Newbie Authors Wanted

[Van down by the river]

I think a recommended reading would be far more useful than articles on what and what not to keep, and how to keep them.

Would you build a house without a plan or experience?
Would you go on a long distance trip not knowing which way to go?
Would you marry someone sight unseen?

So why would you invest thousands of dollars in a reef tank without learning how to run it?

No you would learn and ask questions first from a reputable source.

The problem with posting for example a "do not keep" fish list for beginners is that moments after it's posted some bozo will post contradicting the information. This kind of boasting does little to improve the information of the thread and is often misleading to a beginner. Not to mention they never mention how many died before they could find one to break the "general rule".

I think that forums and posted discussions can be confusing for beginners when they see so many points of view. They don't have the experience to weed through them yet. Online communities are very a very useful tool but if you don't have the basics down they can lead you astray.

Not to mention often people posting advice, should actually be asking for it and listening as their tanks are nothing to aspire to. (originally I had the word "suck" here but thought it too harsh.)

Unfortunately, it seems that many of the people that truly do have the experience and reefs to model after tend to be less vocal about it. There are many lurkers with beautiful tanks on Canreef that rarely post. Apparently they have lives and jobs or something like that.

A Big thanks to the ones that do spend the time and effort.

Thousands of dollars and thousands of doomed animals could be saved by directing beginners to a good book. If somebody is too cheap to buy a decent book or too impatient to read it, then you can't help them anyways.
They won't spend 30 seconds searching for the already well written answer either, they'll just post the question again for the 67th time.

The good part is that these people create good deals for the rest of us.You can just watch the buy and sell to pick up their tank at 1/4 of the price when they get frustrated and get rid of it. The bad side is that dozens of animals lose their lives to these type of aquarists.

I see frustrated aquarists every weekend that got bad or misleading advice. They all want to be successful and save money. Often they have spent enough already to have had a very nice set-up, if they made the right choices.

The most important advice I can ever give somebody is: "Buy a good reef book."

A book won't teach you everything, but it will help build a good knowledge foundation.