Both you guys make excellent points. It seems that B. provided the "Outline" and "Andy" completed the "Novel:. Lol.
Plenty of theoretical and verifiable information was provided that should prove benificial for most readers.
It's really good to let the inexperienced know that this wonderful hobby isn't so much about fishkeeping as much as it is about water management.
I don't think B. was trying to fill in the blanks regarding the total scope of fish keeping. Just trying to provide a general guide for success.
Good conversation guys.
Sadly, there is a a lot, A LOT of bad information online which is why, I feel, it's up to us advanced, experienced , long time fish keepers... to take the lead in advising new fish keepers. The good part with the internet is that it opens up the information to a wider audience. The bad part is that it opens up the posting of information to come from anyone whether they have experience or not. Add to that that someone's experience in say, NJ, which has/had soft acidic water is not going to be the same in say, FL, where the water can be very hard to very soft and very acidic to very alkaline depending on where in the state the person is. ( FYI, I live/lived in both of these states and brought fish from one to the other so this is not hyperbole information but actual experience. ) Also, the majority of the information online, from even reliable sources ( i.e. fishbase, Seriously fish, etc), is information on wild caught fish while most of what we have available in the hobby are farmed raised fish so their natural habits ( i.e. water parameters, foods, etc.) are not necessarily what the farmed fish are living in. So in reality, the internet has become a relatively useless source of information for much of fish keeping while the place a person is getting their fish or livestock from should be where the information on parameters should be coming from. But who would know that? The experienced keepers should.

In reality, fish keeping can be as easy or as complicated as the hobbyist wants to make it. That said, not all fish will respond well to the " easy" way and not all fish will require the "complicated " way. You can't expect a Discus to do well in a 10 gallon tank and you shouldn't expect a crowntail Betta to do well in a large tank with high water flow. Neither one will have a happy result.
The bottom line is that fish keeping requires knowledge just like the keeping of any other pet. Unfortunately, some of that information is somewhat complicated but is necessary to know so there are no short answers for
all the questions. Sadly, we now have stores ( no names in particular but we know which ones I mean

) with salespeople giving out bad , not poor but BAD, information for the sake of a sale. That shouldn't be acceptable IMO but I'm admittedly biased as I worked in a number of Mom & Pop shops where I was grilled by owners to know what the heck I was talking about before I was allowed to talk to customers. ( Fortunately for me, I was already more experienced than most of the owners before I was offered the jobs.

)
So as you see just in my responses, short answers are not in my nature.

That's because I want people to know it all, not just some of the information because lives are at stake. I get no joy from hearing from people anywhere, online of offline, that their fish died and often when they tell me what they did, my first reaction is

because of what they were told to do. We can blame the fish and we can blame the products we have available but the real blame is the lack of knowledge.
Hope this helps.
