PART 3 Not submitted for publication.

This is actually an accumulation of topics that are intended to either help you prevent a disaster or to let me blow off a little steam.

A# THE DEADLY MISTAKE

In my early years I managed or supervised in the running of many a pet shop. Either when my schedule permitted or when I was short-handed with no alternatives, I found myself waiting on customers and usually in the fish section. It doesn't take long to see certain patterns develop that challenge any employee.

Setting up a successful aquarium is easy if you know what your doing and here in lies the first hurdle for a retailer. Educating the customer. Perhaps part of the problem a customer has is, they are simply overwhelmed by the amount of information needed just to have a chance of success. For the retailer, they are usually first having to brainwash the beginner that 12 goldfish in a bowl or pair of breeding Oscars won't make it in a 10 gal. tank. Then they have to overcome the natural customer sales resistance to every piece of equipment that will help them succeed. The hardest sale might be getting the beginner to buy a book (even a cheap one).

The next stage is to answer at least 20 questions the beginner has with every visit. Stage three is correcting all the mistakes. The last stage never comes for some but many finally enjoy the fruits of learning and start to enjoy their aquarium. One problem remains at this final stage and that is maintaining the success.

Customers seem to have no limits in creative ways to kill fish and plants. Some of my favorites include giving the fish a can of beer at a New Years party to rolling a fish on table salt in an attempt to cure ich. Fortunately, most livestock deaths can be traced to one of only a small group of customer genocide techniques. Back when I was in retail, one method used was responsible for more fish deaths than all the others combined.

I left retailing for nearly two decades to become a manufactures rep where I spent most of my time calling on wholesalers. Near the end of this journey I worked for several fish food companies. Part of the job entailed calling on fish retailers and doing as many in store training workshops as possible.

Wondering if the number one cause of fish deaths that I had experienced as a retailer was more or less solved, I started out each training session asking the same question. What is the number one cause of fish deaths?

In nearly 300 workshops, the answer was, with almost no exception, the same plague I dealt with 20 years earlier. Although it certainly is a major problem for beginners even the pros fall victim to this experience from time to time. The problem is simply OVERFEEDING.

Although there are some folks that will never learn to feed properly, it's my opinion the cause of this devastation rests almost entirely in the hands of the pet shop (fish retailers) staff. It is they that have the everyday responsibility of customer education. Although they know the problem exists and they spend much time warning customers not to overfeed, it's not quite that simple.

To my knowledge there is only one way to correctly feed fish (there are a few fish that are exceptions to this). I'm estimating that I conducted these workshops for an estimated 1200 employees and managers and owners. Only one employee knew the proper feeding method. The typical response from these retailers when I asked them to tell me how they educated their customers was "a very small amount or small pinch". The response to how often was usually 1 to 3 times a day. In other words there was no consensus.

What's wrong here? During my workshops I often pointed to a tank of fish in the store and asked each person to place the correct amount of food in my hand. There was a great deal of variance and strangely enough most of the employees were underfeeding. Yet even with underfeeding I can ruin many a tanks with a small pinch of food fed improperly. Secondly, a small pinch of food is not a reliable dose that a customer can relate to with any consistency. This is further messed up because the fish always seem starved and the natural human response is to add just a little bit more to be safe.

Before I tell you the correct way to feed fish, I want to deal with a few other points. First, fish can not be overfed. I have never seen a fish explode from overfeeding, they know when to stop. You can however, easily overfeed the aquarium as uneaten food is fast track to a polluted aquarium. Second, fish digest their food in about 2 hours, so normally they will always act starved. Anytime you see fish at the surface begging for food, they can be fed (if done properly).

To feed properly, you have to understand a little bit about fish behavior. Fish don't come to the surface to be petted, they know that this is where food comes from and who drops it in the water. This is key to feeding properly. Although it appears that fish inhale fish food, more often than not they collect as much food in there mouth as possible. Depending on the food, it often stays there until it's safe to swallow, sometimes this is only a few seconds other times longer. Much like humans, when you eat a piece of food, it doesn't get swallowed until it reaches a safe to swallow condition. Pelleted foods take much longer but otherwise are often a better food than most flake foods. (but that's another story)

To feed properly, I recommend you put what you consider a safe amount to feed in your hand. Take a fourth of that and add it to the tank. Wait 20 seconds, if the fish are still swimming at the top, add another fourth of the food. You can repeat this until the fish stop coming to the surface. One other note, at no time should as much as one piece of food hit the bottom.

What about your bottom feeders? Many can compete at the surface. For those that can't, bottom food is available and can be fed after feeding the surface feeders. Watch your bottom feeders carefully to make sure they are eating all that is offered.

Improper feeding (overfeeding) has wiped out many a fish tank, I also think it's the number one cause of algae blooms in both fish and plant tanks. B# MISTAKE no. 2

For most hobbyist's part of the fun of an aquarium is going to different fish stores to see what's new. AND especially if you're a beginner you will ask a bunch of questions to anyone that will listen. What you will usually end up getting is many answers and often different answers to the same question. How can this be you may ask? Whom is right?

There are many ways to set up an aquarium that are correct yet different. There are just as many ways to mess one up. One of those ways is to take what you think is the best advice from each expert and create your own hybrid set-up. When I retailed fish, that was a bit of a pet peeve of mine. How can I help someone when they are having problems and I don't know who's plan they are following?

IF YOUR A BEGINNER, STICK WITH ONE EXPERT. If it fails then try another expert. Once you got your system working good for 6 months to a year, you will have enough experience to experiment with other ideas.

With plant tanks, I'm noticing a similar pattern. There is high-tech tanks that work well and there are low-tech tanks that work well. Within each of these realms there are countless options. Sometimes, what works in one system doesn't work well in an other. There is also so many variations that I don't think any one person has tried them all.

I offer a free guide on one method that works. I'm happy to help those that follow my guide if they run into any problems.

If an expert is someone that knows a little more than someone else, then I'm an expert on my method (and my method only). I'm no longer an expert if you use the wrong brand of kitty litter or other clay or soil. I don't add peat moss, vermiculite, worm poop or any other amendment to the substrate. I use a certain substrate fertilizer , I do not use liquid fertilizer. I use course sand over the substrate not gravel. I keep the pH under 7.0 and don't inject CO2. I use no more than an 1 1/2 " of sand. I don't use substrate heaters or for that matter any heaters.

All of the things I don't do or use are not meant to suggest they don't work. In fact most of them can be used, but it's no longer my method. There is a strong possibility if you change my method that it will be unique unto you. The only expert in the world familiar with your set up will be you. This is also fine, but if your a beginner it may not be wise.

The whole point of this diatribe is, find some Mentors method and stick with him/her 100% until your experienced enough to experiment. If you chose my method I can usually spot a problem if one occurs. Any other method you use and seek my help with, I will do the best I can. I might add, that if you want my help, I assume you are following my method 100% or are letting me know where there are differences.

Ahh.. it feels good to get that off my chest. C# Innocent request

Perhaps the number one request I get is to suggest a list of plants for someone's aquarium. This would be easy if I had a stock collection for each of my specials, but I don't believe in stock selections for several reasons.

1- Customers tanks vary in gals , height, water temp. and fish.

2- Availability of plants vary every week.

3- Quality of plants vary every week.

When I put together an assortment I go for the largest selection of the best I have (not most expensive). I custom build the plant selection based on the information the customer gives me about their aquarium. It takes about a half hour to decide on the plants, another half hour to put them on an invoice where I can add and subtract until it comes out to the requested budget. To then take this list of many plants and retype this in an e-mail message requires a lot more time.

Simply put, I don't have enough time to do this for all the requests I get. I do it free of charge when I put together your order.  If your a beginner, I suspect you wouldn't know much more even if I did give you a listed assortment via e-mail. Typically, when I put an assortment together I try to give you a large selection as opposed to a large amount of a few plants. It's my belief you need at least 6 months hands on experience with plants before you try to get serious about aquascaping.  This knowledge you will never get in a book.
    If your not a beginner, you will likely make your own selections with little if any help from me.

  Return Home