Correct information

[Steve2223]

The problem being a newbie is lack of, mis, and plain bad information. The best thing for a newbie is the internet. Read read and then read some more. What works for one person might not work for you. One of the web sites I like for fish information is. AC Tropical Fish & Aquarium.
One example is a friend of mine that loved Discus set up a beautiful 90 gal. Tank. He had one problem the water out of his tap was 7.9 to 8.0 ph he had to work his tail off to get and keep the ph at 7.0 when he got it down, his ammonia, nitrite and nitrate would give him problems. After about 6 Mo. And losing a dozen fish He gave up and sold everything. If he would of read about the fish and their needs and to understand water chemistry he would not have given the LFS a small fortune and the LFS telling him he wouldn't have any problems.
Ranting
Steve2223

 

[tnfinfan]

I agree, somewhat. I think folks need to research more, in general, but there are so many opinions on everything that "correct" is pretty much a vast gray area. There are obviously wrong answers to some questions but then there might be ten different ways to do something and all of them work. A couple of them are good solutions for one person and different options are a better fit for another. It's difficult as a newbie to sort through these varying and possibly conflicting opinions and determine which is their best solution. But, it's still better to get ideas from multiple sources than to rely on a kid at the fish store who had a few guppies once and thinks he knows everything about fish now.