the aquarium groups on fb are still very active! maybe its just the concept of forums which is slowly becoming obsolete
Hi hobbyists
Just wondering if there is now less people into aquascaping as compared to 10 or 15 years ago? Back when i started in 2003 or so, this forum used to be super active. I myself have taken a long break from planted tank.
Just wondering from the low activities in the planted tank threads, has the medium of communication changed? Fb? Any other platform.
Cheers
the aquarium groups on fb are still very active! maybe its just the concept of forums which is slowly becoming obsolete
I wouldn't say it is becoming obsolete so much as the information architecture of the internet changing over time. Not a good thing, in my opinion - everything is becoming commercially-oriented.
Facebook hosts stuff for free, makes it "easy" for people to organize communities, etc. But you lose quite a lot of control over lots of things. Sort of like Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message" kind of thing. One example are "repeat questions" - on forums you have people teaching others how to use the search function, you have FAQs, you have people linking to older posts - this doesn't happen on Facebook - what you usually get on FB are low-quality one-liner answers. Is this because of info architecture? People only have so much screen space. The dialogue box to reply is only so tiny. Maybe people are subtly cued to give lower-quality answers? Maybe people refuse to read long-form answers on FB? Maybe our entire information landscape becomes a bit lo-fi if we let FB shape too much of it?
I will venture to add that forums existed before facebook/whatsapps/social media.
Last time people use the forums as a platform to interact and not just to gather
information.
Now with social media, the first need is easily met and information gathering could
also be obtained from facebook and youtube (which did not exist before).
I agree with boofeng, information from forums are actually more dense compared to
facebook. Aquaticquotient forums holds a quite a repo of useful knowlege. Doing
a search in google on scaping stuff will normally display this forum in the first few
top links.
Indeed I found information on this forum most useful.
Getting advice and reading up were what most the beginners hobbyists needed.
Will be scanning for new posts daily.
Have a great day
Hey bro. I started around the same time 2003 and recently got back into the hobby and came in here. But was a little disappointed that it's not as 'hot' as before. A lot of fun then. What is more interesting is some of the LFS are still around! And same owners. That was pretty heartening.
i notice too...
actually those local Facebook aquarium groups also not as active as before
always the same people who do the postings.... sometimes got quarrels too
even the bi-annually Aquarama also shifted to China liao?
Here you cannot quarrel. Or else.. hehe...
Yes, Aquarama is sold to China
Planted tanks has evolved over time. Now Roger is top guy in Singapore aquascaping scene correct?
colin | The Wilderness and Forest | FTS
You can quarrel here. I've done it on 2 occasions, LJohn and Josephine Wang.
The platform may have shifted to FB, but most post I see is Alan Chow doing his daily routine/ deliveries. He will post things like, "today weather", scenes on MRT, "where nearby have good food near LFS", clementi 328 = what's the current crowd. Which LFS got pretty girl etc etc. The quality of comments on those forums of course very low, if compared to Planted Tank forum or UKaps. Tom dick or harry can give all sorts of advice there. Can't differentiate between someone who know their stuff or newbies blind mouse.
There is not much real discussions, sharing of tanks and scapes. How to regulate CO2, dosing, trimming, plant behaviour, etc etc. Things that matters.
Yup, Roger is the leading man, at least Top 10 in IAPLC competitions. But then again, he has a team of photographers help him Photoshop/ shoot his tanks. He has designers. His warehouse at Jalan Senang is family owned. He drives a Audi R8. Success begates success. Roger is a classic example.
But whether local aquascaping scene is making money, then maybe no. Our climate uniquely hot and humid. Use fan on your tanks to cool the water, and you will raise humidity, which will make 32°C, feel like 38°C in the living room. Add a chiller to cool the tank to 26°C, and the output heat will warm the living room to 35°C.... it's a vicious cycle. If someone came to me asking me to invest 250k in his/her LFS, I will bluntly say no.
I also noticed not many people buy the standard 3 feet tank. Most keep nano tanks. And we all know that nano tanks' parameters cannot be kept stable.
Last edited by torque6; 31st Jul 2019 at 14:17.
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