How did you learn

[dmbfreek]

Just curious, how most of you learned about saltwater tank care.
Books or forums and Internet studies?

 

[NaH2O]

I learned mostly from books and the forums.

 

[cwby416]

hours and hours on these forums and the occasional book

 

[legion]

when i first started i lived in san antonio TX we had a lot of good salt water fish stores so i asked them A LOT of ?s but that was like 3-4 years ago and i now live in PA not many good places here so i get most of my info off here and off of inland reef and reefcentral so most of what i learn now is now off the internet (this web site)

 

[dmbfreek]

I can imagine that I will get some opinions here on both but I have never owned a saltwater book, everything that I've learned came from friendly people on forums. It just seems like you could learn more because you can ask questions dealing with purchasing equipment and getting peoples opinion on them, and other info about specific questions that you may have.

 

[Krish]

I've learned everything from RF!

 

[DonW]

I must admit I hate reading books, must be the ADD. Have to give credit for most of what Ive learned to Mojo.

Don

 

[dmbfreek]

Krish, seeing all of your tanks would be an inspiration to all that learn only from RF. The main reason I ask is I had a person basically tell me that people that don't buy books end up having problems and have to ask for help from people on forums. I'm not saying not to buy books, I'm just saying that I didn't and I'm sure others learned the same way I did.

 

[Krish]

Depending on what type of book it is, they can be sometimes biased in their contents as they are the thoughts of the author alone (in some cases). That is why I like forums...You get to hear the thoughts of different people from their experiences etc. and not just from one person or one source and can build your own conclusions from that. I have nothing against books though as facts are facts which you can't get away from. However, I just really learned from RF not books (not necessarily by choice, but just happened that way) and I'm still learning...

 

[wrightme43]

Lots of books, lots of magazines, lots of forum reading, and lots of thinking for myself be it right or wrong.
I get to take care of a LOT of reef tanks now. That helps more than anything. Doing, if you dont do anything you wont make any mistakes. If you do things you will at least learn, and at best succede.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I learned the only way anybody learns: MISTAKES:

 

[Cajun Reefer]

I learned a lot of good things from the books but also some old, outdated things as well! I learned that wet/dry filters were good from the books. Then I spent $250 on an Eheim 2229 Wet/dry filter which seem to work perfectly but I later learned was a big waste due to its high nitrate contributions. That $250 could have been well spent towards a sump / refugium.

I definitely owe a lot to this Reef Frontiers forum (krish75, ronj, Scooterman, & DonW). Plus many others that contributed to other threads that helped.

 

[returnofsid]

Herefishy...I second that one. I learned a lot from mistakes and learning how to fix them on this forum...lol. I did check out a lot of books from the library. Most of my learning though, came from the internet and this forum as well as others. I have to say though, RF has helped the most of all the forums. WetWebMedia has also been a lot of help.

 

[keene1981]

this forum is great for saltwater rookies (like my self) it has help me a lot but it never hurts to read a book are two lol

 

[ronj]

i learned after several failures of my 30g tank!!!! i found a few helpful things here and there on the net, but nothing compared to what i have learned, and continue to learn on RF!!!!! this place has taught me all kinds of stuff that i would not have had access to any other way!!!! i can definately say that Steve S. has helped me tremendously in the fish department!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MarineTeng]

I learned from Saltwater aquariums for dummies.... lol that and other books, the most significant amount of knowledge comes from forums and articles i read online, that and experiences

 

[CarlaW]

Books, RF, Kevin, Brent and a whole load of other people in Spokane. And after a couple of visits over to Seattle, a bunch of folks over there also.

 

[jezzeaepi]

For my initial learning stage I spent 100's of hours reading posts on RC(long before I came accross this wonderfull place). I gained a lot of knowledge about the fundamentals of reef keeping and got to learn about which products work well and which ones are just marketing hype.

Once you have a good knowledge base though I think there aer lots of books worth reading. The first one I bought was Eric Bornemans "Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History". I look to it any time I want specific coral information, and sometimes Ill just reread it to see if I learn anything new(I always do). I recently purchased Anthony Calfo's "Coral Propagation: Reef Gardening for Aquarists" and feel like I am learning the hobby all over again. I am also hoping to pick up "The Reef Aquarium" series by Julian Sprung. This is supposed to be another holy grail of info.

They both have their place. The internet is great for sharing information and reading about other peoples set ups and seeing what works for who. The good books however are just so information packed I would never try to get by without them.

 

[auqua man]

Books and lots of stuff here.

 

[bpiermat]

I started my tank before the days of forums (early 90's)...I had to go off of trial and error and talking to my lfs but they did not know much. So I did the best with what little was known. I did not do much experimentation like I can do today because of the internet. I kept things really simple and it worked quite well. I even had a undergravel filter for a while...