How do you get through to really stubborn people???

[grimlock3000]

I can not make a dent on my father at all. He has a 55g tank, ans a 20g tank of Guppies. The 55g tank has seen about 75% of the fish put into it die over the last 5 or 6 months. The 55g is a standard 55g with glass top, single strip lights, and two Penguin 330 filters. My father does the following:

1) No water changes, ever. Just keep adding more water when it gets low.
2) Add every chemical treatment known to mankind to "help" the fish. No sense in changing the water when snake oil #7 does the job for you.
3) Wash all tank ornaments and plants in bleach, rinse, and put them back in the tank when clean.
4) Rinses off the Bio Wheels when they get filthy. In the sink, with tap water.
5) Feed the fish with some giant bucket of crappy stale fish food. All of the fish get the same thing, even though the tank has a huge variety of fish.
6) Run the diatom filter once a week, because the is the only way the water ever looks clean.

In the 20g tank, he only has 2 corner filters, and he replaces all the media in them weekly, so the bio filter never gets anywhere. I would say there are at least 50 Guppies in the 20g, here is a pic:

I need something, like a book reccomendation, that says, "YOU ARE A MORON!" The problem is, it is hard to find a book that covers the fundementals in a clear and quick manner. I have already bought him two fishkeeping books, but for some reason they just skip right over the important stuff. The fact that all of his fish die like crazy does not seem to raise an alarm, the LFS just sells him more. I can not get through to him at all, for he is very stubborn. In truth, he DID used to breed and sell fish, about 20 years ago. But since then, things have changed but he never got brought up to speed. The LFS he goes to is a bunch of nubs, and they don't tell him he is doing anything wrong. He listens to them more than me, help!?

 

[Menagerie]

Oh my! Can he come on-line with us and Allivymar can tell him what to do with those chemicals
What does he think of your tanks? Is he at all worried about the high mortality rate in the 55 gal?
I don't have any book recommendations--I learned everything from my fiance (and then after joining this board, the student is schooling the teacher ).

 

[krap101]

i got an idea that might work but theres a low chance if hes had more fish die then live show him what hes like suppose to do... like do water changes... maybe fish will stop dieing and hell listen 2 u...only problem is you can do stuff but u usually cant stop him frmo doing stuff like cleaning off the biowheel... thats my advice show him that it works. if he doesnt and fish keep dieing then maybe youll have to confiscate it eh if he doesnt comply with anything ive said steal his credit card check book wallet etc so he cant buy anything like fish and let im run his coarse.. maybe he like seeing fish die.. maybe too lazy.. if he bred fish im sure he knows about all that stuff.. or you can steal his fish one by one

okay none of my stuff was logical so just let him run his coarse im my oppinion id rather die in a crappy tank then by being injected with the slime coat remover and injected with dye... that would hurt.. since ur thinking about the cons maybe you should think of the pros (if there are any)

 

[grimlock3000]

He thinks I do not have enough fish in my tanks. He rarely comes over to my place for any reason as it is though. My mother really likes my bowfront tank though

All of the fish going belly up in the 55g does not phase him. He just scoops them out and keeps going. I figured at some point eventually he would listen to me but that has not happened. Since he had a lot of fish in the past, any fish death now must certainly not be his fault Cycling, water changes, and bacteria are like another language to him... I was over at my parents tonight for his bday party and all of the cool fish i liked in his 55g were dead and gone

 

[Menagerie]

grimlock you have my sympathies. I think it was QTOFFER who suggested some books in a thread sometime last week. You could PM him if no one comes up with books.

 

[William]

If it was my father, I'd smack him up side the head and tell him his what fors.

 

[Christmasfish]

Well as someone still using fishkeeping practices used in 1970 you can't say it is just because he is old fashioned.
I keep my dutch tanks just as I was taught then. And that was change, change and change again. I am boggled by the amount of filters and this and that now out there. And all the new chemicals I look at warily.
Heck I remember I remember it was either a UGF (oo-aaah for "cheaper" FW fish or the sump/refugium/wet/dry and more often custom set ups for Salt tanks).

I worked for my grandpa (a serious breeder of golds and a hobbiest of labyrinth and SAmerican oddities) and he was a stickler for water quality. I missed even one tank and no allowed pay for me! Specially his fresh imports not commonly kept then. And the fancy tanks. The worst I remember going before a change with a friends fish in a battery tank was 2 weeks or when it looked "funny". 8O poor fishy..i think it was a platy.

Even back in the stone age, the roots of modern fishkeeping were there.
he just needs to get with the program....

have you shown him some test results?

 

[peterp]

For those tank keeping practices, I recommend adding some plastic fish.
They are a lot harder to kill.

 

[QTOFFER]

Grimlock, for the last five months, I have done everything right and benefitted from some great advice here; yet I still managed to kill 75% of the fish that went into my tank.
The big difference between me and your father is that a 25% success rate to me is abominable. (Yet, I know it will improve because I have the means and desire to inmprove it.) At the very least, I gotta applaud your father's ability to cope with disaster - even if the disaster is of his own making. Also, he must have quite a bit of disposable income - I noticed that those are fancy guppies, not the dime-a-dozen guppies that some people use as feeders.

I don't know if it will help, but this book, by the editor of Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine, covers the basics of fish husbandry and focuses on tank cycling, maintenance, and stocking. There is a nice description of the nitrogen cycle and a good discussion about biofiltration and waste removal.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0793821010/102-9082735-7279338?v=glance

Is your father re-entering the hobby after a long absence? I ask because I suspect that he is stuck in some kind of 1970's fishkeeping timewarp. I can't help but think of my brother's tank from the mid-70's when most people had an UGF (the latest thing). Water changes were unheard of - you simply had to replace the water that was lost to evaporation. Gravel vac - are you kidding me? They general school of thought was that the mechanical filter and the carbon removed all the nasty stuff and you only had to change the media every once in a while. This kinda worked because you really never disturbed the biofilter which resided in the gravel. Jeez, I bet most people didn't even know that their tank possessed a biological filter. Sure, lots of fish died, but they were cheap and easily replaced. People just didn't know that their aquarium fish were capable of living far longer lives.

Fast forward to today with our detailed knowlege of the nitrogen cycle, our biowheels, our protein skimmers, and our cannister filters. We know more than we did when your father was breeding fish and we have the technology to harness that knowledge. You need to convince your father to spend more time online in forums like this. It seems that he has alot of catching up to do regarding husbandry and technology.

 

[dralarms]

I think you need to get your test lit and show him what's killing the fish. That is so sad to watch fish just be poisoned to death due to someone that thinks he is an expert .

 

[Allivymar]

To add my own two cents (sorry justmy2cents LOL):

You can't change someone who doesn't want to be changed. Its like teaching a pig to sing; doesn't work and it p*sses off the pig. Erm, not that I'm saying your dad is a pig LOL

But I am saying you're wasting your time. Until he decides to see what he's doing to all those fish, you can explain the basics to him till your blue in the face and he'll keep doing what he's doing.

The thing to find out is what motivates him and tie the fish to that. For example, money? Maybe figuring out how much money he's invested in dead fish might be a kick in the pants. Of course, YOU can't do that; but there may be some way to plant the seed so HE does.

 

[dralarms]

Maybe figuring out how much money he's invested in dead fish might be a kick in the pants. Of course, YOU can't do that; but there may be some way to plant the seed so HE does.

That's an Idea. Ask him how much money does he spend on all those pretty fish. Then say how much have you spend on fish that just keep on dying? Maybe he will get a clue.

To add my own two cents (sorry justmy2cents LOL):

Everybody is always stealing my line. :rofl:

 

[grimlock3000]

Grimlock, for the last five months, I have done everything right and benefitted from some great advice here; yet I still managed to kill 75% of the fish that went into my tank.
The big difference between me and your father is that a 25% success rate to me is abominable. (Yet, I know it will improve because I have the means and desire to inmprove it.)

I killed a bunch of fish when I started off myself, but now I understand why that happened, and I try to help out other people so they do not go through the same things. As long as people try to understand what they are doing and care about the fish, beginner mistakes are OK (to a point).

At the very least, I gotta applaud your father's ability to cope with disaster - even if the disaster is of his own making. Also, he must have quite a bit of disposable income - I noticed that those are fancy guppies, not the dime-a-dozen guppies that some people use as feeders.

To him, its not a disaster, the fish just die. My parents do have an excessive ammount of disposable income as well. They recently spent $900 on a dog if that gives you any idea.

I don't know if it will help, but this book, by the editor of Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine, covers the basics of fish husbandry and focuses on tank cycling, maintenance, and stocking. There is a nice description of the nitrogen cycle and a good discussion about biofiltration and waste removal.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0793821010/102-9082735-7279338?v=glance

Excellent reccomendation, I will order that soon

Is your father re-entering the hobby after a long absence? I ask because I suspect that he is stuck in some kind of 1970's fishkeeping timewarp. I can't help but think of my brother's tank from the mid-70's when most people had an UGF (the latest thing). Water changes were unheard of - you simply had to replace the water that was lost to evaporation. Gravel vac - are you kidding me? They general school of thought was that the mechanical filter and the carbon removed all the nasty stuff and you only had to change the media every once in a while. This kinda worked because you really never disturbed the biofilter which resided in the gravel. Jeez, I bet most people didn't even know that their tank possessed a biological filter. Sure, lots of fish died, but they were cheap and easily replaced. People just didn't know that their aquarium fish were capable of living far longer lives.

Exactly! While the hobby has advanced greatly over the last 20 years, his knowledge has not gone anywhere. He bred fish in the late 70s and very early 80s. When I was a baby, one room in my basement was full of tanks bubbling away with corner filters and little fish that got sold to a LFS. He stopped breeding in the early 80s and kept one 55g tank until the early 90s with a couple Angels, one Pleco, and one Black Shark. New fish added to that tank would die from old tank syndrome, but the larger inhabitants lived for many years.

Fast forward to today with our detailed knowlege of the nitrogen cycle, our biowheels, our protein skimmers, and our cannister filters. We know more than we did when your father was breeding fish and we have the technology to harness that knowledge. You need to convince your father to spend more time online in forums like this. It seems that he has alot of catching up to do regarding husbandry and technology.

He does not use the computer

I am going to get my test kits, a bucket, and gravel vacuum and go over there this weekend. Maybe once I start lifting the black cloud of waste from the gravel it will smack some sense into him

 

[dralarms]

Maybe once I start lifting the black cloud of waste from the gravel it will smack some sense into him

Smack him with the gravel vac. J/K I hope you are able to save a few lives. I've made some mistakes myself but I really do try and learn.

 

[BrianNY]

I feel for ya grimlock. IME there are some people who can never admit to be wrong, and there are some parents who would never admit that their offspring are more knowledgeable than themselves. Perhaps it's a control thing with your father. Would you characterize him as controlling?

I might try a little reverse psychology on him. Tell him you are going to follow his fish keeping methods. Don't really do it mind you . Then ask him for solutions to "your fish death probs". It may make him feel like your hero if he tells you how to solve "your" problems. Then certainly he would follow his own advice.

Anyway, it's worth a try!!!

 

[William]

Some oldbies just don't want to change, and it dosn't matter who they kill in the proccess.


You should also try to mention to him that fish, for the most part, probbably are not as hardy as they used to be, to.

This makes sense to me, I don't know if its true or not, but wouldn't all that selective [in]breeding of fish to get special traits make the fish far less hardy?


Heck, even if its not true.. a little white lie isn't going to hurt anything if it gets him off his bum and puts him to work caring for his fish.

 

[stresco]

I use a really big HAMMER!

 

[flipz]

One quick suggestion I have, along with trying to point out how much money he has wasted on dead fish, is just finding some info on the web on how long the fish are supposed to be living that he has. If they are supposed to be living for 5-10 years, and his are dying after a couple days or weeks, maybe he'll realize something?

Just a thought.

-brent

 

[smilla4]

<edit> Ugh. I need to change my password to something I won't remember.[/edit]

 

[LAGlocker]

I saw the topic and thought it was about someone else, but I dont know how you can get your dad to change his ways. I have a friend who got me started in this, who still changes his water once ever two months, doesnt test at all, uses no water conditioner or anything at all. I dont know how he is keeping his fish alive. He says that this is how he started this is how he will keep going.