Frustrating advice for newcomers to the fish world

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

What I think is annoying is people do a (false) selfdiagnose, allready start treating based on that and then start asking questions cause the fish behave so weird. WITHOUT ANY PIC or info.

Question " "I think my fish have Ich, I raised the temp, used salt, have added an and Ich-med" and now they're on deads door. What to do?"

We know that many shops are all too ready to sell medications to customers. Can you imagine just how little profit they'd make if all they did was to advise to do a water change, or to tweak the temperature?
Even as a society, we are all to ready to stick a medical label on a relatively normal condition. Feeling a little down, becomes 'Clinically Depressed', getting upset becomes 'PTSD', etc.. So if we do this to ourselves, it's all to easy to apply it to those in our care.

Agin, I'm seeing more use for The Form.

 

[Colin_T]

What I think is annoying is people do a (false) selfdiagnose, allready start treating based on that and then start asking questions cause the fish behave so weird. WITHOUT ANY PIC or info.

Question " "I think my fish have Ich, I raised the temp, used salt, have added an and Ich-med" and now they're on deads door. What to do?"

One of the stickies, in fact the first sticky in the emergency section tells people what to do if their fish get sick.

https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/.

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Having the water parameters and chemistry in the signature won't help. Most beginners don't know about the pH, GH, KH, or ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Half the threads asking for help are chemistry and water quality related.

 

[DoubleDutch]

One of the stickies, in fact the first sticky in the emergency section tells people what to do if their fish get sick.

https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/.

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Having the water parameters and chemistry in the signature won't help. Most beginners don't know about the pH, GH, KH, or ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Half the threads asking for help are chemistry and water quality related.

I know, but not many do.

 

[ClownLurch]

I hear you, but I'd personally see little point in adding my parameters to my signature.
Assume my signature contains my current parameters.
Then I suddenly have a load of sickly/dying/dead fish.
If there's a crisis, then I suspect my parameters will have changed and it would be more relevent to include those in my post and to keep on including them until things returned to normal.

Or would I just say 'Help' in my post and keep on changing my signature?

Looking at your signature, 19dh/340ppm means nothing to me and PH is not the same as pH. I assume 'temperate 22-24c' tells me that your temperature fluctuates between 22℃ and 24℃?

They’d obviously be there as a starting point.
IE if someone’s keeping clown loaches in a 5G tank in 30dh water it’d be immediately apparent what the problems could be.*

*Deliberately exaggerated example to illustrate something I thought was self explanatory.

 

[ClownLurch]

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Having the water parameters and chemistry in the signature won't help. Most beginners don't know about the pH, GH, KH, or ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Half the threads asking for help are chemistry and water quality related.

Which is why I mentioned “newish members”.
Temp? Stock? Etc would also help.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

They’d obviously be there as a starting point.
IE if someone’s keeping clown loaches in a 5G tank in 30dh water it’d be immediately apparent what the problems could be.*

*Deliberately exaggerated example to illustrate something I thought was self explanatory.

Again, I hear you...but many are not computer literate enough to have a signature, or see the need for one. By the time we've instructed them on signatures, they could've simply completed the form...and your own signature does not provide useful info and you do know what you're talking about*.

*Either that, or you're an adept Googler!

 

[ClownLurch]

Oh I wouldnt say I know anything useful about fish at all.

 

[ClownLurch]

I’ve a small p now and a temperature where I had a temperate.
It was obvious what they were both there for in the first place.

 

[Spyro]

What I think is annoying is people do a (false) selfdiagnose, allready start treating based on that and then start asking questions cause the fish behave so weird. WITHOUT ANY PIC or info.

Question " "I think my fish have Ich, I raised the temp, used salt, have added an and Ich-med" and now they're on deads door. What to do?"

To be fair to people who do that:
Most of them are newbie fishkeepers that were given advice/tried to research things and found a mountain of contradicting advice, articles, opinions, etc.
Tried to do something about it and with situation not resolving: tried to find more answers.
In doing so: they stumbled on this site, read a little. And then asked a question hoping someone would know wtf is going on and point them in the right direction.
That's how I ended up on this site.
And in all honesty: if it wasn't for Coronavirus and lockdowns, I'd just empty my tank and leave it in the garage for about 20 years.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

I’ve a small p now and a temperature where I had a temperate.
It was obvious what they were both there for in the first place.

What's the 19dh/340ppm?

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

To be fair to people who do that:
Most of them are newbie fishkeepers that were given advice/tried to research things and found a mountain of contradicting advice, articles, opinions, etc.
Tried to do something about it and with situation not resolving: tried to find more answers.
In doing so: they stumbled on this site, read a little. And then asked a question hoping someone would know wtf is going on and point them in the right direction.

...and found a mountain of contradicting advice, articles, opinions, etc.

I also suspect that this forum is but one of many that posters visit, asking the same question and muddying waters further.

 

[Spyro]

...and found a mountain of contradicting advice, articles, opinions, etc.

I also suspect that this forum is but one of many that posters visit, asking the same question and muddying waters further.

Sure is lol

 

[DoubleDutch]

To be fair to people who do that:
Most of them are newbie fishkeepers that were given advice/tried to research things and found a mountain of contradicting advice, articles, opinions, etc.
Tried to do something about it and with situation not resolving: tried to find more answers.
In doing so: they stumbled on this site, read a little. And then asked a question hoping someone would know wtf is going on and point them in the right direction.
That's how I ended up on this site.
And in all honesty: if it wasn't for Coronavirus and lockdowns, I'd just empty my tank and leave it in the garage for about 20 years.

That treats Ich for sure hahahaha

 

[emeraldking]

That is a nice idea but takes the art out of fish keeping, remember that this hobby is about experiences and everybody has a different story to tell. We live all over the world with different conditions no Harvard reference can allow for that.

I've got to agree with this...

What I think is annoying is people do a (false) selfdiagnose, allready start treating based on that and then start asking questions cause the fish behave so weird. WITHOUT ANY PIC or info.

Question " "I think my fish have Ich, I raised the temp, used salt, have added an and Ich-med" and now they're on deads door. What to do?"

Agreed. Can't argue with that...

 

[PheonixKingZ]

The most frustrating thing on this forum is people not having the following in their signatures.
A/ Tap water DH/KH/PPM/PH
B/ Tank dimensions/capacity (if one or two only)
C/ Tank temp.
D/ Tank occupants.

Itd certainly save a lot of too and froing in emergency threads.

There seems a reluctance to do this by both regulars and newcomers alike. I can only surmise this is because a lot more posters are keeping fish in unsuitable circumstances than are prepared to admit it.

There. I’ve said it.

Parameters however are always changing, so the person would have to update them almost constantly to make sure they are accurate for other people.