Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!pyramid!lll-winken!gryphon!richard From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: cheap stuff Keywords: stuff that is cheap Message-ID: <3787@gryphon.CTS.COM> Date: 3 May 88 23:49:10 GMT Distribution: alt Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, Ca. Lines: 120 (having put one foot in his mouth, richard will now jam the other one in there) (Carl S. Gutekunst) writes: I wrote: >>AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ! >> >>$70 for a 20 gal setup ? GAK. > >Please don't be presumptuous. For all your bountifully helpful advice (which >I greatly appreciate), you still seem to have lost touch with those of us who >are still struggling to keep a few fish alive -- i.e., rank beginners. Not at all. I may have been doing this stuff for longer than Bill Wisner has been on this planet, but in oh so many areas I'm a rank beginner. I'm just a cheap son of a bitch, and since i started this expensive hobby when i was young, I learned many (cheap) shorcuts. I still say $70 is outrageous for a 20 gal. setup. Alteranatives are: Seeking out a local aquarium society (of which there are many) and asking a few people what would be a good choice of filters etc for a rank beginner. Fish folk are increadably generous with everything but tanks and you have a very good chance of getting evrything free. Searching the classified ads in the paper or the recycler and buying a complete setup there. Should be 1/2 to 1/4 the price of a new setup. >My time is worth something too, and it took a whole lot less time to work with >people at the fish shop whose advice I trusted Anybody who would sell you a 20 gal setup is sure as hell not somebody *I* would trust. > than to rummage about in yard >sales for used equipment. (There ain't no used equipment in the stores around >here.) Perhaps more importantly, I'm not buying several tanks -- just one. Sure, it just starts with one. Pretty soon you're stashing your lunch money to buy "just another tank", but hey you can quit at any time, and then you go to the fish store every friday and start blowing larger and larger portions of your paycheck, face it pal, YOURE AN ADDICT ! >it blows up and dumps the fish on the floor at 2am, it's a crisis very differ- >ent from when you have three or a dozen tanks. And odds are that my new tank >will hold up better than a used one of unknown origin. If you ever hear of this happening, let me know. I've never heard of it. >>Whats the heater for ? > >To keep the fish warm. :-) > >Newcomers need to reduce the number of variables. My books says that my cory- >doras, swords, and danios want the water to be between 74 and 78F. And I can't >maintain that without a heater. Now, maybe they'll do just fine at room temp- >erature (66 to 74F throughout the day), but that's not what the "experts" have >told me, and everyone I talk fish with uses a heater; so until I have enough >experience to know better, I'll go the conservative route even if my out-of- >pocket expenses are higher. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ! I've never found a fish that couldnt hack 60 - 90 degree water, Remember that a vast majority for the fish we keep come form small, disrty, algae infested streams that undergo a 20 degree change in temperature in 24 hours. Experts dont write those damn books, professional authors do. The amount of bad advice and misinfortion in most of thise books is a crying shame. The only book I've got that seems to have matched my experiences is Exotic Aquarium Fishes, by William T Innes, published in the 20's. Nothing since has come close to good advice and plain onld common sense. Axelrod et al are the worst offenders, most of his statements are made to benefit him personally as he started Gulf fish farms, Miricle PLastics and TFH press. TFH's more scientific books are pretty good but so high level they deal with the more esoteric things such are morphlogical diferrences between clines of bimorphs on the lower estuary of the Zambizi river blash blah blah >I did get silly on a few aspects -- colored gravel, for instance. And it came >with a tight-fitting glass cover, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is not silly at al it is extremely important >a 25W flourescent light, and a gratuitous >sample of pellet food, presumably for koi or goldfish. Incidentally, several >people have sent my E-mail wondering how I was able to put together a setup so >*cheap.* Several people, it seems, have been taken for a ride. $70 bucks is far from cheap, and your original post indicated you are having problems. Can the heater. Just stow it and see what happens. Nothing. > I have seem the same setup at other shops in the $150 range. I you're >a beginner, it's *tough* to find the bargains. If you've really tried to find cheap stuff and failed, this statement has merit, otherwise you are projecting failure. Sorry to sound testy, I dont mean to, be but this really gets my goat. -- "Words of wisdom Lloyd, words of wisdom" richard@gryphon.CTS.COM rutgers!marque!gryphon!richard