"Don Geddis" wrote in message ...
"Pszemol" wrote on Fri, 28 Sep 2007:
I think I have explained already why anemones are CONSIDERED difficult
and fish easy. Fish are simply similar to cats and cows, anemones are not.

I didn't get that from what you wrote. I thought you said that anemones are
difficult because they live in such a different "non-terrestrial" environment.
So they are very unlike cats and cows, because you have to care about things
like salinty, lighting, etc. that don't matter for cats and cows.

And my comment was that clownfish are much easier than anemones, but at the
same time also live in the ocean.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that if you had three folks keeping three
different kinds of pets:
1. cat and/or cow
2. clownfish
3. sea anemone
That you think #1 and #2 would have more in common with their pet care than
#2 and #3 would? That's just bizarre.

Yes, that is perfecty exact what I am trying to tell you.
It is easy to tell when a fish does not feel good.
It is easy to tell where a fish eats and were it poops.
It is easy to tell if a fish is eating or not eating.
It is easy to tell where a fish has head and were it has a tail.
It is easy to tell when a fish is alive and when a fish is dead.

All these things are easy for anybody who has ever observed vertebrate animals.

All these things are not that obvious when you have to judge sea anemones
or almost all invertebrate species not found around us on land.

If you only have experience taking care of a cow, how much do you have to
learn to also take care of a clownfish? You think it's close?

Not much! You will ask the questions what it eats and what to do with
manure clownfish produces and you will be almost good to go :-)
To take a good care about sea anemone you need to learn far more.

Meanwhile, if you've successfully raised clownfish before, how much extra do
you need to know in order to add a sea anemone? You somehow think that's a
huge step?

Yes, this is what I think. Anemones are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
animals in their biology functions than any vertebrate animal...

I can see what you wrote, but it doesn't make any sense.

Ask more questions and I am sure eventually we understand each other :-)

I think you are wrong in an assumption that a person who never had a marine
fish tank is a kind of moron who cannot read and learn.

Not at all. I think it's helpful to proceed with easier, more robust steps
first, instead of jumping right to the most difficult cases.

Terms "easier" or "more robust" animals are fake terms to mascarade
aquarists lack of understanding particular animal biology and not knowing
how to care about them. The first step to know if animal is easy to care
or difficult you need to know WHAT IS REQUIRED TO PROPERLY CARE
for the given animal. Terms "easy" or "difficult" without explaining why
it is easy are not telling you much about what is required in carying for
a given animal. Taking care for an animal you have no knowledge about
is difficult whatever an animal is. It would be quite difficult to care for
cats or cows if you did not know what cats or cows eat or drink, agree?

I am sure that any intelligent person will have no issues with sea anemones
after reading a good book about them. A book will give you good
understaning about their biology, their needs in life and you will be ready
to keep anemone with no experience.

Really? With zero experience, you don't expect a first-time sal****er keeper
to ever make a mistake? Say, with acclimation of new livestock? Or having a
battery backup in case of power failure? Or putting a drip loop on every
piece of electrical equipment to avoid an accidential short in case of water
spillage? How often you must (vs. can) do water changes? How much water to
change?

All these things are talked about in every good book.
It is enough to read the book and you will know what to do.
You do not need experience to make drip loops on electrical equipment
or acclimate new livestock. It is easy to do with no experience at all.
What difficult you see in these simple functions?

If we talk about mistakes - everybody makes them.
We are just humans and we make mistakes.
The biggest mistake one can make in taking care for an aquarium
is to buy an animal you do not know how to properly take care of.

You somehow think that all this bitter experience just comes as second nature
to anyone who can bother to read a book?

You're really underestimating the value of practice, and of starting with some
easy tasks before jumping into the expensive and delicate ones.

Practice without knowledge is simply unnecessary reinventing the wheel.
First you LEARN to gain knowledge and then you improve it collecting
experience. Aproaching a bizare animal from a ocean like an anemone
without reading a book first is simply crazy and no experience can
substitute reading a good book.

Anemones are just very different animals than these we are used to in our
terrestial lives.

But clownfish are not very different from those we are used to in our
terrestrial lives?

Do you know what the word "terrestrial" means? Why did you write that word?

If you still do not know what I have ment than I can explain again...
But I am sure that at this point you know what I said.

But clownfish are vertebrate animals, very similar in their needs
to other vertebrates we see in our lives (see: cows and cats example).

That's just bizarre. I would challenge you to find anybody else on this
newsgroup who thinks that keeping a clownfish is more similar to taking
care of a cow, than taking care of a sea anemone.

Open your eyes and try to find vast difference in body structure of these
animals, their behaviour, etc... Try to think of similarities between
different kinds of vertebrate animals and differencies between
vertebrate and sea anemones. If you do not see much differences
than you are probably not ready to take care about an anemone...

I know how to keep a healthy sea anemone. I still wouldn't recommend it to
a brand new first-time reefkeeper. And you shouldn't either.

You seem to be very confused, my friend...
You are not in the position to tell me what I should or should not do.

Well of course you can keep posting your bad advice. I can't stop you.

Perhaps I should have written it like this: recommending that a brand-new
first-time reefkeeper start with an expensive, delicate sea anemone as one of
his first livestock purchases, is bad advice. It is bad advice whether I give
the advice, or whether Pszemol does. And it would be a bad idea for any such
new reefkeeper to follow such advice, regardless of who gives it.

Does that help? Obviously I'm not in a "position" to tell you what to do.

But recommending that a new aquarist start with a sea anemone is still bad
advice.

Who said here that an anemone should be the first thing he should buy?

Single clownfish in a tank with other bigger fish will be stressed.

I don't believe you. Proof?

Of course, any small fish will be stressed in a tank with bigger aggressive
fish. But I don't think there's anything special about clowns that requires
them in groups. Any more than any other fish which is usually found in
groups in nature.

Well... maybe you need to educate yourself a little more about clownfish :-)

I know a lot about clownfish. Don't make the mistake to believe that you're
talking to someone uneducated.

I challenge you again: please back up your assertion that having a single
clownfish in a tank will cause that clownfish to be stressed. Can you offer
ANY evidence that this is true?

Think of some reasons why clownfish are not seen in the nature alone,
without an anemone, and you will find the evidence you are looking for.

Meanwhile, I've seen lots and lots of tanks (e.g. nano tanks) that have
single clownfish, who appear to thrive just fine.

Nano tanks are just exception, because single clownfish is usually also
a single fish in the tank, so it has no larger fish in the tank to be affraid of...
But even in such situation single clownfish looks odd, confused and
without a purpose in life as opposite to a mated pair kept together.