decision on the reputation and quality of education you will receive from them. There are many other things that will help you decide the reputation on the store and more importantly, the quality of the advice you will receive from it.
The first issue concerns the staff of the store. Most stores that sell marine life and products employ a staff that simply has little or no experience maintaining the life or using the products for marine aquariums, and their turnover rate of employees is often high. You can learn a lot by asking one simple question: “How long have you been keeping marine aquariums and can you tell me a bit about your setup?” When visiting a local retail store, the answer to this question will tell you if you should put your wallet away and make a quick step out the door. “I’ve never kept my own tank but I maintain all of these tanks” would probably be the most common response, and also possibly the one that should steer you away the quickest. With only a few exceptions, if you can buy Alpo, Parakeet food and a Zebrasoma scopas in the same store, you should get your advice elsewhere. These traits are indicative of the all-in-one pet stores, which happen to sell marine life and products, acquire their staff with a big “Help Wanted” sign in front of the store. The people that they decide to employ, more often than not, do not have any experience with the products or livestock they are selling and therefore should be completely avoided. Besides, what kind of experience, or expertise can you expect from minimum wages?
On the other end of the commerce side you have specialty stores that sell only aquarium-related stock, equipment and supplies, or if you’re really lucky, only marine stock. These can be excellent sources for information as the staff usually consists of the owner and staff that may be well trained. The advantages here are that the owner probably has the store because of their passion for aquatic life and therefore have some experience in maintaining aquaria. The employees working with them gets a more rounded education since the owner is working directly with them. The products they sell are often products they have used and they can tell you what is worth getting and what isn’t. On the other hand, they are a business, and they might not tell you if the equipment is the best for your money, or if the fish or coral you want is suitable for your environment. It’s no secret that businesses are there to make money and therefore they will attempt to sell you whatever it is they can, or whatever they have in stock; especially when it comes to livestock. There are however some ways to gauge the advice they are offering. For instance, if they never try to steer you from a purchase then their advice has to be questioned. If you inquired about purchasing 10 different types of additives, and the sales person was more than willing to sell them all to you, you should be weary about their advice. Furthermore, a number of such stores have poor ethics in terms of the quality and quantity of products and advice, so the mere fact that a store specializes in marine aquaria does not guarantee that it is a reliable source and some amount of further inquiry amongst local aquarists can be invaluable in determining the best available store.
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Figure 1: This image shows a number of manufacturers of different Protein Skimmers. With this number of different brands available, and an even greater number of different styles per brand, why would anyone accept the advice to buy any particular brand without exploring the others? |
I am not trying to make anyone that works at a pet store out to be a bad person. In fact, there are some great people working the marine aquatics areas who have a lot of knowledge. What I am trying to convey is that many stores are often going to sell you whatever they can, and for the most part, nothing else matters. You have to “consider the source” and understand who is producing the information and where does their information come from. How many people do you think have been sold a basic aquarium with under gravel filtration and dolomite to setup their tanks? I’d like to have a penny for each person that has.
Let’s Surf
With the ease of use, and the amount of information that can be found, the Internet is a great place to find information; yet even here the quality of the information is to be questioned. First, you have the same challenges seeking advice from online retailers as you do with local establishments. You can inquire with participants of online sources and sites just the same as suggested above, however the information that they give might not be verifiable. If you find an online store that you think you can trust, validate it by doing a search for “store name + testimonials.” Again, these folks are trying to make a living and will try to sell you whatever it is that they have available. This may or may not be acceptable, depending on the variety of equipment or livestock they are offering. When looking for online shops to buy goods, I look for stores that have a wide variety of equipment and various brands. I like to utilize the “Best Sellers” navigation that most e-commerce stores have and I like to have some e-mail exchanges with the staff about the equipment.
You shouldn’t just stop at the online store when you’re surfing the Internet to acquire information. There are literally thousands of personal websites people have built to display their marine aquarium. While displaying their tanks, people often describe their techniques and various trials and tribulations they’ve had with fish, corals, inverts, suppliers and equipment. This is an excellent source for advice, information on how they succeed or fail, and who is not primarily financially motivated. What better advice could there be?
Well, it can get better. With the boom of message boards and online chat rooms, not only can you read about people’s experience, you can directly ask people questions and typically within minutes, receive an answer! But, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. One downfall of the Internet, and the availability of message boards and chat rooms, is that you never know who is on the other end. For example you can go to message boards and find people who have made thousands of “posts.” Someone with that many posts must know what their talking about, right? Not necessarily. That person, whom you are trusting to give you sound advice and guide you and your wallet to the right products, could very well be someone with as much experience and knowledge as you, perhaps less, and often purposely or inadvertently providing false information. Therefore you must take their advice lightly until you can have others validate it or confirm their responses. This is sometimes difficult, as you will always see a lot of varied experience, which often times is confusing since some persons with less experience may have more accurate knowledge.
Back to square one...
So here we are back to the same question, although a bit longer: With so many people willing to give advice and answer queries, and so much uncertainty with the advice they are giving, who should we listen to? I think the answer is unequivocally: all of them! The advice of one person should never be taken alone. However, validated advice that you acquired and checked for accuracy yourself is fine to follow. With so many different media to get help, why rely on just one person? As an example, you can validate the suitability of a coral for your tank by getting the advice of a store staff member and then, before buying it, check the captive care requirements for the coral through some of the available text. If you’re looking to buy a protein skimmer, get the advice from a fellow aquarist and then validate their recommendation with 1 or 2 others that have experience with it and other skimmers. Don’t put your success on the line by allowing only one person to mentor you, no matter how much experience or how well you think they are trying to guide you. This one person may very well have a wealth of experience and knowledge, but when was the last time they revisited their methods and tried new equipment? Never make a decision on what to buy, or method to use by listening to others. Only make your decision after thoroughly researching the topic, which should include learning the experiences of others. Only after gathering enough data and reading anecdotal reports can you make a well-informed decision. And when you can, make sure to share your experiences and respond to others once you have time-tested information to provide.
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