Some Fish Best Left Alone

[SchizotypalVamp]

I would honestly support having to have an easy to get permit for fishes 15 inches and up(so as not to include oscars, though how many oscars are bought for 10 gallons?). Anyone truly passionate about the hobby who spends the money on those sorts of setups would see it as a little side annoyance to do, and it would prevent kids from buying monsters unless authorized by their parents. There are far more fish out there that die horrible deaths than are taken care of properly in that size category.

 

[wataugachicken]

i can see both sides of the issue. BOTH parties need to take responsibility. People should research what they are buying first - the biggest problem is that many people new to the hobby rely on fish store employees as their source of information. and why not? the person i buy a car from is supposed to be an expert about the car, and able to answer any question i may have about it. the person i buy a dishwasher or fridge from is supposed to know the specifications and good/bad points of the appliance. now, if i go to buy a computer and the salesperson doesn't know anything about it, then i will go and do my own research. however, a HUGE problem with doing this at a fish store is that the employees are uninformed and make stuff up, or are misinformed and pass on bad info (that in most cases they don't even know is wrong). they often won't just say, "i don't know", they will just tell the customer whatever they want to hear.

fish stores and their employees should be accurately informed about the products and livestock they sell, and if they lie to a customer or mislead them, they should be held accountable for it. there is a reasonable expectation on the part of the customer that a sales employee is trained and knowledgeable about the products they specialize in selling. used cars dealers notwithstanding, there is also an expectation that they will be honest.

as far as the customer - buyer beware, of course. you should do your own research, but the problem is that many times new people don't know there IS anything to research. you get a dog, you get it some shots (the vet tells you which ones because they are the experts), you buy it some kibble, and you walk it a couple times a day. if the dog gets sick, or mean, or starts peeing on your dirty laundry, THEN you might start looking for help. only at that time, when forced beyond your boundaries of knowledge, do you find out how much more there is to know.

You buy a fish, stick it in a tank, buy an algae-eater to clean up, give it a pinch of flakes twice a day. it only grows to the size of the tank, and the filter keeps the water clean. It will only grow as big as the space it has, and they only live a couple years anyway.
Until someone tells you any different, this is what it is to keep fish.

This is how I started. my family had fish before when i was little, and they didn't do anything special. I had a 10g tank, a filter, a bubbler, gravel, plastic plants, and a handful of guppies. When the water level dropped an inch or so, I added a pitcher of water. Every couple months, I took all the fish out, put them in a bowl, emptied the tank, and rinsed everything (including the filthy disgusting gravel) in tap water until it was clean. Then i put it back together and put the fish back in. And you know what? I kept all those guppies for 8 months until they were wiped out by columnaris in less than 24 hours.

Who did I rely on for help? The fish store people. I never heard anything about cycling, water changes, stocking levels, nitrates. Just set up the tank, throw these zebra danios in there for a couple weeks, and then bring them back and we'll sell you your "real" fish. These are also the people that sold me a goldfish for my 6g tank - because i wanted to grow plants in it, so i needed a messy fish that would poop a lot and fertilize the tank for me. Until I realized that things were going wrong, I had no reason not to trust the people who had "helped" me or to seek out more information than what I was given.

If no one ever tells you there is more to math than algebra, and you're perfectly happy with just knowing about algebra, you're not going to go out of your way to see if something like calculus exists. only when confronted with a problem you can't solve based on the information you have, will you decide to search for a better way.

 

[Spewn]

^^^

Nonsense. I'm sorry, but it is.

Yes, the problem *with people* is that people sometimes assume they already know how to do something when they don't. That's not some fundamental problem with the universe itself, or with the retailers, but a problem with any individual who makes that assumption.

Going into any store to purchase a product of which you have zero knowledge about is a task unto itself. Doing so without researching at all is just plain foolish. You wouldn't do that with any other product, and if you would, well, your money could probably have been better spent.

 

[jpappy789]

^^^

Nonsense. I'm sorry, but it is.

Yes, the problem *with people* is that people sometimes assume they already know how to do something when they don't. That's not some fundamental problem with the universe itself, or with the retailers, but a problem with any individual who makes that assumption.

Going into any store to purchase a product of which you have zero knowledge about is a task unto itself. Doing so without researching at all is just plain foolish. You wouldn't do that with any other product, and if you would, well, your money could probably have been better spent.

But when the product in question is a replaceable fish that only costs 10 bucks most people could care less if it dies....to them its not worth the hassle to research beforehand because they figure if anything does go wrong they just buy a new one.

 

[justahannah]

As a consumer and a fish store employee....I feel the crunch. I often get customers who appreciate my information and ask for me by name as they gradually and responsibly stock their tanks, customers that appreciate the corrections I make to bad info they've been given in the past about cycling/compatibility/size... I just as often get customers that despite my warnings and information, they want what they want, know what they know, and don't want me butting into their decisions for their fish. I know I've felt that way towards other fish store employees...sometimes because they're full of dookie, and other times when their info is good but not necessarily applicable to my personal set-up...but they're certain it is. I feel it's my responsibility as an employee to determine tank size, stocking, and how long it's been cycled, and based on that give basic info and advice regarding fish that will and won't work, and why (without a why, people don't believe anything) based on what fish the customer is expressing interest in. I figure that's the minimum, and that fish shops should train their employees to be able to provide this basic level of information to consumers. It's a lot to learn, though, so there's always going to be some confusion and error (especially when you're part time, minimum wage, and there's no real incentive or time for this kind of training other than external personal interest for those of us that actually like fish, and the store is selling 100+ species of fish) and it probably won't ever happen. We also have printed care guides to offer customers with more detailed information so they don't have to remember every thing we say and we don't have to remember everything ourselves (although I make a game out of picking out errors). Ultimately, no matter how educated and caring an employee is about where the fish is going....there are a lot of people that don't want to hear it and will feign ignorance when things go wrong. Yes, employees have a responsibility to be accurate, and yes, customers have a responsibility to do their research first AND care enough about their fish to pay attention to what that research tells them. In reality though, very few people take on those responsibilities from either end and I don't think government regulation is the answer when the government can't regulate itself. It has to be a grassroots movement with a cool name and an even cooler catchphrase, to make responsible fishkeeping the next big, stylish thing

 

[excuzzzeme]

A fish only costs $10.00? OK so I'll get my grandson 10 - What a great present that will be..... and so the errors are now compounded. "My Gramps gave it to me and he knows everything"..... Now try to tell the parents and little Johnny that Gramps is full of fish poo!

So we can now argue every probable answer and come up with a why it won't work or who's to blame. So as hobbyists, how do we correct all the wrongful thinking and teachings? That to me is the main question that should be asked. We are the supposed experts and nowhere in this thread has there been offered a solution, or even the pretense of a solution. How many times has a new person joined and said "I came here to ask the experts for help?" Almost every new person has. We then do our best to try to educate the person. We are far from being experts regardless of experience level. We have simply educated ourselves (for the ones that do) and become a valuable resource. Others just parrot what they have heard and choose to believe to be fact.

Bear with me here. . . . .

An expert knows all there is to know about a particular field. We don't and should not profess that we do or call ourselves an exprt. What we do know, we should be able to support with facts and not hear-say. This is our failing in the hobby. We base much of our advice on experiences. That then becomes surreptitiously applied as being a fact instead of experience. Unfortunately the internet is full of contradictions, omissions, and incorrect information that is possibly more damaging than we are. Yet we say the interested should research and learn first before owning ( I agree with that). But how is a novice to know what is fact and what is fable? Before we castigate anyone, we need to clean up our own hobby first. Let's take the bull by the horns and lead, not follow. Teach, not speak to sound knowledgeable, and let's do it on fatcual data and not on hear-say. Anything based on experience should be stated as "BOME/IME". . . .

 

[Spewn]

But when the product in question is a replaceable fish that only costs 10 bucks most people could care less if it dies....to them its not worth the hassle to research beforehand because they figure if anything does go wrong they just buy a new one.

I'm not sure what sort of argument that is, really. I think we all forget that just a few tanks down from some of the specimen we feel shouldn't even be sold due to their too-often mistreatment are fish *sold as food*. How do you do this without a whole ton of red tape, and spending way more money than anyone will think it's worth?

You don't, because it really isn't as big of a deal as we in the hobby see it. We see a lot of these instances because people post them here, we look for them, etc. Most people have never even heard of a Pacu, and would wonder what on earth the government could possibly be wasting their time with.

The real fact is that this isn't likely to change because the problem just isn't as apparent as we think. It doesn't matter enough.

 

[Spewn]

Teach, not speak to sound knowledgeable, and let's do it on fatcual data and not on hear-say. Anything based on experience should be stated as "BOME/IME". . . .

Too many questions people ask have answers with no "factual data" to answer them. You can have all the biological facts about an Oscar as you like, but once you state a minimum tank size you've given out a "fact" that you merely extrapolated. As soon as you tell someone a minimum amount of filtration, or tell them whether or not they'll need CO2 with their light level, you've done the same thing again.

This is a hobby in the purest sense in that most of what we're doing requires we know specifically about how it pertains to our hobby. It's not very likely that any of the conditions we need to know about(The need for CO2, how much flow or filtration) has been tested in a laboratory. Instead, it's been slowly gathered over time as a consensus.

What people need to do is combine the consensus with the facts, and they need to do this from as many sources as possible. People have an uncanny ability to pick out the single search result that lets them buy that fish, and ignore the other 5,000 that told them not to. Then, they'll whine about how "the internet" steered them wrong. You gotta watch out for that internet.

 

[marinkafuschia]

I’m all for having to get a license for certain fish. If it keeps a living creature that much safer I'm ok with it. Shoot I would get a license for my beta if I had to! The sad thing is that most people feel animals are disposable, especially fish. It’s sad our government may have to step in but some people are frankly just too stupid to figure out how to be a responsible animal owner.
It’s not completely the consumer or the retailers fault, most of the time its both parties. But this is a LIVING CREATURE and everyone needs to take responsibility when selling/purchasing one.
I know people never want to hear they may be wrong or that they need advice but that’s a character flaw in my book and those individuals need to own up to their mistakes. Can’t we just let go of our ego for the sake of the fish ?

 

[excuzzzeme]

Too many questions people ask have answers with no "factual data" to answer them. You can have all the biological facts about an Oscar as you like, but once you state a minimum tank size you've given out a "fact" that you merely extrapolated. As soon as you tell someone a minimum amount of filtration, or tell them whether or not they'll need CO2 with their light level, you've done the same thing again. . .
.

LOL, Touche! That point just goes to show my choice of words were in error. I stand by the point I was trying to make. I was trying to differentiate fable *insert your word here* from education.