murph
Active Member
After having aquariums on and off pretty much all my life, this past years foray into reef tanks has been interesting to say the least. Unfortunately I am coming to the conclusion that the same problems that kept me away from saltwater tanks over the past 30 years are still in place. Some of my conclusions are pretty bleak and certainly up for debate. They are as follows.
Water chemistry. While I have been fortunate in this regard there is no doubt this is a predominate problem with many hobbyist. Likely culprit is lack of water volume in general and incomplete bio diversity. Some key factor is likely missing and impossible to duplicate in enclosed systems. This is the likely reason non but the hardiest of specimens can live in our systems.
Live stock health, availability, viability, compatibility and price. I think we all can agree that the collection and holding techniques to provide specimens for the hobby are dubious at best and the attrition rate is unchanged from years ago and verges on the unacceptable. Don't get me wrong here. I am far from the tree hugging type but it appears no efforts on the part of the industry are being made to change this bad situation. With the limited number of specimens that can live in the enclosed system when compared with the actual diversity that exist in the wild compatibility issues further decreases the options and leaves the hobbyist with vary limited choices. By the time many of these specimens reach the retail level there health is usually vary much compromised and even when appearing healthy and well acclimated at the retailer there potential life span has been greatly reduced.
Expense. IMO this is another area where the industry is going the wrong direction. This is a hobby and if efforts are not made to keep it affordable those entering the hobby will disappear and more and more of the veterans tanks will appear in the classified section of our news papers. This is especially true at the retail level where common mark up is one hundred percent or more and often the answer to dwindling profit margins is to raise prices even more. It appears to me that most LFS owners have no concept of economics what so ever. I have actually been told by an LFS, "I had to raise prices business was bad".
General confusion. Due to the impossibility of any kind of control group, excepted methods in this hobby can only be based on anecdotal evidence. Opinions can be quite drastic in there variance even when it comes to the accepted experts in the hobby such as Calfo and Fenner. If you read through there vast writings and contributions to forums like this and elsewhere on the Internet you will find that even there opinions can quickly change and or contradict themselves from one day to the next.
Then taking into consideration additional conflicting and or wrong advice from LFS and books any new hobbyist, with the possible exception of those with a great deal of freshwater experience, are not likely to get off on the right foot for one reason or another.
So to answer my own question. No, I don't think we really know what were doing. This is evident when even veteran reef keepers have established tanks go south on them despite there best efforts. As I eluded to in the first paragraphs of this post something in the life cycle chain is missing from the enclosed system and that "missing link" is the likely source of most problems.
Should reefs or saltwater tanks be kept at all? Sure, its a wonderful hobby but I don't think we should suffer under any illusions that the enclosed system provides a stable environment for our livestock. In other words no matter the experience or level of knowledge it boils down to a juggling act and eventually one of the balls will get dropped and in reality we cant even be sure what kind of balls we are even trying to juggle.
Water chemistry. While I have been fortunate in this regard there is no doubt this is a predominate problem with many hobbyist. Likely culprit is lack of water volume in general and incomplete bio diversity. Some key factor is likely missing and impossible to duplicate in enclosed systems. This is the likely reason non but the hardiest of specimens can live in our systems.
Live stock health, availability, viability, compatibility and price. I think we all can agree that the collection and holding techniques to provide specimens for the hobby are dubious at best and the attrition rate is unchanged from years ago and verges on the unacceptable. Don't get me wrong here. I am far from the tree hugging type but it appears no efforts on the part of the industry are being made to change this bad situation. With the limited number of specimens that can live in the enclosed system when compared with the actual diversity that exist in the wild compatibility issues further decreases the options and leaves the hobbyist with vary limited choices. By the time many of these specimens reach the retail level there health is usually vary much compromised and even when appearing healthy and well acclimated at the retailer there potential life span has been greatly reduced.
Expense. IMO this is another area where the industry is going the wrong direction. This is a hobby and if efforts are not made to keep it affordable those entering the hobby will disappear and more and more of the veterans tanks will appear in the classified section of our news papers. This is especially true at the retail level where common mark up is one hundred percent or more and often the answer to dwindling profit margins is to raise prices even more. It appears to me that most LFS owners have no concept of economics what so ever. I have actually been told by an LFS, "I had to raise prices business was bad".
General confusion. Due to the impossibility of any kind of control group, excepted methods in this hobby can only be based on anecdotal evidence. Opinions can be quite drastic in there variance even when it comes to the accepted experts in the hobby such as Calfo and Fenner. If you read through there vast writings and contributions to forums like this and elsewhere on the Internet you will find that even there opinions can quickly change and or contradict themselves from one day to the next.
Then taking into consideration additional conflicting and or wrong advice from LFS and books any new hobbyist, with the possible exception of those with a great deal of freshwater experience, are not likely to get off on the right foot for one reason or another.
So to answer my own question. No, I don't think we really know what were doing. This is evident when even veteran reef keepers have established tanks go south on them despite there best efforts. As I eluded to in the first paragraphs of this post something in the life cycle chain is missing from the enclosed system and that "missing link" is the likely source of most problems.
Should reefs or saltwater tanks be kept at all? Sure, its a wonderful hobby but I don't think we should suffer under any illusions that the enclosed system provides a stable environment for our livestock. In other words no matter the experience or level of knowledge it boils down to a juggling act and eventually one of the balls will get dropped and in reality we cant even be sure what kind of balls we are even trying to juggle.
The aquirm bussiness is a tough job. People always crizise them for doing this or that. They have to come home to their familes with a smile, though they Know that every second of the day people are bad mouthing them and some of there items sold may not live long. AND theres not much a small buisness can do to compete with larger ones. Sure this hobby is expenseive but arn't all hobbys? I applaud the LFS owners who put up with this every day.
