Actually, GBR is quite widely used. It's used on several other forums as well. Even the gals at the lfs here know what GBR stands for, lol.
GBR's spawned!
- Thread starter wizzin
- Start date
Congratz on the spawning
I gotta agree with this, there are alot of people not up on the acronyms of all the different fish. I would be helpful if everyone would use the full name the first time in the post and then follow with the acronym when mentioning again. Not a real prob, just a suggestion.
Celtic Samurai;1054107; said:GBR= German Blue Rams??
I have been in this hobby for more than 30 years, worked in fish wholesalers and shops for about 20 years and I have never heard them refered to as GBR. They are great fish and I kept them and spawned them many years ago. I don't know how someone can get 200-400 eggs from a dwarf cichlid - she must have been a big mama. I think 100 or so eggs sounds about normal, but opinions and experiences vary.
Just a pet peeve(no pun intended)-
Many people on MFK have started using a million acroynms in thread titles that no one has heard of before. IMO, an acronym is more effective when
more than 10 people use it.
I gotta agree with this, there are alot of people not up on the acronyms of all the different fish. I would be helpful if everyone would use the full name the first time in the post and then follow with the acronym when mentioning again. Not a real prob, just a suggestion.
Celtic Samurai;1054107; said:GBR= German Blue Rams??
I have been in this hobby for more than 30 years, worked in fish wholesalers and shops for about 20 years and I have never heard them refered to as GBR. They are great fish and I kept them and spawned them many years ago. I don't know how someone can get 200-400 eggs from a dwarf cichlid - she must have been a big mama
Just a pet peeve(no pun intended)-
Many people on MFK have started using a million acroynms in thread titles that no one has heard of before. IMO, an acronym is more effective when more than 10 people use it.
To be quite honest, one of my pet peeves is people who use the scientific names as opposed to the common name. Oh boy, I can hear the flamers firing up the torches now. Why would we give them common names if we expected everyone to remember the scientific names? Maybe it's how I'm wired, but I've never been able to remember more than a handful of scientific names, but can remember the common names quite easily. So then, as for acronyms, the easier the better I guess. If German Blue Rams is easy to remember, then GBR ought to also right? It seems to me that people get a thrill out of using the "proper" names of animals. Seems like a waste of good brain storage space to me.
Sorry to offend, but I've wondered this for most of my life. Oh, and you think acronyms are bad on this site, have you looked at any sites from South East Asia lately? You need your own personal decoder to read it. LOL. It's the internet my friend. We text message on our cell phones. LOL, ROFL etc etc etc. Why would posting on a forum be any different? Criticizing people for using acronyms on a web forum is a little anal.
However, I agree that first timers who don't know the common names, let alone the acronym are out of the loop, but if they search the forums, or ask a question, they find out. Anyway, I'll make sure I post the full name next time. Sorry for the rant. Hit a nerve....
Exactly what I think.
I frequently see German Blue Rams labeled as GBR in writing. What other fish has the same lettering?
I frequently see German Blue Rams labeled as GBR in writing. What other fish has the same lettering?
Lonewolfblue;1054130; said:
I'm pretty sure that I am insulted by this comment
.As far as common names are concerned, many fish have multiple common names in the US alone. The fish could also have several dozen "common" names worldwide. One of the challenges when ordering fish from South America is trying to match the local common name with a name that we are familiar with. One example is tucanare= peacock bass in Brazil, but they have other "local" names in other SA counties (I can't recall them at the moment). There are also local names for pike cichlids, plecos, oscars, etc.
Scientific or Latin names, on the other hand, are assigned to one species of fish. Period. The fish may get reclassified scientifically at a later date, but the original name is always referenced-so there is a paper trail. Are Latin names hard to remember and even harder to pronounce? Yes. Should they be used as much as possible? Yes.
Here's one reason :
If you are trying to look up a fish on Google or some other search engine you will get much better results using Latin names. You don't have to be exact in your spelling, but if you are close Google usually will offer the correct name and you can continue your search.
Teachers and college professors say that today's students can't spell in English
, so I guess that Latin is pretty much out of the question. I don't think that acronyms are going away, in fact it will only get worse. I think the root of the problem is in the growing popularity of text messaging.
BTW GL W/YA GBR
Congrats!! Microgeophagus ramirezi are one of my all time favorite fish! For a small cichlid they are spunky and absolutely gorgeous. They afford those with limited tank space to experience the parental care exhibited by the Cichlidae family.
For what it's worth, common names, and even worse, acronyms are very confusing. The problem is, they change with the whims of marketers. You say that "even the girls down at the fish store know what GBR stands for". That's nice. Did they know what BC stood for when this fish was commonly referred to as a Butterfly Cichlid? How about RC when they were just plain old Ram Cichlids or worse, just plain old R's? Or DR during their Dwarf Ram phase? Do they differentiate between GBR and LFGBR? How about GGR or LFGR?
I have to side with Celtic on this one. Type in the term GBR in Google and tell me how many correct hits you get. Now type in Ram Cichlid. The hits go up dramatically. Now type in Microgeophgaus ramirezi. The hits are substantially higher as is the quality of information that you'll get about this fish.
I guess you get out of the hobby what you put into it. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. How hard is it really to learn the names of the fish you keep?
For what it's worth, common names, and even worse, acronyms are very confusing. The problem is, they change with the whims of marketers. You say that "even the girls down at the fish store know what GBR stands for". That's nice. Did they know what BC stood for when this fish was commonly referred to as a Butterfly Cichlid? How about RC when they were just plain old Ram Cichlids or worse, just plain old R's? Or DR during their Dwarf Ram phase? Do they differentiate between GBR and LFGBR? How about GGR or LFGR?
I have to side with Celtic on this one. Type in the term GBR in Google and tell me how many correct hits you get. Now type in Ram Cichlid. The hits go up dramatically. Now type in Microgeophgaus ramirezi. The hits are substantially higher as is the quality of information that you'll get about this fish.
I guess you get out of the hobby what you put into it. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. How hard is it really to learn the names of the fish you keep?
At first I always just remembered the common names, but then going into LFS after LFS looking for the fish under a common name only to realize they were all labeled by their scientific name got frustrating. Now, I only really use the common names when they're very widely recognized. Blue Ram, or Oscar, or Jack Dempsey or what have you. It makes more sense, and you get more accurate information and more accurate IDs at fish stores if you know the scientific names. However, my fault with this, is L numbers. I don't know a single L number for plecos. The only thing I THINK I know is L-046 is the Zebra Pleco, right? If it's not, then I was right, and I know not a single L number.l
I am also on Celtics side with this. Scientific names were required especially to remove ambiguity on fish/animal species, Common names have their place but like any slang word, they will vary with locality and fashion. Aconyms are even worse than common names since they refer to other things besides fish and thats just on MKF (oops an acronym). Apart from being a hard to pronounce name, scientific names do provide a lot of information and will group fish into similar categories such as Family or Genus so you can infer a lot of knowledge to a new fish when you know what other fish its similar too. ie all characins breed in similar fashion. Never mind this group includes monstrous Pacu and minute neon tetras... they are similar! and scientific latin names provide other clues since they usually mean something in latin. Geophagus meaning Earth Eater, etc
Scatocephalus has summed it up well enough that I dont need to repeat his comments. (Did you mean Scatophagus though??? cos Scatocephalus means $hitHead.....
)
Scatocephalus has summed it up well enough that I dont need to repeat his comments. (Did you mean Scatophagus though??? cos Scatocephalus means $hitHead.....
)