Facts, Fantasy And Fishlore

When I visit Fishlore, I tend to scan down the list of new topics and new replies for something interesting, maybe check out a couple of them, and quickly move on. I am always struck by the range of responses to even the simplest questions, running the gamut from dead-on accurate answers to wild flights of fancy that have almost no grounding in reality. For beginners especially, this creates a potentially dangerous situation; these folks come on here to ask a question, quite often a very basic one...and are confronted with so many conflicting answers that they can't possibly know which to believe. All too often, they go with the answer that they hope and wish is correct, i.e. "what they wanted to hear". Sadly, just because you want something to be true does not make it so; sifting through multiple responses until you find the one you are hoping for changes nothing. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but nobody is entitled to their own facts.

Filter modifications are tried and operated for a few weeks, and then touted as being perfect. Reading a single piece of gibberish on the internet is dignified with the term "research". References are made to "in my experience"...but reading the profile shows that experience does not date back as far as the last oil change in my truck. The list goes on.

The temptation is to jump in on some of these threads as the voice of reason. There is a crying need for someone to say "Now wait a minute..." when you see multiple posters explaining things that they themselves don't understand.

Critically examining an idea that has been presented...especially on the internet, where everyone is an expert...is essential. Sadly, fewer and fewer people seem willing to actually think things through for themselves. I would wager that half of the problems being experienced by beginners could be easily resolved if, upon hearing a suggestion or possible solution, they would stop and ask themselves "Hmmm...does that make sense? Does the person saying this sound as though he/she actually knows? Should I trust this? Has this person actually done what he/she is suggesting I should do...or did they simply read it on the internet?"

But I just don't see it happening. Thinking is out of fashion.

 

Great thread. I'm no means even close to being a pro i'm still learning great new things everyday either by personal experience or by some of the threads on here. I agree I have kept my mouth shut when i've seen bad advise being givin when I probably should have spoke up. but at the same time some people don't take text in the right context if you will and may be offended when all your trying to do is help. I just wanted to say if anyone ever sees me giving wrong or bad advise please reply to it directly. I can handle any type of constructive criticism. Thanks!!

 

This has been a long ongoing problem, it's really nothing new.... I've seen this sort of thread multiple times in the past. Unfortunately not much you can do about it except refute bad advice.

 

Great thread. I'm no means even close to being a pro i'm still learning great new things everyday either by personal experience or by some of the threads on here. I agree I have kept my mouth shut when i've seen bad advise being givin when I probably should have spoke up. but at the same time some people don't take text in the right context if you will and may be offended when all your trying to do is help. I just wanted to say if anyone ever sees me giving wrong or bad advise please reply to it directly. I can handle any type of constructive criticism. Thanks!!

Same here, I'm on here almost daily for the past ~8 months and I'm still realizing just how much there is to learn. That's why I do my best to stick to topics I know I can give advice on, and know I can politely correct people if I need to. Unfortunately too many people try to help anyone with anything just to be helpful, and end up not helping or making things worse.
I also have no problem with being corrected as long as people are polite about it.

 

This hobby is rife with the illusory truth effect. People just repeat the same things until it becomes fact. They also assume that anything stated by a Youtuber with a bunch of followers must be true as well. Oh, and anything Seachem marketing puts out.

 

But seachem puts a little magic in each and every bottle. I think. Ok I heard. Ok it was from a friend of a friend of a friend.

 

When I like to research aquarium topics, I don't goto aquariums forums 1st lol. I like to look up unrelated research articles and stuff published by labs. After that, I look at stuff from major industries, especially for profit ones.

examples:

1. I learned a lot with the nitrogen cycle and fish waste management from videos and sites publish by waste management companies that clean waste for CITIES
2. I learned a lot about plant nutrients from aquaponics videos and sites
3. I learned a lot about breeding fish on watching videos of this lab breeding them on a large scale for drug and disease testing

It's tons of reputable sources out there if you hunt for them.

 

Very well worded post jjohnwm and so many great points.

The things that go through my head when skimming through the threads....

Some of the questions asked are so basic, a simple google search would answer them. I never quite understand those questions.

A lot of newbies are helping newbies. That gets to be a balancing act that can get dangerous. (its wonderful that they are wanting to help one another, but a newbie helping a newbie becomes the game of telephone.....essentially middle-men passing on advice that could or could not be relevant to what the person they are trying to help is experiencing)

A lot of parroting goes on. Just repeating what they saw others say without any experience of their own and claiming it to be fact. I am not a fan of this. I am a pretty experienced fish keeper...but one thing I will never do is repeat advice I saw someone else give without mentioning that it was something that I read or heard somewhere and not something that I know for fact or have my own experience with. I preface those statements with something like: "I don't have personal experience with that, but I have heard people say that blah blah blah"

And as mentioned in the OP....if people wait for enough responses, they will eventually hear what they WANT to hear and that is also scary. What is the point of giving out good advice if so many will just wait until the advice they want to hear comes along even if it is bad advice.

Also mentioned in the OP is one of my biggest pet peeves OF ALL.....people stating "in my experience" when talking about fish they have only owned for a short time and are still juvenile fish! So they don't even know what a sexually mature adult is like. Its almost always people trying to say certain incompatible fish are compatible because their juvie versions of said fish get along just fine! lol

BUT as stated by Anders....none of this is new. And it kind of goes in waves. There was a period there where I feel there were more people on fishlore who had been in the hobby for a long time. But lately it seems the newbie crowd is outnumbering the experienced crowd again. So I see a lot more bad advice lately than I used to. But again, I think that goes in waves.

All of the above gripes are an issue on ANY fish forum or fish group out there though. Its not unique to fishlore and Its totally unavoidable. And honestly, I do think fishlore is the best forum or group out there to get the most sound advice. But you should always get multiple answers and not assume the first answer you get is the right one.

And I just want to add.....I was a newbie here years ago too...and I often only wanted to hear what I wanted to hear. And I tried to repeat advice I was given when I didn't fully understand it. And I surely gave out poor advice myself. And had my moments of defensiveness. I can admit that. I am not trying to be a hypocrite or anything.


Where was I even going with this? What is the point of my post here....just a rant? or what?? hahaha!!!! I don't care. I just spent all that time typing it up. Too long to just delete it now.

HAPPY FRIDAY ALL!!

 

Here comes the dangerous post (or so it seems to me, haha) of putting a 'but' to this story. I'm not an expert on fishkeeping, but I am in some other areas where essentially the same goes on, so speaking from experience on that front;
Even the most experienced experts will have facts, methods or theories that they for various reasons favour over others even though they might be (near) equally valid. It is generally a dangerous development when respect for such a person (or group) stifles the possibility for competing theories or alternative ideas. And that happens way more often than people realise. I see a lot of times that people on this forum post something along the lines of "your fish survived, but they didn't thrive!". Not to say that those people are usually wrong, based on the usual circumstances in which it is said, but sometimes there is literally not a single reason to doubt that those fish 'thrived', i.e. living to an old age, growing to expected size, eating well, never getting ill, breeding, etc. and the only reason for this judgment seems to be that some parameter (temp, tank size) does not live up to the internet consensus of what the standard should be. There is no possibility for the owner of those fish to convince them that their fish thrived, because there is no visible proof for thriving other than matching the consensus parameters. That is quite literally bad science because good science should be based on the falsification principle. Again, not saying this usually applies (as fishkeepers will often not tell the whole story or are ignorant of fish behaviour), but I have noticed the inherent flaw in this 'thriving' reasoning. Also, sometimes evidence is simply inconclusive as to what effects certain things have and people will read into the mixed evidence what they will. Personal experience (depending on a bazillion seemingly irrelevant environmental factors) plays a large role in that choice, and the reputation of some people over others can make certain opinions suddenly being valued as established fact. The history of sugar vs fat theories on what increases body weight is a good example of this (also involving the dangers of corporate interests), but for a subtle case in which none of the scientists involved were concerned about anything other than the truth, the history of electrical versus mechanical relay theories of nerve cell impulses contains a solid lesson on how accidents can actually determine which of competing, equally solid theories becomes consensus and pushes the other into obscurity (which took a whopping 50+ years to be addressed).
Also, more information, even partially conflicting, can sometimes be better because if someone is facing a complex problem, having more possibilities to solve the puzzle should generally help them try out different options and eventually get it right. In addition people may answer who have faced similar problems in similar circumstances before (perhaps in some nuanced way different from the expert) which proves the cru to the problem. Moreover, it is easy to see which members are experienced from ratings and post counts. The fact that people, as you say, abuse this to pick their preferred answer no matter who says it is not really the internet's fault. It will happen if people take their information from a book, too, if they have that mindset to begin with. In general I think the conditions of fish being kept seems to have improved due to the easy access to information that we have, though not everyone will make use of that option.

Please do not construct this as criticism regarding experts or expert opinion in general, which are immensely valuable and welcome. It is just a defense of the practice of people 'chipping in' with their own experience. This is also why it is very valuable for people to refute others in such a thread (such as an expert explaining why certain earlier advice is a bad idea), because it shows *why* certain information peddled on the internet is wrong - though not all people can appreciate constructive criticism for what it is and see it as offensive.
Additionally, sometimes things that are said are also misconstrued on the internet. I recently posted a suggestion on a thread and spotted that someone interpreted that as me as blaming a particular problem, which was not at all the intent of my post. I did not want to derail the thread by commenting on that so I left it that way, but sure that person might now think of the relatively inexperienced me as doling out bad advice

This hobby is rife with the illusory truth effect. People just repeat the same things until it becomes fact. They also assume that anything stated by a Youtuber with a bunch of followers must be true as well. Oh, and anything Seachem marketing puts out.

This is sadly true of a lot of hobbies. I am part of a botanical forum where about a quarter of beginner threads consist of people having to point out that the poster has been following bad advice from a particularly popular youtube channel that always pops up first in search. The OPs don't even have to mention they have been watching it, certain problems are pretty much considered "that-certain-youtuber-syndrome".

I recently checked out a local aquarium forum in my region and they were complaining about the ridiculously small tank sizes that people in the U.S. consider proper for fish. If you follow their advice the minimum tank size for dwarf gourami is a length of 3ft. I seriously doubt there is not a single dwarf happy in a 29 or 20 long somewhere. There is a strong tendency for people to take the 'moral highground' where it concerns hobbies (not just the ones involving animals) and snort at everyone who does not live up to those standards.

And well, finally, allowing those kind of 'chip in' threads encourages people new to the hobby to take an interest, participate actively and learn a lot. Even though it might create some confusion sometimes.

Where was I even going with this? What is the point of my post here....just a rant? or what?? hahaha!!!! I don't care. I just spent all that time typing it up. Too long to just delete it now.

This feeling, pfft. Whelp, I almost dare not post this with my newbie face, haha! I have very strong opinions, excuse me Feel free to disagree completely though, it is everyone's fair right.

 

So were are we with this thread? Dont trust most fish stores. Less is more. Take everything with a grain of salt. Everyone wants to help and most on here can. Our advanced members argue among themselves and its fun to watch and follow. We ultimately want everyone to succeed. Am I missing anything? Oh yea and we can't seem to stay on topic.

 

So were are we with this thread? Dont trust most fish stores. Less is more. Take everything with a grain of salt. Everyone wants to help and most on here can. Our advanced members argue among themselves and its fun to watch and follow. We ultimately want everyone to succeed. Am I missing anything? Oh yea and we can't seem to stay on topic.

Now you are just summarising the forums in its entirety

 

I was going to post on this but it may get me banned lol. Just say I agree

 

The worst are probably those I have dubbed the Guardians of the Old Order. They refuse to accept any new ideas no matter how overwhelming the evidence. In their minds, hobbyists have already discovered all the best treatments and know every fact there is to know.

Edit: For the record, I had another forum in mind when I wrote this.

 

I also am still learning this hobby. I have had disaster tanks for the last 10 yrs+ The tank I have now is my 1st real "right" tank! I have plants that I know nothing about. I have fish I have never had. If I have a question I usually get answers even if Pros think its a dumb question. I love this forum and I've learned a lot from it. If I ever post something not right please tell me also. I'm good with that! I usually only try to answer questions I know the answers to or to fulfill what others will ask.

 

I think what's even worse than newbies trying to help newbies is similar to what AvalancheDave said as far as "I've been doing this longer, so I know better than you" but add in "even it's a new subject to me and you've been doing it for over a year". For example, on another forum I look at occasionally, there was someone entirely new to discus telling an entire thread of long time keepers that doing 50%+ water changes daily or every couple days was a great way to kill fish and that he would know because he used to work at an LFS where needless things like that were never done and all their fish were healthy.

 

Also people who add long comments for a simple question

 

What size tank does my fish need? Well according to website X, 29, but website Y says 40. I personally like to use the space time continuum quadratic formula do decide so I'd say a 30 gallon will work

 

I feel like I resemble this remark.. I am a newbie, and I do usually state that in my answer. I just figured you guys must get sick of answering the same darn questions day after day so when the answer is "do a pwc" or "what are your parameters" or "you need to learn about the nitrogen cycle" I can chime in and save you all the hassle. If I am just passing on something I have read or heard, I do make a point to state that, and I let them know that I am also new to the hobby. But I have also seen some really bad advise from some newbs that have no idea so if that is ever me BLAST away. I will be happy to learn!

 

I also am still learning this hobby. I have had disaster tanks for the last 10 yrs+ The tank I have now is my 1st real "right" tank! I have plants that I know nothing about. I have fish I have never had. If I have a question I usually get answers even if Pros think its a dumb question. I love this forum and I've learned a lot from it. If I ever post something not right please tell me also. I'm good with that! I usually only try to answer questions I know the answers to or to fulfill what others will ask.

I can relate to this a lot. Yes, I've been keeping fish since I was 13... a LOT more than ten years. Have I always known what I was doing? ohlortno. DO I know what I'm doing now? Sorta...I guess...I mean...Nothing has died recently, except my daughter's betta lol. (Those poor things I have four and as a commercially bred species they are a genetic nightmare...and not surprisingly the topic of probably 40% of the daily new posts.) I learn stuff every day. I have parroted advice that made sense, but I try to only do it if someone has been waiting hours for an answer. I have stated the obvious and been shouted down for it. I have asked a couple of dumb questions that led to interesting discussions. I have probably done my share of shouting-down too. I get cranky sometimes *shrug* but I think as whole everyone means well. Most of us. I think the important thing to remember is that it's a hobby, and like with most hobbies, there is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.

 

I've just gotten really picky about which threads I even open anymore. "Emergency", "betta", "please help", "dying", and "euthanize" are all threads I will ignore every single time. The overwhelming is a poster looking for their own version of the right answer, and the feedback is usually 5 pages deep with conflicting advice from panicked members.

Alternatively, I've been into more niche threads lately. I also use jargon frequently that an inexperienced person won't know what it means. This usually forces the OP to go to Google to understand what I'm talking about, keeps inexperienced people quiet, and usually I get some corrected or a new theory from much more experienced members. These threads usually swell quickly with verifiable and understandable theories being traded, the OP gets a good lesson on what's going on, and I get to learn new techniques and theories from other members myself. Seems like it's been a winning strategy so far.