Yesterday I posted a breakdown of my personal aquariums, easing reader’s minds that as someone offering advice on marine aquariums, I actually have a few of them. After spending some time digging around forums (something I rarely do) I learned that the topic of misinformation seems ripe today. I’ve mentioned it before, and rarely do I suggest new reef keepers venture online to a forum for information. Like an open source programming platform, everyone has access, so as much junk comes down the chute as good stuff. Whenever something is wide open to everyone, spam is inevitable as well. I prefer the Apple mentality to gaining reef-keeping information; research, careful observation, testing and trial and error. If it passes through those phases, it may become something I try and eventually promote to aquarists. Misinformation varies, and forums are filled with trolls eager to cause a ruckus. During my visit to a popular forum, I read over a thread about capturing your own fish for an aquarium. It went from somewhat tasteful to downright insane, with one person claiming that any fish they catch is bashed on the head and served for dinner. Considering my studies on the conscious nature of fish, you can imagine how I felt about that. To make matters far worse, many forums are allowing “vendors” to sell corals while influencing the decisions that reef keepers make. It’s a messy stew that takes press away from people really trying to progress the hobby, serious aquarists and those promoting patience and restraint. Saltwater Smarts wrote a post here that named patience as the most valuable tool in the reefer’s toolkit. He hit the nail on the head. So how do we solve the information dilemma? What constitutes an expert? How can the reliability of information from within the hobby be verified? How much of what we learn is really part of a big marketing scheme? 
My first recommendation is to take a step back into the older days of reef keeping. When I started keeping a coral reef, the internet wasn’t nearly what it has become today, and considering in rural Maryland all that was available was 56k dial-up, it didn’t play a large role in the pursuit of knowledge. You had to crack open a book. Published books on topics like reef keeping are usually reliable sources of information. For a writer to have taken the time to compile the information, pursue publishing and go through the many chains associated with that, you can usually rest assured that the contents is valid information, likely cited at the book’s end.… More:
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