There's also the issue of information changing so people need to keep abreast of the new thinking. People come across a lot of information that is out dated. Back in the day when I first started trying to keep plants books and magazines were your source of information. Very few LFS knew anything about plants and in most cases the plants they sold were semi-aquatic because they looked nice and just dissolved once put in the tank.
I still have these books and use them more for plant ID. Often when reading them it amazes me how much the thinking has changed. Very high light, slow water movement and avoiding nitrate and phosphate like the plague. This gets repeated over and over again. This bad information carries on today with a lot of commercial products which keep the myth going of nitrate & phos causing algae issues. It's a good job forums like this are available to dispel these myths.
My first success was using a Dennerle system. I had no idea what or why I was adding. Yellow capsule on day 15, brown tablet day 30 this on that day etc. It has to be said it was the first successful planted I had but very expensive to set up and run. I used dennerle soil substrate with under gravel heater, 125watt mercury vapour bulb and the myriad of chemicals that went with it and the plants were pushing the glass covers off the tank.
These forums have broke down and explained the processes that were going on in the tank in a way you can understand (sometimes 🙄 ) and provided links to how you can do that without to much expense. That takes the hobby in the realms of most peoples budgets and is great news for the longevity of the hobby. If it wasn't for this information I would be sitting looking at a tank full of malawis and rocks right now and worrying about how to get rid of the nitrate and phosphate by spending a fortune on specialist resins based on a test kit result that was lieing to me 🙂
