Fish Planner

[JamesFish]

Hi All,

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I've been keeping fish for over 15 years and have reasonable success with it. I keep tropical and more basic species but have learned allot along the way. I accept I still have lots to learn because the world never stops it changes all the time and improvements are forever coming along.

Over the last few years I have been concentrating heavily on making my fish keeping easier, tanks stable and what equipment actually works well and provides good value for money. The cost of electricity for example has gone up rapidly in the UK so LED lights and lower wattage equipment is a big deal now.

Some information I am planning on providing for free as like most things if you spend long enough hunting you can find or do and learn it yourself.

The idea of the planner is a £17 downloadable item so you can print it at home. The contents are not yet concrete but the basics will be

• How to plan your tank maintenance (Biggest mistakes I ever made were because I forgot to do things that were not frequently needed or wasted time and money doing them too often).

• Checking it is working correctly for you

• Reduce the things you need to remember and do every day with cost effective solutions.

• How to do big water changes without shocking the fish

• Basic lighting control and why you need to adjust it a little throughout the year

• How to safely do water changes without lifting buckets (This won't be possible for everyone)

• How to check requirements for fish and compatibility

For those wondering why the small charge. The upkeep of the information, producing the content and videos will take some time and effort. It also ensures people might actually follow it as they haven't just gone google give me this. People have a habit these days of assuming anything for free has no value.

Now a few questions -
Would anyone be interested in this?
Do you think think it provides good value?

For the senior members of the board I would love to send you a draft for free and get some feed back. I know if you ask 100 fish keepers how to keep fish you will get 100 different answers but I'm hoping to put the basics out in a easy to follow set of systems. The controversial methods won't be in the pack as they divide opinion too much and are not as easy to implement.

Oh and of course the planet Catfish forum would get a discount code as I value this board and it's members.

[Viktor Jarikov]

My first thought is this would be very interesting and useful to see. IDK about the charge, I'd do it free of charge, in the spirit of the PCF and our the best promotion of our hobby but it's your child. If you get too few orders, you may realize you need to make it free. If you get millions of orders, you can quit your day job and become a philanthropist If you land in between, you might be at your sweet spot... haha

All in all, I love any and all initiatives like this, or any initiative that's constructive and useful and helpful to others.

Depending on how handy you are at filming, YouTube channel with all these know-hows carefully and thoughtfully laid out may also be considered.

[JamesFish]

Hi Victor

As old as this seems have just finished the planner section. You are correct £17 seems to steep once its down on paper the value of it is limited. But still an interesting thing to do. Would you be interested in getting a copy of the first draft for review? Would love some feed back and most of the best keepers I know are of are on this forum.

Ussual spill don't copy, rip it off etc.... The chances are this is going to end up going free or for a few £ to cover the costs of hosting and making it.

I finally decided to put everything I know about fish keeping into digital form and while I fully expect some back lash on sections of it. I think some people could potentially save allot of time, money and fish lives by reading that sort of thing.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Hi James! Good. I am glad you are following through with it. I'll be glad to take a look. Depending on the volume, I can't promise to be extra-thorough or quick but will try my best.

I agree to your confidentiality clause too I assume we are all well-meaning gentlemen here, not spiders in a can

Not sure what you mean by the "planner section". Is this just one section of a larger document? I thought the whole thing you call the planner.

You can email it to me, or PM or what not.

[Jools]

Sure, I'd be happy to look at it and provide feedback if it would be helpful.

Jools

[JamesFish]

Thank you Viktor and Jools for agreeing to review.

I'm breaking down how I develop it so it can be done in stages and refined. The total volume when all done will probably = or exceed that of your average fish keeping guide. But the idea is to build it in bite sized chunks. That way it can be released slowly and feed back on way I have done things recieved and improved as we go.

The current section is a few pages. 4-5 Pages and only relates to scheduling your aquatic cleaning.

I'm a software tester I can't help it I like the sprint approach to things. This is what we are doing > this is what it will deliver. The building of the complete guide will follow that format and may mean some bits get released allot sooner and get a test in the real world.

So effectively this is my Alpha test is what I have planned as a concept any good or will it bring the scorn of the community down on me.

Will send it in PM shortly,
Thanks again.

[Jools]

Feedback sent! Agile is great for certain projects, especially if you've got a solid team, but what do you do if you're into your third sprint and you've only hit 50% of the deliverables from the first one? Joking, don't need a reply.

Main things are:

Internationalis(z)ation - who is your target audience and where do they live?

The old gravel cleaning debate. Do you need to do it and are you doing it for your or your fishes benefit?

Should you clean a filter every few weeks? What if multiple tanks, what if multiple filters. When should you check the temperature.

Fishkeeping isn't a race to buy every hardware product in the shop, what are alternatives to pH testing, water conditioners and alterers, gravel cleaners, filter media replacements, etc. It may, however, be a race to buy every fish species in the shop - that's for another day!

One thing I didn't put in the feedback was a species tracker. Folks forget what they have and so can't look them up when they need to recall what size, conditions, etc they all need.

Hope that all helps,

Jools

[JamesFish]

Thanks Jools, awesome feed back and am well on the way with the bones of the site now. It's got a barebones feel to it right now but everything apart from auto delivery of products and them being free seems to be working. It might be a case of lowest it can support out box is $1 or something. Have a ticket in with the support team for an answer.

On the aquatic side yes will be implementing a few bits and hopefully all be fine

[JamesFish]

Well this has been a fun filled day. We are live with just enough to be able to do this.

https://fishkeepingguides.dashnexpages.net/entryguide/

Happy hunting all and any feed back let me know. I can't promise to keep everyone happy but will do what I can.

[JamesFish]

Okay so I have been a bit lazy while working and things are slowly going up.

One of the feed back suggestions was a free stock tracker. It's avaible to buy but as this is planet catfish this is the free link.

[link removed]

Thanks again for the feed back and support!

[Bas Pels]

This is spam

[bekateen]

This is spam

Ugh, it is (at least one of the links is for sure).

@JamesFish, what's going on? The dashnexpages link is stocktrading.

Regards, Eric

[RileyHiss1]

Wow, I think that creating such guides is a good idea. There is a lot of different info about tanks and fishes, but it also is interesting to read the information written buy such an experience aquarium owner. A few days ago, I bought my first aquarium, but there are no fishes for now. I try to find as much info as I can to create the best environment for them. Also, I found one article about the best freshwater aquarium fish combination, and if you're interested, then you can read more… And if someone here also has a freshwater aquarium, it would be interesting to find out which fishes you have there.

[JamesFish]

Not sure why a bad link ended up on here sorry about that just got the alert. Can only assume I put the wrong link in or a page expired and they shoved something else.

The link left up is correct and still working.

[JamesFish]

I will post up the stock tracking sheet link again when I have a chance to dig it out. By stock I mean aquarium stock not stocks and shares

[JamesFish]

Sorry issue is the page expired so it was just dashnex giving you an advert page

[JamesFish]

https://fishkeepingguides.dashnexpages. ... krecorder/ - This link is good for the entry level stock recorder in your aquarium

https://fishkeepingguides.dashnexpages.net/entryguide/ This is for the the entry level guide