Who needs a laugh?

[Rusty_Shackleford]

The bottom line is you can't shake his following without playing trolling games. So he has to be ignored. He bugs me, but so do a lot of more consequential people.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. I can't help but fight stupid when I see it. Ignoring him isn't the answer.

The inhabitants are alive and either meet the needs of the water or parish."

Yeah sure, that's what he meant to say. He also meant to add never change your water.

 

[GaryE]

To me, the solution to fish cult stuff is to ignore him and stay with sense and research. If a man can say water's alive and changes itself - that isn't very intelligent. If anyone can follow a man who says that, then there is a lack of seriousness in their thinking.

I'd rather see us build something better, and talk about it in places like here. We need to keep offering scientifically based approaches, and staying with reality. It's mind boggling to see what people will believe sometimes, but if we're going to get anywhere even in our little pastime, we have to keep talking about what matters, what is grounded and what has been researched and developed.

Father Fish refuses to engage in debate. If he's the guy I think he is, he would be presented with 10 sensible arguments against what he said, and would answer the eleventh point, which he had made up himself because it was easy and knew how to respond. He ignored every inconvenient idea, and enjoyed listening to himself only. He seems to have founded his own world after running from every forum and open discussion area because he couldn't hold his own there. It is a cult leader mentality, and the fact he has a following is not encouraging.

The percentage of fishkeeping people who take their hobby seriously is pretty small. I see this as a small window into a vast world of learning. From keeping fish, I've learned about evolution, biodiversity, chemistry, genetics, and a range of related things I might not have encountered in my pay the bills work. The easy lies guys play to the cut flowers from Costco rather than gardening approach to the hobby, and that's a large number of people who may find discussions of what to us is the fun stuff annoying or unnecessarily complicated.

 

[Magnum Man]

I honestly don't follow anyone... in this hobby, I attempt to go my own way, that doesn't mean I ignore everyone out there, only that I try to learn from them, not follow them like some cult leader... I don't make a habit of watching U Tube videos... i do like to see one once in a while, but I could just as well turn the sound off... I have no interest in listening to them...

maybe this guy was misquoted... water is alive... in a sense... just look at it under a micro scope... I don't personally think it has has the ability to think, but do think it changes, by virtue of the various life it contains...

many of us, are very opinionated, often thinking we have an understanding, based by what works for us, when someone else may be able to go a completely different way, with seemingly good results... and BTW... what does make our fish happy??? I'm guessing most would be happier outside of the glass box...

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

324,000 subscribers. Far more than many online forums combined. That's potentially 324,000 aquariums with fish suffering. It's a plague.

 

[Herpin Man]

2:50 mark, but keep watching because he immediately contradicts himself.


What a moron.

I had no idea that Alan Alda was a fish guy.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Let's extrapolate this further. If each one of those 324,000 people have just 5 fish in their aquarium, that's 1.6 million fish suffering with no water changes.
Too big to just ignore.

 

[Back in the fold]

I tried watching guys on You Tube with their fish and aquariums but it only took a few days to walk away from that and never return . Fish keeping is like any other spectator sport or hobby , it’s boring and sad unless you are doing it your own self . I like to run but I can’t stand watching it on TV . All these jokers on the internet are chasing fame and glory . Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine has lately been running a regular feature called “ Aquatic Influencers “ . Influencers ! ? ! ? I need somebody to influence me ! ? ! ? Not at all ! I fart in their general direction ! As far as water changes go , I keep up with my weekly changes and my fish are healthy and eat well . Some even get more than a weekly change . My Endler’s get a three gallon daily change so I can keep the muck off the bottom . No substrate is great for that . I do it in 10 minutes . If a guy is looking for an easy way out of anything he will eventually be the one out .

 

[MattW]

I watch a lot of YouTube channels related to the hobby. I have to say it took me a while to filter out the ones who were just doing it for views. Slightly off topic, but I remember around 2015-2018 there was a phase when people kept predatory fish (arowana, redtail CF, peacock bass, etc) in swimming pools with goldfish, koi and sometimes even smaller cichlids. The majority ended up either dead or viewers were told that they had "disappeared". I don't like to call out anyone in particular, but I found the majority of these channels hailed from the States. Mainly those with cash to spend, lots of dodgy sponsorship deals and access to large properties where they could keep these swimming pools of predatory fish. Of course, this is a small minority. But sadly, these were the channels raking in the views, while smaller channels that promoted fish welfare, conservation, breeding and other sides of the hobby missed out. There are plenty of US-based channels I still watch and will keep watching for a long time to come, as they are very informative, but I think those bigger channels misinformed their viewers badly and set some down a bad path for keeping fish.

 

[Magnum Man]

hey... what are you saying ... are you blaming the "yanks, or the rich folk...

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

For full transparency, I don't really watch YouTube fish related videos. I don't watch Father Fraud on a regular basis as I certainly don't want to give him any clicks and add to his viewership. In fact this particular video, I watched about 4 minutes, that's all I could stand.
If I'm interested in a particular fish, as part of my research I will seek out some videos on that fish. Usually those videos don't contain any more information on the fish than you would find on seriouslyfish or aquabase. But they allow me to see a fish swimming in an aquarium.
I do watch as many videos filmed in the wild as I can find. For me I learn more from seeing a fishes natural environment, looking at the substrate, water flow, plant life, etc.

 

[gwand]

I do not watch fish videos. Early on I tried a few, but found them full of misinformation. Everything I’ve heard about Father Fish I read on this site. I have gained my skills in the hobby by reading selectively on this forum and the Apistogramma forum. I also use the Seriously Fish website, the American Cichlid Association website, several books I purchased and trial and error. Trial and error can be painful for the fish, but sometimes you do something others told you not to do and it works out perfectly. Even within a species there’s much heterogeneity in fish behavior and their sensitivities.

 

[MattW]

hey... what are you saying ... are you blaming the "yanks, or the rich folk...

I'm not blaming anybody, just an observation

I should have added to the point of these channels misinforming their viewers. You see, the average age of the viewers of these channels at that time was ages 13-18. IMO, an easily influenced group. I even watched them myself growing up, and imagine how thrilled I was to see that massive fish could be kept in people's homes rather than in a national aquarium. It would make anyone that age watching want to keep their own Redtail catfish or Bass in a home tank/pond. The one thing these channels didn't show was the maintenance of these pools/tanks. Which as many know, can be detrimental to fish if not done correctly. I can even remember one channel that paid a guy to clean his tanks for him, even though his only job was at home doing YouTube! He even overfed his tanks just so he could get the footage of his fish jumping out of the water.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The only fish related Youtube channel I ever watched was the one owned by Rachel O'Leary. I met her for the first time many years before she had a channel. I had been to her home, seen her fish room and met her family. So, when she started on Youtube I watched. She is one of the major reasons why I never acclimate new fish. I always plop and drop. She is why I have any shrimp in any of my tanks.

Because I knew her and had seen what she does in person, it made it easy for me to know her info was always spot on. In fact a couple of her vids were shot in my home about my fish and tanks. You can hear my voice in the background, but you will never actually see me.

I may be a bit biassed in my opinion here. But she and I have not been 100% in agreement on everything fish. But her breadth of her experience and knowledge is great er than mine for sure. I am more limited but somewhat more in depth on what I do and know v.s. Rachel.

You can make your own decisions by visiting her site. She is back to making new vids after a long hiatus due to health reasons about which she makes new secrets. https://www.youtube.com/@RachelOLeary

 

[GaryE]

I haven't even watched my own youtube videos....

I do watch video shot in the wild. It's an invaluable resource. But generally, when people present a fish in tanks, they are trying hard to get views, to make money. There's nothing wrong with that motivation, but youtube presenters should be heard and not seen, and the fish need to be more important than pet theories or personalities.

I was once invited to go in on a series with a guy who became a major player on youtube, and while I would have enjoyed the income, I doubt I could have worked with him for more than one or two videos. He understood presentation, marketing and self promotion. He didn't know a lot about fish, scientific approaches, fish evolution or the hobby he was talking about. I'm a nerd, not an entertainer!

It's not a flaw of youtube. It's on us. If fish print magazine era had had no editors, especially peer editors, they would have been full of slack stuff like youtube is. There was that tradition of having to measure your work against the work of the real experts, and we've dumped that out. We have people like Rachel O'Leary or Oliver Lucanus who really know their stuff, but they don't have the followers the slackers have.