My little rant for the day
 

Doing a vent rant

Part of it is the modern age of technology and part of it is looking for the fast and easy way to start up a salt water aquarium but I see way too many people using social media to start up a salt water tank. They want everything in short bursts and don’t take the time to read long articles basically they want everything in real time not smart time

Twitter is lousy as is Snapchat for getting information about starting up as is Instagram because only short bursts of information is given and never quite enough of the correct information add to that most people live by abbreviations now so you need a damn cheat sheet to understand what is being said.

FaceBook isn’t bad if used right but again too many people give information but nothing about how to use a product or where to look. Whenever I help people I write a novel because they need to understand how and what to do not one or two sentences with use this or do it this way with no information about why you do it or why it’s used this or that way.

This hobby has a very high turnover as it is using social media incorrectly increases the odds of people leaving the hobby due to misinformation or more commonly lack of proper information. I always tell people to visit three sites (Canreef, live aquaria and J&L aquatics) these three sites have all the basic information on starting in the hobby and each of these sites covers all the bases that the other two might miss.

It is simply amazing at how many people aren’t told about these and other sites as from what I have learnt talking to these people they are learning via social media which is a mistake in my opinion. They need to hear why so and so product is used and why this light is better than that light and so on not 2 or 3 sentences that don’t tell you a damn thing other than use this or buy this.

Sorry it’s my pet peeve

/rant over

First of all, well said. I definitely see more people taking to the multitude of social media platforms out there to gain their knowledge. I am not a big social media guy (really only canreef, no Facebook, instagram, Twitter etc.). Partly because of my job and the other is I just hate the copycat mentality and things that go viral from these. I remember when I first got in to this hobby I purchased a book on saltwater and read the entire thing at the start of the cycle. From there I spent hours reading articles written by some of the “gurus” in the hobby.

I think some of the luster of the hobby is lost, when you don’t take the opportunity to check out LFS and have some conversations. You definitely see more people wanting the “picture perfect” reef, they want it immediately and may not even care about the “how” it got there. The 3 websites you mentioned definitely provide a lot more than a simple snapshot.

Eh? There's a ton of great info out there. BRS puts out countless easily digested videos every week. Same goes for liveaquaria and many others. I can't think of a time where I've met so many well informed "newbies".

Sorry, I don't do the social media thing (or avoid it as much as possible) but I can totally understand your points and agree with the "instant gratification followed by tank crash due to lack of proper information" scenario. I've often been accused of writing novels or essays at least when posting information, but I bet a lot of the people who go looking for "how to start a reef tank" info on social media aren't really interested in finding out the proper way to do things, so much as the quick and "easy" (thus increasing odds of tank failure) way.

Anthony

sorry I didnt take the time to read this long article. can you make it in smart time?