Aquarium help, articles, answers and misinformation

 

Updated 6-26-13

There is lot of information available about so many subjects on the internet today and this information grows by the hour. When it comes to Aquarium Information this can be both a blessing and a curse. For the average aquarist it is easy to get fooled by the anecdotal misinformation that is extremely prevalent. This is compounded by the popularity of pasting others posts (or down right plagiarizing) that have no real basis in research or even real world practical experience.
What then happens is a snow ball effect whereby the same anecdotal stories get copied over and over to the point that a new aquarist has a hard time believing a correct article when everything else they read says something else (and unfortunately this happens with many long time aquarists that are either too lazy or arrogant to check the facts).

I have seen this with Aquarium Filters where many will pass around statements about bio wheels, Fluvals and more that are not true. No one ever bothers to run head to head comparisons of say a sponge filter and a bio wheel filter or look at the poor head pressure of the Fluval and proprietary tubing these require that makes them difficult to adapt to other devices such as UV Sterilizers.

When it comes to reef keeping, Aquarium lighting, aquarium Heaters, plants, and even Aquarium and pond pumps it often gets worse. But in my opinion chemistry (such as pH, GH, KH), and medications is where poor "Aquarium Answers" anecdotal information gets really passed around. Examples would be about the carcinogenic properties of Malachite Green (which scientific studies show are only possible in mega doses beyond what an aquarist is going to use).
This article deals with some of this:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Medication.html.

I recently found an answer (picked best too!) on Yahoo Answers about KH that was about as correct as the world is flat! I deal with some of these in my blog "Fish as Pets".

My point here (besides the obvious frustration on my part) is that this is a hobby and trade I have in some capacity spent 40 years of my life in (much of it running a large aquarium maintenance company while reading and performing research on the side) and I do not want to see all this misinformation destroy the hobby or at the least hold down its potential for better aquarium and pond husbandry which can result in less fish and aquatic deaths.

Please read everything with an open mind and experiment, be wary when told ‘everyone’ does something one way. This is common advice with Protein Skimmers, not that they do not work all the while making false statements about UV Sterilizers killing all your ‘good’ bacteria as well as ‘bad’ (as well be careful of those recommending cheap cold cathode UV Replacement Bulbs when in fact these albeit easy starting UV Bulbs only have 20% of the essential 254 nm output of a quality hot cathode UV Bulb).
Product Resource References:
*For true UVC Bulbs:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/UVCReplacementLamp.html
*For True UV Sterilizers:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/UVSterilizers.html

When in forums, please read references (one of my pet peeves as I will often site references that get read less than 5% of the time), if the references check out, this persons comments might be worth considering rather than just believing the leader or most popular person on the forum.
Finally, sometimes ask for more explanations and keep in mind that the science of the day may be proven wrong tomorrow, that is why I reread and re-research my aquarium information articles on a regular basis, and believe me I have had to correct myself many times!
Reference: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Information.html

Recommended Forum:
Everything Aquatic Aquarium Forum

OTHER RECOMMENDED INFORMATION WEBSITES:
*For a library of "Aquarium Answers"
http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/

*For Aquarium Chemistry (GH, pH, KH):
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumKH.html

*For the BEST Aquarium Lighting Information ANYWHERE:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html

*For Aquarium Filter Information: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Filtration.html

Copyright; Carl S

Google Adsense Dishonesty, corruption in Adwords content

For a newer more relevant post in this subject, please see this article/blog post:
Google Dishonesty, Plagiarism, with Adsense, Adwords, & More

I have never seen good results with our Adwords content ads and as I have investigated and searched the Google network I know why, the content they (Google) placed these ads on is very poor.
I have found ads for Shell wind Chimes on blogs with nothing more than some alluding to wind in their blog. But the worst part is quality sites such as my own (I know this from VERY positive feedback) are turned down for Adsense ads.

My website has a lot of content, good PR and has been around a while. Apparently Google figures there is a better chance of clicks on these sites as frustrated readers are looking for more than someone’s life editorial, which is why my 'clicks' are high but conversions are almost nil.

This is business corruption at its worst and quite frankly if it were not for the fact that Google is the 800 lb. Gorilla where by I must be present with adwords to be noticed in searches.
I would not advertise here at all, and at that I try and keep my advertising budget to the bare minimums with Google based on Google' business practices and place more ads elsewhere where there are more business morals in place.

But then I have also had to face the fact that my Adwords search ads do have better exposure. I also should note that even where my organic listing are high such as with my Aquarium Lighting Information, UV Bulbs, or Aquarium Silicone page, the Adwords listing also tends to boost my conversion there too. Reference Links:
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/UVCReplacementLamp.html
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumSilicone.html

What bothers me too, is that with so much corruption in business (and other aspects of life, from Religion to Government), is that nobody gives a #@1# about Google's business moral, or lack there of.
In another blog I commented about the fact that Google has gone to one extreme of business management (as many business treat there employees like dirt), they tend to treat their employees as royalty to a point that they look down on anyone who questions anything about the "great and mighty Google" when I have tried to fix things from Google Adwords, to Blogger, to Google CheckOut, to the most corrupt bunch at Google; ADSENSE.

By the way I think the ideas behind many of the before mentioned Google products are good, especially Blogger and Google CheckOut, it is just how Google handles them and treats customers.

In this comment I made, someone came to the defense of Adsense claiming how many little people have made a living or at least part time revenue from Adsense.

My answer; so what!!
What about businesses such as mine that have been ripped off in the content network and also have had Adsense accounts taken from them (including pending earnings) after Adsense disabled their account when someone got bored somewhere and decided to go on a clicking frenzy?

Google has the technology to detect these fraudulent clicks computer addresses and remove them and needs not do the heavy handed disabling of a legitimate business, which of course Google Profits from.
I guarantee you if someone went crazy and started clicking a high PR pet site of Googles such as http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/, Google would NEVER disable this account (which I can bet delivers a lot of revenue to Google Adsense).

Also I have had many of my Aquarium research articles ripped off by others only to display Google Adwords and these plagiarized articles ONLY place high in Google Search, not MSN or Yahoo (go figure, huh) which spot these rip offs much better than Google.

I could go on more about the many lies as to link relevance an other aspects of Googles search engine which are all directed at maximizing profit at ALL costs, no matter how dishonest the results.
I will someday post more about this subject.

This post was found at this blog: "Aaron Swartz; sociologist in exile". His blog "Raw Thought" has some interesting reading and comments, not many I agree with but they are worth while to see other points of view.

The post I found eye opening was "The Google Life": how Google keeps employees by treating them like kids"


Copyright 2009 Carl Strohmeyer

The latest aquatic forum I joined, this one has great people!
http://www.everything-aquatic.com/