Start every day by giving each of your special fishes a hug and a smooch. They'll be overcome w/ joy as soon as they see you leave the fish room.
It's what I do.
Do fish become sad when in small tanks?
- Thread starter breadhead
- Start date
Start every day by giving each of your special fishes a hug and a smooch. They'll be overcome w/ joy as soon as they see you leave the fish room.
It's what I do.
Yeah... I don't know about that. I'd happily help a kid that had genuine questions but I'm not here to be that altruistic grandpa fish character. Similarly, you rarely know if it's genuinely a kid. Might there be some merit to having a kid's section on this board? Maybe... but there would be some serious assumptions required and eventual abuses as there's no real way to filter out that poorly socialized forty year old nose picker in the kid's forum.
These boards aren't for posterity. In ten or twenty years whatever any of us may have posted will be an outdated pile of broken linked references to sites that have moved on. We're all learning and sharing in real time and though some bits and pieces may last a little longer than others it's unlikely that many will log on in 20 years and search for bits of wisdom from the current crew. Shame, that.
To answer the op's question I don't know but some fish might depending if they're a more social/schooling species. Most of my larger fish are fine either alone or with tankmates provided they have SPACE and have been raised with others. I've had fish that didn't play well with others too.
More recently I had a male hrp (Mongo) in a growout tank with a lot of his adult fry. He spent a lot of time running the tank and maintaining order. When I removed the fry for donation he sulked in the corner and laid on his side. I put seven back in with him to keep and he popped right up and immediately started herding them around again. More things in heaven and earth, as they say.
Like you said, there’s no way to know if it’s a kid not. And if it is a kid who is excited about his first monster tank, it’s cringey to see grandpas picking on them.
Also, RD and I have been logging on for the last 16 years and I still think a lot of the info is still relevant. Especially his posts
100% . What we don’t want is people who are incredibly rude and only offer criticism instead of advise.
That is what will kill the forum. If we just become reddit.
I agree with this in theory, really if a beginner is 8 or 80 years old it shouldnt matter and they should be able to ask "dumb" questions without being ridiculed.
My issue is with the tone the question is asked and the frequent argument when they receive advice they dont like which is all too common and the reply of "i read it on the internet that its ok"
Politely asked genuine questions where the person asking is possibly doing something wrong but trying to learn should be treated respectfully, fools arguing with experienced keepers should be treated as fools.
I have my suspicions that a lot more of the members on here have kept an oscar in a 40G than would ever admit to it, sadly i did it myself based on LFS advice when i was 15. There was no internet back then and i didnt know any better, if there was i wonder what sort of response i would have got if i came on here and asked a question?
I agree. Be that as it may, kids rarely get a monster tank and none of us can site an example of a kid being picked on with any degree of certainty. If it's PB&J we're talking about take a look at his posts and you're likely to conclude that whatever that is, it's not a child.
I also agree that longevity has merit. I've joined this forum twice before and the most recent prior was in 2008. I don't recall what specifically was different then but I recall a significant number of posts from a disabled guy that built a giant tank in his basement (like 40k gallons or similar) and others that seemed interesting but not in a way that I could envision doing myself. The site is more well-rounded now and there are posters who provide what is to me more useful content. RD mentioned feed articles and I'll readily admit that after being here I've read several of his postings and it's made me more cognizant of labels and the like. Others have posted about worms and brine shrimp and I had always thought that was nutritionally dense and now I look at it a little differently as well. That kind of content wasn't here prior that I can recall.
It's also true that I am sometimes a little quick to gnaw on someone's head around the office or just out and about and I'd like to keep that goofball back in the office. I'm here to learn and enjoy and maybe blend into the tapestry as best I can. Maybe contribute a little if I find a scrap of something worth sharing rattling around in my head.
Limiting my access to annoying posters is easier than taking a poorly considered comment back. I don't recommend the ignore button for everyone but it does keep my fish from being sad.
Hmmm i dont think it quite works like that--as in the example of somebody logging in 20 years from now. I tend to think of the information as simply changing hands, moving down the line. The idea is to establish our principles and objectives here so theres more or less a continuum of knowledge throughout new and old members.
I wholeheartedly agree that new blood should and must be encouraged if this place, and the hobby in general, is to persist. But I also believe that encouragement can and does include telling someone to use the Search function, if the question they raise has been asked daily for the past several years. We are talking here about the future usefulness of the forum as a repository of accumulated knowledge that is accessible to all...so if the concern that overuse of the Ignore function might have a negative affect in this regard is valid, then an equally valid concern would be the loss of information that might have been posted but was lost when the potential contributor just threw up his hands in disgust and declined to enter the arena.
The tired old adage that states "There is no such thing as a stupid question" is just that; i.e. an adage, something that sounds catchy and has been repeated so often that most people take it as gospel, but is in reality utter hogwash. There are countless questions which would qualify as "stupid" simply because they demonstrate that the poser of the question did not lift a finger to find the answer for themselves; no searching, no researching, no reading...just type it out and sit back to wait for an answer that they like. Does encouraging those questions improve the health of the forum? Or does it cause harm, by clogging the place up with endless repetitive answers that are like the bad cholesterol of the internet?
Never in human history has it been as simple as it is right now to find the answer to virtually any question, virtually instantly...but that requires some reading and some thinking, and apparently that's just too much trouble. Much better to just ask and wait for an answer.
Sometimes, even when you provide an answer to such a question, you get arguments because you didn't provide all the citations and references that the poser required as proof before they consider believing you. It's apparently silly to expect the recipient of the suggestion to use it as a basis for his/her own research. So, not only did the Seeker of Knowledge fail to look up the info him/herself...but anyone who attempted to assist by making a suggestion is apparently required to "show his work" in order to be believed. Once again, it's the "baby-bird" school of learning: ask a question...stupid or otherwise...and then just throw your head back with your mouth wide open and wait to have the right nugget of information jammed down your throat.
Do people like that get angry and frustrated when the perfect morsel isn't immediately provided to them? Maybe. Will it be sufficient to eventually drive some of them to drop off the forum? Maybe. Might that be a loss to the hobby and the forum? Maybe...and maybe not...
Do the people who are trying to provide the same repetitive gruel for those baby birds get angry and frustrated with the apparent sheer utter helplessness of their charges? I think so. Will it eventually drive some of them to drop off the forum? I think so. Will that prove to be a loss to the hobby and the forum? I think so.
I am more than happy to encourage everyone. It's just that in some cases, I encourage them to leave!
The tired old adage that states "There is no such thing as a stupid question" is just that; i.e. an adage, something that sounds catchy and has been repeated so often that most people take it as gospel, but is in reality utter hogwash. There are countless questions which would qualify as "stupid" simply because they demonstrate that the poser of the question did not lift a finger to find the answer for themselves; no searching, no researching, no reading...just type it out and sit back to wait for an answer that they like. Does encouraging those questions improve the health of the forum? Or does it cause harm, by clogging the place up with endless repetitive answers that are like the bad cholesterol of the internet?
Never in human history has it been as simple as it is right now to find the answer to virtually any question, virtually instantly...but that requires some reading and some thinking, and apparently that's just too much trouble. Much better to just ask and wait for an answer.
Sometimes, even when you provide an answer to such a question, you get arguments because you didn't provide all the citations and references that the poser required as proof before they consider believing you. It's apparently silly to expect the recipient of the suggestion to use it as a basis for his/her own research. So, not only did the Seeker of Knowledge fail to look up the info him/herself...but anyone who attempted to assist by making a suggestion is apparently required to "show his work" in order to be believed. Once again, it's the "baby-bird" school of learning: ask a question...stupid or otherwise...and then just throw your head back with your mouth wide open and wait to have the right nugget of information jammed down your throat.
Do people like that get angry and frustrated when the perfect morsel isn't immediately provided to them? Maybe. Will it be sufficient to eventually drive some of them to drop off the forum? Maybe. Might that be a loss to the hobby and the forum? Maybe...and maybe not...
Do the people who are trying to provide the same repetitive gruel for those baby birds get angry and frustrated with the apparent sheer utter helplessness of their charges? I think so. Will it eventually drive some of them to drop off the forum? I think so. Will that prove to be a loss to the hobby and the forum? I think so.
I am more than happy to encourage everyone. It's just that in some cases, I encourage them to leave!
