I would like to extend a thank-you to Robert T. Ricketts aka RTR.
I have been in touch with other scientists and professionals and some say that "Free advice is simply that; you get what you paid for. You paid nothing so expect nothing in return." Thus they try to help but they distant them selves.
Here at TPF, we are lucky to have RTR as a member and a mentor. Insightful, sometimes incoherent , but always HELPFUL.
THANK YOU!!
if you follow me, you avoid stepping in the crap that I just did...
RTR's posts and presence on the forum are what made me decide The Puffer Forum was the right place for me to learn about these fish. I've never seen someone so experienced be so willing to advise and guide folks new to a hobby, in any arena.
LOL! Itty-bitty is no disadvantage, especially when the topic is as specialized as puffers - one of the in not the most isolated families in the water. They are odd-balls without close kin outside the subgroups of truly weird fish - boxes, porcupines and puffers - just how bizarre do you want? It is available here.
As for incomprehensible, well, I do admit it. Plus I do have to warn you that it is going to get worse. I have brought back out a huge file of unpublished articles, which I have worked on on and off fro years. Currently they are at grad school level, but the basic info has been dropped to high school graduate level of understanding. I have started simplifying some of them Just a wee bit more on those and they can fly. There will be a warning that the basic info is first, and for everyone. That is followed by college-level explanations and detail, and some have final sections at graduate levels. Everybody should be able to deal the 'basics' and I hope get a lot out of it. Those a bit more tecky or science-oriented can venture beyond there at their own risk but may actually get some real understanding of how tanks really work. I mean, what is the point of having all this info if I cannot transmit it to others?
Maybe we can offer a non-academic degree in aquarium water management? I cannot wait to write up the tests....
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
Pufferpunk wrote:He is certainly a fountain of knowledge & humor! We are blessed to have him call TPF his home.
I agree.
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another. We consider those, when the cerebral structure/intellectual faculties most developed, as highest. A bee doubtless would when the instincts were.
Charles Darwin
RTR and PP have made it possible for more people to enjoy puffers! If not for you two many many puffers would be dead and many hobbyists would have moved on from them with a bad taste in their mouth. You two deserve a day on the calendar xD
I agree. Firstly, Thank you PP for the oppurtunity to meet people such as RTR. And to RTR, I look forward to reading ALL of your papers! Although I'm not a graduate student, I'm an avid read; especially when it comes to science. (the latest book I read is "Power, Sex, and Suicide" by Nick Lane;it's about mitochondria. Although I expected more from it, it was nonetheless a great read, and I do recomend it.) Point being, I hope you release the "unsimplified" versions of your paper. If I do not grasp something, I will re-read and research it until I do!
Having followed RTR's posts over a few years, here as a lurker and also over at Dwarf Puffers, I have certainly come to respect his experience and applaud his enduring (and endearing) crusade against perpetuating incomplete and inaccurate information. Cheers, RTR.
I have too often (to me) been accused of being elitist and unrealistic. There is some justification for the "elitist" label, because I do try to do what is to me the best possible way I know how to achieve. Often that involves more equipment that most folk employ per tank or setup. Plus that equipment tends to be the best brands and models that I have found for long-term function. I will not deny that my setups are more expensive than the average tank kit by some non-trivial margin. But all of my setups are designed to operate a minimum of ten years without any equipment replacement and to have the lowest possible operating costs. I have equipment up to over 30 years old in daily use, still doing its job 24/7 with only trivial replacements over that time (O-rings and impellers mainly) and reasonably power-efficient in use. I don't care much what the purchase price is as I know how long it will last. A machine that runs 20 or more years constant-run uses more power than its original price easily. Efficiency counts often more than purchase price. I have been in this hobby well over 50 years - it is not a temporary condition, I plan long-term. For the youngest part of the hobby crowd, that is unimaginable. For me it is primary and basic. I plan on total life cycle costs, not purchase price. In this era, that is elitist. Every tank I set is planned - really planned - for a minimum use of ten years. Guess what? I do not scale-up or upgrade tanks either. The first setup is the 10-year minimum set-up. It really is a lot cheaper that way, and a fraction of the total work for me. But that sort of planning is alien to a lot of hobbyists. It is not that I know all about keeping fish - I am still learning just like the newest novice. The difference is that I am polishing captive husbandry of wet pets, plus some of the quirks of particular fish or families, not just learning the basics.
Very probably, the biggest difference between my tanks and the average hobbyists' setups is that I no longer do any community tanks. To me, they just do not work well. The fish involved lived shorter lives and rarely display the behaviors they show on their own or among their own kind, with perhaps a few "worker' fish or inverts to help with housekeeping. But what a wonderful excuse for having a lot of tanks...
As for being realistic, I tend to question those who do Noah's ark tanks as to what their goals really are. I cannot study fish in mixed tanks. They do not live long enough and do no exhibit "natural' behaviors. I really feel that my tanks show me more of what the fish really are, and some things on how they live in the wild - only such captives far out-live their wild cousins. They are protected from disease and many weather problems, also from predation and extra stress from strangers in their midst. I really do feel that such basically species tanks are more "natural" than the so-called community tanks.
So if I am elitist and non-standard, it is because that works best for me. My fish are not live wallpaper or screensavers. They are wet pets that I want to know and learn from. Then I will try to pass in some of what I learn to others, hoping that their wet pets will be as interesting and pleasurable to them as mine are to me. Plus, that does "pay forward" for some of the fish I have killed in the past from lack of valid information.
, but always HELPFUL. 
