Re: [APD] The non-aquatic plant issue (Nick Andrews)

["Bill Wichers" <billw at waveform_net>]

>This all assumes a flow of information though. In this case, people
have to first become aware that >what Walmart or the other substandard
place is telling them about keeping fish is wrong. Once they >find that
out, then they'll go seek the legitimate information. Most of the time
the employees >selling the fish know nothing about it. Just stand around
the fish section at Walmart and listen to >what they tell people.

 

One can make the argument that if the people buying the fish aren't
bothering to seek out good information about keeping their tanks
running, those same people are unlikely to put in sufficient effort to
properly run their tank anyway. It's probably safe to assume that the
vast majority, if not all, of the members of this list are far above
average in the amount of time and money they invest in keeping their
tanks going. I know people that ask me about fish stuff fish stuff in
person are usually surprised I can't remember the last time I had a fish
die since they're not used to having fish live a long time in their own
tanks.

 

It's a lot easier now to find good info than it was even 10 years ago,
and especially better than maybe 20 years ago plus there is a lot more
good equipment out there to work with. There are likely to always be
some low-end vendors out there that cater to the "fish are a fad" type
people that aren't willing to learn about the hobby and the proper way
to run things to keep their tanks healthy. IMHO, the best thing you can
probably do with these places is to try to get them to carry some
reasonably good books about fish/aquarium-keeping and hope that some of
the people in the stores will buy one of these books and possibly learn
something. Those that get more interested will be able to find more
information and learn to better run their tanks just as all of us have.
Learning to do things right will always involve effort on the part of
the aquarist.

 

  -Bill

_______________________________________________
Aquatic-Plants mailing list
Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
http://mailman.actwin.com/mailman/listinfo/aquatic-plants