What do you think about a Reefing Mentor? Could it work? Would you mentor or be mentored?

mitch91175 · Nov 28, 2019

Suesea said:
I gave up on acros. Sponges and elegance, gorgonians , zoas are doing well for me. My sponges are huge now. Don't ask me what I'm doing right

I'd first think that the reason your sponges, elegance, gorgonians, and zoas are doing well because you have higher nutrients and most SPS don't like nutrients being too high.

Suesea · Nov 30, 2019

mitch91175 said:
I'd first think that the reason your sponges, elegance, gorgonians, and zoas are doing well because you have higher nutrients and most SPS don't like nutrients being too high.

Thanks I definitely think you're right. I find it hard to lower them. Even with regular water changes. Oh well it's better I don't have them then unnecessarily kill the poor things.

Zos4me · Nov 30, 2019

Arent we all mentors in some respect. we share info back and forth and help each other. some are more experienced and share with the less but we all gain knowledge from people in this community

Eva Rose · Nov 30, 2019

Great idea. I would be mentored.

AlyciaMarie · Wednesday at 10:26 AM

I would be a mentee in need of a mentor... I'm taking volunteers!

MnFish1 · Wednesday at 4:30 PM

AlyciaMarie said:
I would be a mentee in need of a mentor... I'm taking volunteers!

You can go one of a couple ways - one is to pick someone here who is knowledgable - and wants to be a mentor (and do it online) - the second would be to search for someone (also knowledgeable) - in your own area - like a trusted LFS, reefer, etc. IMHO - you're still getting one opinion - i.e. I think posting questions, etc here is almost as good if not better.

MnFish1 · Wednesday at 4:32 PM

I would be happy to be a mentor, but - I checked other, because I'm not sure it would work. In reality - I guess I think at some point an individual learns by doing, succeeding, and failing. However, there are LOTS of expert people with a lot of experience out there that would probably be helpful

Extremeengineer · Wednesday at 4:39 PM

I guess my perspective is that this site is, in many ways, a collective mentoring site. There are many here who have been involved in the hobby for a great number of years, and thus have learned through their own experiences, failures, and knowledge they have gleaned from this and other community resources i.e. lfs (there are some good ones), clubs, other web sites, etc. They freely share their knowledge, and in fact I believe form a mentorship that would be difficult to equal, as one does not get the knowledge of a single mentor here, but rather a community mentorship with individual nuances coming through from many minds to collectively exceed what any one contributor could accomplish alone.

robanister · Wednesday at 4:47 PM

Brew12 said:
I think the biggest issue is finding the right mentor for an individual. Some people may have the knowledge to mentor a wide variety of reefing styles but others may only be able to share "what works for me". It's complicated even more by how diverse systems are in both biology and equipment. Someone with black box LED's may not make a good mentor to someone with Hydra's. Someone with an algae turf scrubber may not make a good mentor for someone running a refugium. A person who keeps wrasses may not make a good mentor for someone who wants a tank full of tangs.

The mentor finds you. I have mentored both seasoned and new reefers. Teach don't preach!