ever notice the diff. in 'stats' for fish from site to site?

[Tim Bo]

Interesting examples. One of my biggest concerns with my own webpages are lack of supported facts (ie footnotes, concrete examples..) or poor circumstantial descriptions and explanations. I always try to stress that the information on the page is based on my own experiences and that any criticisms, experiences, remarks etc. are welcome and this has ended up being a large factor in narrowing down the possibility of misunderstaning the information or putting ambiguous facts forth. This is also one of the reasons why I put source links etc so the reader has an easier time researching the validity of the information for him or herself. And yes, there are most likely still some areas that need rewriting (and more concrete sources other than my own head!) but my desire to express my own experiences and remarks are just too great! Gotta love this hobby

 

[fisherman]

IMO it's important to note that misinformation or at least confusing information is not confined to web sites. Many books, written by well known and respected scientists/authors, often have conflicting information.

I think the bottom line is that we're all students of this fascinating and sometimes frustrating pursuit. The best we can hope for is to read as much as possible on the species we're most interested in and try to get some idea of the range of characteristics and water parameters preferred by those species. Even armed with this information, I have often made changes based on my own experience and my own hypothesis. Sometimes with little or no success, other times with great success. Who's to say why? The variables are almost endless. But is that not one of the things that makes this hobby so fascinating?!!

 

[aquariumfishguy]

ITA....its a great hobby to be in and the possibilities are endless. I have all the crap for my fish tanks in the world...but the 'endless possiblilities' are what made me spent another $100.00 bucks on fish supplies the other day! Also, I have some tanks with real plants and some with plastic plants...with the plastic ones, I like to mix things up every few months or so.

I think when talking about leaving "experiences" out of the data to make things less confusing, we were talking about things such as 'Fish Size', 'Fish Longevity', 'Fish Habitats', and other topics which cannot be changed.

 

[RTR]

Experiences are valuable, they are the largest part of our transferable information on these boards. But we all need to remember that our experiences and our particular tanks are just that, personal experiences in individual tanks. We too often misinterpret a result as being from one particular cause when it really is not, but from another cause or from the whole combination of factors in that setup. This is where we get into trouble. But experiences to share are the basis for these forums.

AFG - I am recently retired as a consultant senior process/data analyst. Figuring what is happening where and what is real, and projecting and applying corrections, extensions, or full re-do is what I did for years. It is a mindset and a process that gets built in, you can't help but apply it to your hobbies.

References tend to repeat the errors of the past without examination. So incorrect names, water conditions, habitats, and sizes, etc, tend to get spread widely through the reference material.