Books vs Personal Observations

["Ed Pon" <edpon@hotmail.com>]

Books are a good way to start in learning about a topic but at
some point in time, we must realize that much of what are in the
books are merely the observations of other people.  Over the years
I have read many books about various aspects of the tropical fish
hobby and found that a small percentage of the information in them
is erroneous.

In Piere Brichard's first book on Lake Tanganyikan cichlids, the
picture of a lamprologus brevis had been  swapped with that of a
lamprologus ocellatus. The Tropical fish Magazine had printed 
information that had the pictures correct.  Members of my local cichlid 
club debated for months on end as to who was correct.  Brichard at that 
point in time was the leading authority on Lake Tanganyikan cichlids as 
far  as the Tanganyikan cichlid hobbyist was concerned.  Our club 
president sacrificed one of his fish and dissected it.  He determined 
that the gill raker count supported TFH's contention as to which fish 
was what.

In Linke and Staeck, some of the earlier pictures apparently also had
misidentification, or mix-ups in some of the apisto pictures.

Earlier on, what was thought to be Apistogramma Borelli turned out to
be (in todays thought) a color variation of Apistogramma Cacatoides.
Apistogramma Reitzigi turned out to be actually Apistogramma Borelli.
Apistogramma U2 also turned out to be a color variation of Apistogramma 
Cacatoides.  Many of the earlier texts on Apistogramma had the wrong 
pictures identified in them.

In the Aug 97 issue of Aquarium Fish Magazine, an article by Vinny Kutty 
has apicture of Dicrossus Filamentosa with a label saying "Even habitats
thought of by hobbyists as rocky--such as Lake Tanganyika, home to this 
Dicrossus Filamentosus--have regions of dense plant growth."

I can name numerous errors in both new and old publications--so I would 
keep and open-mind about beleiving everything that is in print.

I value the observations of other hobbyists because I have often found
them to be of greater value than what is in the aquarium publications.
Sometimes even a beginning hobbyist will point out fresh angles
of looking at things that I wonder how come no one had thought of.

I continue to read the communications in this forum because they are 
packed with valuable information that can be obtained nowhere else.  The 
gamut of the discussions, since the beginning of this forum, have 
included observations on behaviors of various types of apistos, suitable 
and unsuitable dither fishes for apistos, snails vs. SAEs and CAEs as 
algae control agents for apistos, formulas for home-brewed foods for 
apistos, where to catch daphnia, where to find various new apistos, and 
a whole host of other topics which are probably not to be found in any 
other place.  The opinions and observations range from those of 
beginning aquarist to advanced hobbyists and scientists.  I fail to see 
the reason for anybody to continue following this forum if they truly 
believed that everything that is to be known is known and printed in 
some book.

Apologies for the lengthiness of this post, but I sometimes think people 
tend to not value other's opinions unless one has written a book. I 
actually believe that the controversy was due to a desire, on the part 
of certain individuals that have contributed to this forum, to stimulate 
conversation.


______________________________________________________