Bob Fenner site, FAMA, flawed info

[FISH WHISPERER]

Hi Agilis,

Well, kinda sorta. In regards to the "parrot advice." That's basically what I refer to as any advice that people pass down without having first hand knowledge themselves. Like if somebody were to read my article on longhorn cowfish and pass on anything they had read - it would just be parrot advice. I'm no expert either. I don't believe the hobby is old enough to have any experts. And when somebody passes on conclusive findings - it's still "parrot advice." You are most correct. Parrot advice gets quite disseminated as it travels down the wire.

You see the term "boxfish" used in quotes? That's because most people think of "boxfish" when it comes to the longhorn cowfish. In a direct letter to Bob, I spelled this out, and said I thought the longhorn cow was getting a bad rap due to it's being classified so frequently as a "boxfish" as in the "BOXFISH FAQS." I believe the actual letter is on the web because I came across it when testing a new search engine. At first I thought I might be famous, but alas, it was just something I had typed on someone else's webpage. lol

Anyway - even though we refer to ourselves as "amateurs" in the study of a particular type of fish, we can be far more experienced than somebody compiling information from dated sources. Getting "bad info," misleading info or other incorrect data is all part of the hobby - because it's a total learning environment. We don't really have a majoral concrete "knowledge" base to draw from. WE are the ones "figuring stuff out" as we go along. One of those things I had never seen written was the actual compatibility of longhorns with other fish. Toxin release? Much "warned about" but was it ever actually tested? I found nothing but "parrot advice" and much of it was clearly from incorrect sources.

I could still be way "off base" when I reported (and when I look back know I think I did it in too "knowing" a manner ) that cowfish were a threat only after their liver "burst" and released toxins in the tank.. Heck, I don't even know if that's true. Having acquired two cows on their deathbed at the lfs (I was sort of on a "call me" wait) I actually let them die, decay and be consumed in a fish tank - and no other fish died. So, perhaps even the "bursting liver in a tank syndrome" is largely mythical. I'm not sure. But that's what's so neat about this hobby... We are actually "discovering" things each and every years. Yesterday's "can't keep" corals are now commonplace. We're making advances on captive breeding, and raising fry.

I do hope I didn't come across with a purpose of "defending" Bob Fenner. I'm was just trying to make a point that there are precious few sources we can "take at face value." At least these folks are great references and guides. But there's going to be errors found every year we progress. It seemed like there was frustration in the initial thread that these guys shouldn't be sharing "bad info." I don't think that's their intent - it's just the extent of the knowledge they had at the time. And to a lot of folks, it's better than nothing. It's going to be up to people like yourself to "get the right word out." You may not get the fancy book deal, but we have just as big an audience (if not larger) in these forums. We'll be way off base from time to time as well! Haven't we all seen it! lol But we're getting better and better all the time, and learning more by way of practical experience than we could ever hope to receive from reading a book Cheers!

 

[agilis]

I agree with most of what Fishwhisperer writes, but a few observations, if I may:

I am not sure that I agree that the hobby is in its infancy. I guess that everything is relative, but my own experience with marine fishkeeping goes way, way back, and there were some oldtimers around when I was a kid. I was very fortunate to have met the late great Bob Straughan when I was still in my teens. I learned a lot from Bob, including the fundamentals of fish collecting. Bob's book, "The Marine Aquarium in the Home" was written 45 years ago. It is still a great book, though obsolete in most technical areas. People have been keeping marine fish and invertebrates for a long, long, time. People like Bob, with only their "wet thumb", were far more successful aquarists than most technology laden contemporary aquarists. It's an art, primarily, not a science.

There have been, of course, fantastic technical advances in the past couple of decades. Much of what we now know about fish is from first hand observation, mostly thanks to scuba technology, and the realization by ichthyologists that they could not rely on trawl samples and preserved specimens. They had to get down under the water. The conversion of marine scientists to field observers is fairly recent. Some of the standard academic reference books written a long while back have many errors, mostly corrected in more recent editions.

About 10 years ago, I was reading a newly launched scuba diving magazine. In it, an article described Royal Grammas as cleaner fish, parasite pickers, like Neon Gobies. I fired off a letter to the editor, informing him that this was not so. He replied, somewhat condescendingly, that I was wrong. He quoted the premier standard reference book, (Bohlke and Chaplin, I think) in support of the cleaner-fish claim. The reference book was wrong, as anyone who has studied the fish in its habitat knows. The authors of that old book knew the fish only as a preserved specimen in a jar. The arrogant rich kid publisher/editor had simply repeated something he read in what was then the authoratative reference work.

 

[FISH WHISPERER]

The arrogant rich kid publisher/editor had simply repeated something he read in what was then the authoratative reference work.

And that my friend, is parroting to the 'nth degree!

Oh, and when I use the term "infancy," I do of course use it with a mix of affection, humour and reality. Certainly people have been keeping tanks for centuries, and that includes sw tanks (mostly temperate, although I'm sure a few "rich" antiques had freshly stocked "ornate" tanks in the years of yore!)

It is, of course, not to imply we know nothing, but I do believe if we were to scale out all the knowledge that is to be had in the marine hobby, I like to think of us as just beginning the journey - for we have far more to learn that what we already think we know. Therein lies the somewhat tongue-in-cheek word "infancy." I think we had a huge spike in the learning curve in the last 7-8 years. For 12 years prior my good friend and I toiled over his sw setup at his house. All the goodies were in place, and it was indeed some maintenance. Who would have ever believed that less is better!

While we may have a grasp on this hobby, I'd like to see the day when we can captively breed/raise a lot more than the relative few species of fish we do today.