South American habitat-- river types

[Stanzzzz7]

Duane and few other knowledgeable members like yourself should have published books imo. Like I stated in a earlier post a wealth of info here. I was very green when I joined MFK. Thanks to you all I'm a much better aquarist.

Agreed .
I believe neutrino RD. duanes to be the backbone of credible information on this site.(there are others)
These are the sources I trust the most.

 

[neutrino]

To most advanced aquarists, the different water type regions, varying water parameters within large continents, like South America and Africa are well known, and many of these advanced fish keepers can deal with, because of their vast experience.
They are the choir, and hardly need preaching to, by me or anyone else. They have developed techniques that often go well beyond statistical norms, less experienced aquarists can't.

I find that's not always true (though, I suppose it depends how you define an advanced aquarist), but rather many who have years of experience and are quite knowledgeable in some aspects (they've kept a lot of species, have worked out their care and breeding, are good at IDs, etc.) either hold to the common water stereotypes (or have their own stereotypes) when it comes to water parameters in nature, conditions a species can happily adapt to (while others may not), or differences of habitat or care between some ostensibly very similar species-- a lesson I originally learned reading some of Lee Newman's Satanoperca articles. That and some people seem unaware that some species listed as from "X" well known river with "X" parameters may actually be collected from a smaller tributary with different parameters and they're technically keeping them in the 'wrong' conditions, or that some species have a wide distribution over varying types of water and aren't as sensitive as might be assumed.

To me the learning curve about this has been practically infinite. It's also easy to oversimplify and over-generalize based on common axioms and easy to default to a preferred opinion or diagnosis when someone has issues, meanwhile overlooking or not even beginning to suspect the actual problem in some cases. For example, how often do you see someone suggest copper pipes as a potential issue with certain species and low alkalinity water?

Lee Newman interview - The Cichlid Stage

I’ve never automated my water change process simply because my main's water is very low in alkalinity and, as such, picks up copper ions as it flows through the house plumbing.

 

[RD.]

Just thought I would bump this up for those that may have missed it first time around.
koltsixx any chance that you can bend someone’s ear to make this a sticky? IMHO it is FAR more sticky worthy than what cichlid is the most aggro.

 

[duanes]

Just a couple videos, to show how different Central American habitats are.
Below are 2 videos of the Rio Utive in Panama, where the water is hard, pH is 8.2 , the underwater topography is different than some of the S American sandy substrate rivers, yet its only an hour flight from Colombia
https://youtu.be/FVlFbJRj7dQ
https://youtu.be/BES1-ql8F7c

 

[koltsixx]

Just thought I would bump this up for those that may have missed it first time around.
koltsixx any chance that you can bend someone’s ear to make this a sticky? IMHO it is FAR more sticky worthy than what cichlid is the most aggro.

Hi Neil, I can make it a sticky but I'm going to give it a read through first and then run it past the other Mods. There aren't many of us active anymore, but I still want us to work as a group when possible and so would like their input and approval before any actions such as this. Thanks for the tag and suggestion, it's much appreciated.

 

[RD.]

Sounds good, thanks Kolt.

 

[koltsixx]

Sounds good, thanks Kolt.

I just read through the thread, and it was a great one with lots of quality contributions by very knowledgeable members. It has my recommendation for becoming a sticky. I'm still waiting to hear from the other Mods in the Mod section. So far, no responses. I'll give it a day or so, maybe 3 and then if I haven't heard anything I'll take the initiative and make the thread a sticky.

 

[RD.]

Thank you sir! I can’t imagine that anyone would give this the thumbs down.

 

[duanes]

In all fairness, I should probably recuse myself because as a moderator, I have contributed to it a couple times, so I may appear to have a conflict of interest, and slight predjudice.

 

[RD.]

Too late, you already approved. Lol

I agree about the sticky, but I'm inept at that techie stuff.