Frustrating advice for newcomers to the fish world

[itiwhetu]

The absolutely most frustrating is contradicting advice on compatibility. For instance, bettas can be housed with blah, blah. Fish X is only aggressive during breeding season, and so on. Newbies often don’t know what to believe.
The second most confounding is super in depthq explanations that seem like a lecture from a college class of advanced chemistry. I was a foreign language major, not chemistry. Simple explanations, even with diagrams, for visual learners would be very helpful.
Thanks.

The problem with this hobby is that it is not an exact science, what works in one tank doesn't necessarily mean it will work in another. The best anyone here can do is have a guess at what might be going on. And for the members who are new to the hobby, the best you can do is latch on to a couple of people that sort of make sense.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yep. I get the same thing in the primitive archery community. Ask three different people and get three different, often seemingly conflicting, answers.

There is often more than one way, sometimes many ways, to do something. Throw in live animals with their own personalities and this is doubly true. The old "can I keep female bettas with other fish" question is a classic example. It's the reason a lot of people don't like sites like AqAdvisor: They can't possibly take into account every possible variable.

The only universal answer to some questions is, "It depends..."