Unlabelled Aquariums - 2019 Feedback Thread

January 15, 2019
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Aquariums - 2019 Feedback Thread

2019 Feedback Thread

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 05:23 AM PST

Hello r/aquariums!

This year has been another awesome year with you guys! We're nearing 180k subscribers, which is something we could've never imagined. With this post we'd like to thank our lovely community, but also use this to address potential changes and open a discussion with the community. We value community input a lot, and therefore we want to use this post as a place where users can openly discuss ideas with the moderators. If you have new ideas for this subreddit, criticism about the way we do things, or problems with anything related to the subreddit, please let us know.

Christmas and new users

Christmas and the holiday season always bring out an influx of new aquarists who bought or received aquariums or kits as gifts. Since many new users don't know much about care, we ask that you be patient in providing the right resources and giving them constructive criticism and feedback. Most new aquarists have wrong notions on appropriate tank size/stocking, specialized care, or compatibility with other species. It is crucial that we help them in a positive light, rather than insulting or personally attacking them. Please remember the human.

Reporting and Modqueue

Please keep up with reporting reddiquette and subreddit violations. As stated before, we do review and take seriously every report we receive. We do ask that you do not use a generic report reason and add clarity to the report. This ensures the report gets dealt with as quickly as possible. As the sub gets bigger, we will need more people watching and it makes our jobs (the mods) easier if the report has a valid reason attached to it. For those that somehow have not read the full rules yet, you can find them here.

Moderator Changes

Over the course of last year, two of our moderators have stepped down, /u/extrasilence and /u/loachlicker. We wish them the best moving forward. We want to thank the two newest members of our team, /u/classseh, and /u/Elhazar, for doing a great job so far. /u/otp1144 has stepped down as top-level mod due to time commitments outside of reddit, but will remain with the team.

Rules feedback

To kick start feedback discussion, we want to address the rules that we see the most controversy in both mod mail and within comments. We'll address some of the reasons behind how they were created/modified, and add some clarity on what we remove.

Rule 2, 9:1, (mainly with regards to YouTube videos) - No spamming, advertising, or flooding the sub.

To clarify, we now apply this rule to any youtube video posted. We felt that this made the rule enforcement more uniform and with the maturation of reddit video and other platforms there are now multiple alternatives. Recall the "spirit" behind this rule, as quoted from our rules page:

The 9:1 rule principal is well known in the reddiquette community. It is designed to curtail business interests from becoming a defining influence on a sub, a "billboard" of financially motivated posts that take away from the spirit of the sub and can also lead to a decline in sub quality. We find that many "channel building" youtube reddit users have very little contribution to the sub past the videos they post. It also allows our subscribers not to be taken advantage of as a function of free advertisement.

We get a lot of negative feedback about this rule, especially from those that think it is inconvenient or have no intention of really monetizing or building a youtube empire. We are aware that in some cases the rule can seem overly strict; but the rule has to be enforced across the board to be truly fair; a subjective treatment case-by-case we decided is not accurate or fair enough, and we don't have enough time as a volunteer moderation team to vet out every case.

Note that asking about what channels are good or worth watching for different categories is a help/advice post, and would obviously be approved. Asking people to seek out your youtube channel, trying to divert people from reddit to your preferred platform, or posting links directly in post bodies or comments would not be approved. Note that in a lot of these cases, these diversions are done with an ulterior motive; that is, to grow their account, channel, or advertise their business.

Rule 7 - No direct links to social media, emojis and/or hashtags, or posting private information.

We are a subreddit and not a social media platform (though reddit admins/owners might want us to be one), because of this, emojis and hashtags aren't allowed in titles. We also feel like emojis, all caps posts, and special symbols distract from the post listing and sometimes create bugs or are not properly supported across all reddit apps/platforms.

Posting private information is not only against our sub rules, but also against reddit's TOS. Keep in mind that PII (personably identifiable information) also applies here. Any post that gives away personal information (even your own) in a way that we feel is dangerous (addresses, full names, other locations, phone numbers, etc) will be removed at our discretion, or requested to be removed before approving the post.

As for social media links, we'll allow them when they're used as a source, since rule 5 requires non-OC to be sourced. Linking to Facebook events won't be allowed, and we suggest users to make a text post about the event. We're also not an instagram boosting page, so people that want to share pics from their instagram account are asked to rehost them (using imgur, for example). This last one is closely tied to our rule 2, which doesn't allow gratuitous promotion.

Reddit chat and the future of /r/aquariums live-chat

We've heard you guys and we know that some of you think we are way behind the 8-ball on setting up a discord for this subreddit. We currently have an official IRC channel that's shared by the majority of the reddit aquarium community, but have looked into alternatives. Besides discord, reddit chat has also been suggested. Because we don't want to have several separate chat rooms for various reasons (concentration of knowledge, moderator control, ..) we have decided to wait for reddit chat to be opened up more for other platforms/apps, in which case we will re-evaluate reddit chat and most likely move to it. Temporarily changing to another chat host will only make things more confusing.

In regards to discord links and promotion, the reason we still won't allow discord links is because the majority of discord channels we've interacted with on the subreddit over the years either died out or turned out to be promoting immaturity, berating, and hostility to new hobbyists. Since our moderation team does not have the resources to vet out channels, we can not recommend them. We also won't be adding new moderators solely to keep a chat room in control, especially when it will most likely be temporary. We do visit some of these Discord channels from time-to-time, and still feel the original issues are still present. We are aware that no social media platform (discord, IRC, or even this sub) is perfect, but upon periodic evaluation we still see a lot of bad information, general immaturity, and often hostility on some of the larger aquarium discords.

Happy new year!

And of course happy new year to everyone from the mod team! We hope you already had a lovely holiday and wish you and your families (and your fish!) the best in the new year.

submitted by /u/thefishestate
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Wild type full mask hybrid male flaring and showing form. This is how i grade my males before a competition or to use as breeders for my next batch. This guy has now given me basically his clones I'll show them off in the next week. -Franksbetta

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 06:39 AM PST

I drew some fish you folks might like!

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 08:22 PM PST

The pioneers rode these babies for miles

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 10:03 PM PST

Full size water noodle

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 07:47 PM PST

Ricky being a protective daddy

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 10:38 PM PST

Hangin' out

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 06:32 AM PST

Babies!!

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 04:17 PM PST

The 2 40B's Cant wait to finish up the 3rd

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 04:48 PM PST

They really liked the music!

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 08:58 PM PST

Introducing Phorcys!

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 08:10 AM PST

2 Lads

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 07:24 AM PST

My Skunk Cory group doing their thing

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 05:50 AM PST

Finally finished adding the last of the fish to my 55 gallon! Pretty new to the hobby and loving it so far!

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 08:16 PM PST

Royal boi.

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 11:07 PM PST

Picked up five julii Corys today! So pretty! I hope they mate

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 09:24 PM PST

5 months old dirted 30G. Album in comments.

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 09:01 AM PST

Is this normal?

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 03:32 AM PST

It's pretty amazing looking at the progress a tank can make

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 09:02 PM PST

My side-by-side 17 gallon tanks

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 03:04 AM PST

Rainbow BTAs on low tide (water change)

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 06:17 PM PST

Woke up to this last night. Managed to salvage and Everything still alive though. Would having rock directly on the bottom cause it to crack?

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 06:53 AM PST

Decided to post this ham here.

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 08:12 PM PST

Advice to New Fishkeepers

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 07:47 AM PST

As a new aquarist, I have taken the responsibility of keeping fish very seriously. It has not been easy. This subreddit has helped me tremendously along the way and I want to thank you for all of your help.

I wanted to write this in hopes of helping out anybody considering taking on the hobby.

Research does not equal success

Researching any hobby is a good idea before jumping in. Fishkeeping is very rewarding, but it is also hard work initially and requires diligence and patience.

Try to avoid confirmation bias, seeking validation to justify your impulse. I am guilty of this. I wanted fish and I wanted them now. In my research, I found Tetra Safe Start. Watched some videos, read some reviews and headed to Petsmart. Once there, the "fish person" at Petsmart, validated my findings. I was on my way...

After initial setup, I let the tank run for three days, added Safe Start and a small number of fish. Two months + later and I am finally reaching the end of the cycling process.

The Big Lie

Having been through it myself, I now believe that a fishless cycle is best. While I have not lost fish during the cycle, I have spent an incredible amount of time protecting them from the process.

Bacteria in a bottle is great concept, but I found the Nitrogen Cycle to be a temperamental beast, affected by a wide array of factors. Maybe in limited instances with a seasoned aquarist and the perfect environmental parameters, it would work as described but do not expect those results.

Where are the signs?

After setting up my tank, I anxiously awaited any sign that the tank had cycled. Weeks passed and nothing. Every API Master Kit test showed zero ammonia, zero nitrites and zero nitrates. This has to mean the tank has cycled, right? Wrong! Logically, I put bacteria in that is supposed to cycle my tank instantly, two weeks later and no levels detected, so I must be in the clear. After an additional week, I started to see ammonia levels rising.

*NOTE: You will know the cycle is underway when you see obvious spikes in ammonia, followed by obvious spikes in Nitrite and Nitrate. The spikes are well beyond trace amounts. With the exception of the Nitrates, you will see them drop back to zero as quickly as you saw them rise, once the bacteria is working and established. The process takes weeks to finalize.

Oh, crap!

In the two weekends following the initial setup, with no signs of toxic chemicals, I continued to add fish. Once my ammonia levels started to rise, I knew that I had a lot of work in front of me if my fish were to survive.

Prime to the rescue.

I learned about Seachem Prime while posting and reading threads on this sub. It has been a lifesaver, literally. Frequent water changes and nightly doses of Prime, have allowed my fish to survive and as far as I can tell, thrive, in the face of the potential deadly Nitrogen Cycle.

Do not listen to the noise

There are so many people that are happy to help newbies and I am grateful for those people. You can read and read and read some more and you still may not be prepared for the cycling process as there are so many variables that you can't account for. While most people are helpful, there are those that will sit high on their pulpit and cast shame onto you for your missteps. They will say you are narcissistic for owning fish without advanced knowledge of how to take care for them. My advice is to ignore these people. Fishkeeping is like driving, or being a Doctor or anything else. You only learn with practice. There is not a book that you can read that will ensure the success of your aquarium.

submitted by /u/canthidemystripes
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