Why not have a Consumers Report for our hobby?

There are a lot of difficulties in setting a reviewing system for this hobby, mainly being cost. If you have enough readers you might be able to get equipment for review for free, but in order to get readers you need to have something for them read. It would probably require a decent initial investment to get a reviewing magazine or website up for this hobby and it would be difficult to get any return given the small scale of active readers.

A user based review system could be done, but generally most reviews written on the internet by the average consumer are not very in depth and usually overly gratifying in attempt to justify their purchase.
 
Not to mention, trying to stay away from subjective review. I totally side with wrestle1952.

Ohhh ASM skimmers are bad, Reef Octopus are the best, no, Euroreef are the absoulte best, no, wait, Deltec are the best of all but hey, those are overpriced, ASM are made of cheap plastic, Euroreef uses acrylic ... WHO CARES!!! LOL!!!

Lightning is even more controversial, the T5 zealots versus the Halide crusaders... Oh God, and the water pumps...

I love this site but there is a lot of people saying crazy things about their equipment.

I read once about a guy that bought an ASM G-2 and wasn't producing skimmate, and a lot of people jumped saying the skimmer was a piece of crap, and the solution was to replace it with Brand-X. And another bunch jumped to say it was because the skimmer wasn't modded. I personally own a G-3 that has been running solid for 3 years with no mods whatsoever.

Consumer Reports gathers impartial data and writes an opinion leaving their personal feelings behind. Can Reef Central users do the same? Some may, but do they have the resources to buy 5 or 6 skimmers and test them all on the same system at the same time? Definitely not. Even if you find somebody, 10 fundamentalists will jump the trigger calling shenanigans.
 
This is actually something of a great idea. It is, though, a business idea. If someone were willing to organize the information, standardize testing and customer reviews, etc., they would be able to market that information to the benefit of themselves and the community (and garner advertising to compensate for their time). As a labor of love, its a lot of work. The problems people point out are real and have to be addressed, but none of them are impossible to get by. Consumer Report itself has learned a lot about dealing with the variables and making the volume of information manageable.

Be innovative, be productive, make money. Its the American way, get to it!
 
We already have a product review section that no one uses and while I think that this is a good idea, in the end it will get as much use as the current product review section.
 
Getting word out about that existing review section would be a good start. I mean if I didn't know it was there, I'm sure there are multitudes who aren't aware of it either.
I've not seen anything on RC here that directs people there for reviewing.
Did anyone else besides Sana know it was there? :-)
that section is exactly what I was suggesting. It'd be a shame to let that section waste away. Don't you all think so?
 
Lily,
Of all the people on here MichaelLitoris get's it. Yes, RC has a review section but it is a one product review. Consumer Reports takes a group of let's say 5 cars in the same class and tests them agains each other. They don't take one car, test it one day then a month later test another and do a comparison. I would like to see independent testing done on MH bulbs equal wattage, equal kelvin rating, equal type (se vs. de) in ONE review not multiple. People like you or I could then make an objective choice on a bulb based on objective data rather than the subjective opinions of a single user. A classic example: I bought a couple of 20K DE bulbs on Ebay and posted on here. I got a bunch of replies stating the bulbs were no good , they would burn out in three months, my corals would lose color, etc. Look at my tank in my gallery. It is doing fine and my caps are now experiencing a near out of control growth and color rate where I had to do some serious fragging yesterday. Consumer Reports does take off brands and test them against "name brands" all the time. Way to go Michael you get it!!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15619099#post15619099 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wrestle1952
Lily,
Of all the people on here MichaelLitoris get's it. Yes, RC has a review section but it is a one product review. Consumer Reports takes a group of let's say 5 cars in the same class and tests them agains each other. They don't take one car, test it one day then a month later test another and do a comparison. I would like to see independent testing done on MH bulbs equal wattage, equal kelvin rating, equal type (se vs. de) in ONE review not multiple. People like you or I could then make an objective choice on a bulb based on objective data rather than the subjective opinions of a single user. A classic example: I bought a couple of 20K DE bulbs on Ebay and posted on here. I got a bunch of replies stating the bulbs were no good , they would burn out in three months, my corals would lose color, etc. Look at my tank in my gallery. It is doing fine and my caps are now experiencing a near out of control growth and color rate where I had to do some serious fragging yesterday. Consumer Reports does take off brands and test them against "name brands" all the time. Way to go Michael you get it!!
Click to expand...

Good point. Off brands tested against name brands. Absolutely. Then there would at least be an answer to the "why". Why isn't it as good, or "why" wouldn't my current equipment work. If that were the case in the review that is.
Conversely there would be a place for those against a particular bulb to point to, to back up why they feel it's not going to work.
Yep. *nods head*
 
Problem is all the variables, and some of them are impossible/impractical to measure.

Even with something as "simple" as lighting it will completely depend on your cooling system, depth & width & length of tank, the coral types & their placement, personal color preference, height above the tank, etc.

Many of those variables are very difficult to control, and if you do then you limit the applicability of the results. Say you only look at how T5 light fixture type A compares to MH light fixture type B. PAR and other metrics are useful, but also cryptic in that they're hard for most people to understand how they correlate to tank health. You've got to see how it works for growing corals to really get a useful metric that everyone can understand.

So you pick a coral type to test with, say ricordea yuma (just for arguement) and the MH are too much light and harm the Rics. Does that mean that the results are the same/valid for acropora?
 
TP123, I don't know how many people reading this have even looked at Consumers Report. They test like products against other like products. You bring up T5 v MH. In many ways that is comparing apples to oranges. What CD does is take cars, cameras, TVs, computers of the same class and make comparisons. For example they compare a Toyota Corolla with a Honda Civic, Mazda 3, Nissan Sentra, etc. They do not compare the Corolla with a Lexus 430. What they would do in your case is compare T5 fixtures with other T5 fixtures, MH bulbs of the same wattage and style (DE vs. SE) so on and so forth. That way people that want MH would get information and make their own decision (Phoenix 20k SE vs XM, Radium etc). They could make up their own mind on which SE MH bulb will work best for them. The ame with skimmers they would not compare a HOB with a sump model. Think of it as comparing clothing. You wouldn't compare a suit against medical scrubs. The scrubs serve there purpose in a medical or scientific workplace. The suit is worn for business applications, night on the town, weddings. etc.
 
Hmm, as TP123 stated above, it doesn't seem that cut and dried to me. I see somethings that unbiased consumer report type may not be able to provide the user the data were the same as CR;

Unbiased consumer report type scenario #1: Person X is looking for a green 4-door, with low gas mileage, under $10,000. Person knows what a car is, has driven a car before, and has their driver's license. The report they find contains information on highway mileage and heavy traffic type mileage. They may decide to test drive one, or not. When they buy the car, they will be able to drive it immediately, without adding anything to it, besides gas. The user probably doesn't know how to replace the broken tail light which goes out eventually, but the car will still run, and he can always take it to have the coil replaced.

Unbiased consumer report type scenario #2: New reefkeeper X wants to know which bulb will work best for their new tank. Reefkeeper X bought some softies from his lfs, and isn't aware yet of the various types of corals, i.e. LPS, SPS, non-photosynthetic, softies, etc.
He or she look in the CR. He or she doesn't know the differences between 20k and 10k bulbs. In fact reefkeeper X doesn't know what PAR is.
Reefkeeper X is also not aware that there are single ended bulbs and double ended bulbs.

What i'm trying to say is that in my mind the reefkeeper would still wind up posting on a place like here on RC to ask "which bulb should i use for my tank?"
Contrary to the car scenario, if he or she purchases and uses the "wrong" bulb, they're not going to have a successful reef.
You know?
 
Abril,
Yes i see your point. However, it would take a lot of the guesswork out of like products. If you were going to purchase a large skimmer for the first time and asked what is the best one you would get a multitude of answers mostly from people using the SINGLE product. They might not have used another that may be cheaper and better. An unbiased testing agency would take the guesswork out of things.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15626101#post15626101 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wrestle1952
Abril,
Yes i see your point. However, it would take a lot of the guesswork out of like products. If you were going to purchase a large skimmer for the first time and asked what is the best one you would get a multitude of answers mostly from people using the SINGLE product. They might not have used another that may be cheaper and better. An unbiased testing agency would take the guesswork out of things.
Click to expand...
I agree. In my opinion, or rather from what i've observed here on rc, it is a challenge for the sometimes cheaper alternative (which may and can work for a reefkeeper), to get the equal amount of attention as the oft suggested brands.
I feel the same way about the various reefkeeping technologies or methodologies. That which works, vs. that which is best, vs. that which is more current, is often a bone of contention here...but i digress.
Yes, i also feel that what you refer to in the quote above needs to be fixed, attended to. Bridging the gaps is always a good thing, imo.
 
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Yes, i see that you're right about that. I'm wondering if that is because people that are newer to RC like myself have a general lack of awareness that the review section exists here. It may be a situation where this is explained somewhere, but we failed to see/read it.
Or, it may be a section which the owners wish to re-established once software maintenance and updates here are complete. I guess each of those scenarios are possible.

I do wish to help in my own small way, and so i think what i'll do when i have gained some experience maintaining a reef for a year or more, is to try to answer any equipment or methodology questions i can, and list my suggestions to the poster in this way:
1. Cheapest (most cost effective), has worked for some. Maybe i'd also include here X amount of time it was worked for me, if it were something i had owned for longer than a year or whatever=brand X
2. Proported by many to be the best performer, though it is more costly=Brand C (and is this because of a higher up front cost, but a higher return on investment?)
3. Most current (in trend or technology), and perhaps is more energy efficient=Brand T

Or something very similar. :-)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15622725#post15622725 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by IridescentLily
Good point. Off brands tested against name brands. Absolutely. Then there would at least be an answer to the "why". Why isn't it as good, or "why" wouldn't my current equipment work. If that were the case in the review that is.
Click to expand...


This will NEVER HAPPEN here.

Why not? Because the RC sponsors would pull out en masse...

Why? Because the "Off brands tested against name brands" testing would show that - in about 95% of the equipment tested - the "offbrand" will give you 90 to 95% of the performance of the "name brand" for 3/4, 1/2, or even 1/4 the cost!

All the "name brand" sponsors would vanish - along with their ad $$$

RC would go belly-up within 3 months.

So, it will never happen.
 
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