o2manyfish
Valuable Member
I was trying to think of things that are actually "Mastered" to wit someone could be a Master of. If you Master something you should be able to predict all the possible outcomes, account, and adjust so that you always get the results you intended.
Golfing Masters... Nope. What Golfer can make the same shot over and over again, or shoot the same course with same score over and over again. They are skilled but they haven't mastered it.
Someone Tightrope walking between 2 buildings on a lil steel cable. They do it over and over again....that's someone that has mastered a skill.
Chess Masters -- Yep I'll give it to some of them.
From my perspective Formula 1 drivers are Masters. These guys jump into a car with a 1000 hp. Every weekend they go around a different course in a different country. And when it comes time to qualify those drivers can drive 2.5 miles around 19 turns at up to 215mph. And each time they do a lap they are within 100ths of a second of the previous one. And when you look a field of 20 drivers, in 20 different cars, and the top 10 all went 2.5 miles and did it within a 10th of a second of each other (over and over and over)... Those guys are masters. Try walking in a straight line from one end of your room to the other with a stop watch and see what it takes to do repeat waking across the room and cross the distance each time within a 10th of a second of the last time you walked across the room.....
Mastering a Reef... There are so many factors that you have to be able to acknowledge and adjust for... Can you ever possibly master it? Build 2 identical Reef tanks, Mount 25 identical corals, duplicate every single variable on the two tanks. Are you going to end up with 2 reef tanks that look the same? At the end of 12,24,36,60, 72 months will both tanks have the same inventory of 25 corals in it? Are Coral A1 in tank 1 and Coral A2 in tank 2 going to have the same growth, color, weight - when all conditions were identical.
NOPE.
Our hobby is a living thing. It would be impossible to Master something that is literally always evolving and changing. So many factors quickly alter the direction of parameters within an enclosed environment - And noboby can predict what they are and in what combination they can occur.
You can do your best... But alas.... There is always the next failure or loss at which time you learn something and adjust your situation so that doesn't happen again.
If you are well experienced in this Hobby, and well educated and read.... Who would believe is a Master?
Would it be Sanjay Yoshi, Julian Sprung, Mike Paletta, Andrew Polo Reef, David Saxby.... These are all great reefers and aquarists. But it's not hard to search online and read about the different issues everyone of them has experienced in the hobby.
Andrew of Polo Reef is a great example. Andrew has the means and resources to gather the best people in multiple fields of the hobby and have them collaborate together to maintain his Reef Museum (Museum seems appropriate for the various one of a kind things he has under his care). And Andrew / POLO Reef has an amazing team that shares the journey with Social Media and other outlets. And you know Polo Reef (as a team not a person) is always learning new things, developing new skills, adjusting their procedures to get better and better outcomes for their livestock. Are they Masters, Is there an overall Master... I don't think there can be because they are always having to learn about something new.
Anyone that reads this and thinks I'm throwing shade on any of these people, or disrespecting their experience, knowledge and success - I'm not. Because with most of these people, in person we have talked about our failures and challenges in this hobby face to face and multiple times over the decades we have known each other. (Okay I don't like Saxby so I am throwing shade on him! - But I spent hours sitting across from him on multiple occassions, listening to his bamboozeld ramblings and I don't like him).
Some people are really good at keeping corals and fish alive and healthy. But when you meet someone that says they've never lost a fish or a coral since they started the hobby....That person is not a master. That's someone who hasn't been in the hobby long enough to get salt creep around the edges of their tank.
We shoud all strive to be the best we can for the health of our livestock, but a living thing I don't is something any of us will ever be able to Master.
Just the ramblings and biased opinions of an old reefer who has had many successes over the decades and many heart breaking failures.
Dave B
Golfing Masters... Nope. What Golfer can make the same shot over and over again, or shoot the same course with same score over and over again. They are skilled but they haven't mastered it.
Someone Tightrope walking between 2 buildings on a lil steel cable. They do it over and over again....that's someone that has mastered a skill.
Chess Masters -- Yep I'll give it to some of them.
From my perspective Formula 1 drivers are Masters. These guys jump into a car with a 1000 hp. Every weekend they go around a different course in a different country. And when it comes time to qualify those drivers can drive 2.5 miles around 19 turns at up to 215mph. And each time they do a lap they are within 100ths of a second of the previous one. And when you look a field of 20 drivers, in 20 different cars, and the top 10 all went 2.5 miles and did it within a 10th of a second of each other (over and over and over)... Those guys are masters. Try walking in a straight line from one end of your room to the other with a stop watch and see what it takes to do repeat waking across the room and cross the distance each time within a 10th of a second of the last time you walked across the room.....
Mastering a Reef... There are so many factors that you have to be able to acknowledge and adjust for... Can you ever possibly master it? Build 2 identical Reef tanks, Mount 25 identical corals, duplicate every single variable on the two tanks. Are you going to end up with 2 reef tanks that look the same? At the end of 12,24,36,60, 72 months will both tanks have the same inventory of 25 corals in it? Are Coral A1 in tank 1 and Coral A2 in tank 2 going to have the same growth, color, weight - when all conditions were identical.
NOPE.
Our hobby is a living thing. It would be impossible to Master something that is literally always evolving and changing. So many factors quickly alter the direction of parameters within an enclosed environment - And noboby can predict what they are and in what combination they can occur.
You can do your best... But alas.... There is always the next failure or loss at which time you learn something and adjust your situation so that doesn't happen again.
If you are well experienced in this Hobby, and well educated and read.... Who would believe is a Master?
Would it be Sanjay Yoshi, Julian Sprung, Mike Paletta, Andrew Polo Reef, David Saxby.... These are all great reefers and aquarists. But it's not hard to search online and read about the different issues everyone of them has experienced in the hobby.
Andrew of Polo Reef is a great example. Andrew has the means and resources to gather the best people in multiple fields of the hobby and have them collaborate together to maintain his Reef Museum (Museum seems appropriate for the various one of a kind things he has under his care). And Andrew / POLO Reef has an amazing team that shares the journey with Social Media and other outlets. And you know Polo Reef (as a team not a person) is always learning new things, developing new skills, adjusting their procedures to get better and better outcomes for their livestock. Are they Masters, Is there an overall Master... I don't think there can be because they are always having to learn about something new.
Anyone that reads this and thinks I'm throwing shade on any of these people, or disrespecting their experience, knowledge and success - I'm not. Because with most of these people, in person we have talked about our failures and challenges in this hobby face to face and multiple times over the decades we have known each other. (Okay I don't like Saxby so I am throwing shade on him! - But I spent hours sitting across from him on multiple occassions, listening to his bamboozeld ramblings and I don't like him).
Some people are really good at keeping corals and fish alive and healthy. But when you meet someone that says they've never lost a fish or a coral since they started the hobby....That person is not a master. That's someone who hasn't been in the hobby long enough to get salt creep around the edges of their tank.
We shoud all strive to be the best we can for the health of our livestock, but a living thing I don't is something any of us will ever be able to Master.
Just the ramblings and biased opinions of an old reefer who has had many successes over the decades and many heart breaking failures.
Dave B
