Shinguuji

ok, last nite i was studying econs for my A's and thought up a very weird question(after reading some essay outline:is the monopoly evil? discuss.....), ok, i shall put it in human language first, then write the economic justification, ok, here goes: fish shops sell abt the same product, a tang in marine parade is same as a tang in LCK, so the business is set in such a way that the shops are selling near to the same good, in this type of business, a shop must be the most competitve to survive, if not, other shops will steal business and u will have to close down(justification below) so how to be the most competitive? sell ur fish at very high prices, bluff those who u can bluff, sell corals and fish to kids that know nuts abt marine fishes and are expected to kill their fishes by the next day...basically doing all that is 'immoral'... even not cycling ur tank properly is profitable...if u know the right strategy, like not putting so many fish that u can't sell in a day, or at least u can't sell till ur losses are minimised where the least number of fish dies... consider the cost of waiting for the tank to cycle, it eats up several weeks of business( take note, this is opportunity cost, which is part of the TC, AC and MC curves according to economic definition (econs cost=accounting cost + opp. cost) provided u are a rich man's son, if u try to be ethical, u would surely lose out, even merely reading up will have opp. cost, so if u can only do business if u do it immorally, is setting up fish shops immoral? are we contributing to the sin when we buy fish? should fish shops be banned? what can be done? a summary of the above: if u don't cheat, u dun last, so only cheaters win in the game of fish selling, and thus accounting for so many of the 'immoral' shops as compared tto the good ones so izit immoral to buy fish? economic justification: the LFC is a perfectly competitive industry, why? it sells undiffrentiated goods, has little or no barriers to entry, furthermore, there are tons of shops after the 'nemo' craze, further proving that this industry is nearly perfectly competitve. in a PC market, the firms have to be both allocative and productive efficient to survive, which means, cut costs as much as possible...by cheating, not only do u cut cost( opp. cost of cycling is cut), u raise demand far above the normal range(nemo craze) thus outcompeting the 'normal' shops and thus being far more efficient, starving out business for 'normal' shops and thus putting them in shutdown condition, so are we contributing to the damage if we keep buying fish? should fish shops be banned? yes, i know i have been studying too late and too hard....

anyway, esp. to achiliestang and HQX, thanks a billion, i do not feel so worried now...

okayyyyyy.........so what do i tell my LFS? damn! i just wanted that one unique fish....arghhhhh.... so for 'normal' fish i feed flakes? am i right? does brine shrimp really cause so much damage? its a little shocking, considering what i throw into my discus tank... btw, do u know any marine fish shops in the east? there's two in marine parade, i'm going to one of them...want to know of other shops though so if i feed brine now, my tank's gonna explode? or can i feed the mandrin a little bit of brine, while the rest eat flakes, i dun think mandrins eat a lot considering their size and in some webbies, ppl feed them using stuff from the live rocks... so if i feed them a small amount, my tank won't go boom right? errr...on the matter of feeding them, i'm mugging like for an hour each time to prepare for my A's, so netting a fish and playing the eating game with it is very entertainng compared to studying how a BOP surplus in singapore is going to affect america or how energy is conserved when two 'balls' hit each other anyway, i'll be getting a larger tank for my other fish after the A's, so my 2ft. tank is all for my mandrin, might consider downgrading it though, 2ft. for one fish is a blatant waste of space... errrr...and yes, i won't be putting any lifestock into it anytime soon till the tank its ok, already exp. the temptation when keeping FW fish...

or do i train it to eat flakes? can it be trained at all int the first place? does brine cause so much pollution? i drop 2 cubes of bloodworms/brine into my discus fishtank each time, and i do it 3 times a day, but its still fine....are marine tanks really so pollution sensitive??? and Shinguuji is the surname of a anime character, Shinguuji sakura, its the only anime i watch, i dun really like the anime genre though, i think she's hot, so i used her surname as my user name, thats all... i added some product called 'psb bacteria' since day one, will it speed up the cycle? so my cycle will end next week right? but when will i see a fall in nitrites? predictions anyone?

ermmm...ok in ur opinion, would the fighting fish thingy work? that's what i thought of after thinking for quite a while....

ermmm.i thought of using those fighting fish type of boxes to hold the mandrin fish while its eating, i just use one of those boxes, net the fish into a box, put some brine shrimp in, off the lights, close the room door, wait, open the door, check whether any food has been eaten, if eaten, release the fish, if not, close and wait...will this work? NONO, i have NO, NO fishes in it, i repeat, NO fishes in it, u read wronly, go members lunge and see what i originally wrote, i was PLANNING to keep a mandrin fish, so i BOOKED it, there's NONE, ZERO, ZILTCH number of fishes in my tank now

readable level, as in it is shown that the nitrites are falling, so as to put my heart to rest, its cos i have kept mny discus for several years, and while cycling one tank, it took me nearly 2 months, but the nitrites were still at max, i had to dimatle the whole tank and rebuild it again... its bcos of this incident that i get jumpy whenever nitrites rise, iknow they need high levels b4 any bacteria comes out...i have been reading a lot u know? ermmm...and what is a crash? and can u predict the number of days for me to be able to see a fall in nitrite?

ermmm..its not last thursday, its last last week(last X2 week), it was last thursday where the nitrite started to show quite significantly( 3-4 ppm?)

2 live rocks, one is 400grams, the other 700g, what is a crash BTW? a few weeks???arghhh.... how many days to go for me till the nitrite drops to a readable level(less than 10-15ppm?)

ah yes, my tank's live rock is cured and has stuff growing on it...

ermmm..hello, i'm using a 2ft tank with only a external filter equipped cos i'm only keeping 3fishes.. ok, i set up my tank last week, the nitires started to climb last thursday, and by sat. it has gone so high that my test kit can't even read how hihg it is(my test kit max. 5ppl) i used some bacteria thingy right from the start, and i cycled it by letting a cube of brine shrimp melting in it... i noticed that nitires coming out in a few days is rather fast, but after reading some books, and comparing ratios, i found that the days the nitrite were in the tank was way too high as compared to the number of days it took for the nitrite to appear, i have added live rock the past few days, but it didn't seem to help much i tried diluting the water in order to test it(filled bottle to 5ml with tankwater, then filed bottle to 20ml by using tap water, mix, then drain out the excess water and test) the test reading were still max, but this time, it took much slower for the 'max reading' to come out, about 1 minute more(the max. reading is instant usually, but the instructions said the 'max reading' would appear in 5min!!!) is my tank stuck or scewed or anything? any predictions when the nitrite will fall? i booked all the fishes in my LFS and must get them by next monday, but i need a cycled tank by then, so any predictions? help!!!

actually, i read up on most fishes even b4 i set up my tank, i read that mandrin fishes need many KGs of live rock to graze on etc. and initially didn't want to keep it 'cos of high maintainence, but after what my LFS told me, they convinced me to book one and get one, so i just did it...... ok, from my POV, it seems that the main problem by mandrin fishes is that they can't get to the food as fast as other fishes can right? and since i'm only keeping a clownfish, goby and mandrin fish, this should not be much of a problem right??? and i can sacrifice the goby since the one i booked jumped out of the tank in my LFS and died, so that leaves a minimum of 2 fishes(but i plan to keep 3 still....), so i should be able to keep the mandrin right? pls correct me if i'm wrong... actually, i'm willing to keep ONLY the mandrin fish, this sounds a little crazy, but i'm the type of person that won't keep a tank unless the fish in it are rare and/or unusual...i know marine tanks by itself is rare enough...but still.... pls advise me fast enough b4 my LFS gets it and i have no choice but to buy it, i dun want to kill anything, even if its just fishes....thanks

eh...errr...nvm, i see wrongly..haha, anyone got personal exp. on mandrin fish?

i actually let a whole cube of brine shrimp melt in my tank............

uh...ok, thats enuff, thanks! my LFS say mandrin fish eat brine shrip, they bluff one ornot? my nitirite go up so fast in 1 week(this was when the reading went off the scale...) izit cyclingvery fast or is the tank got problem?

errr.and ya, how long does cycling take, i'm in 1 1/2 week liao, my nitite test kit cannot read anything liao, bcos too high, i drop the test solution, it immediately change colour, my test kit cannot read beyond 5 ppm, so think its very very high liao...

yes, i'm a guy, but napfa pass so april2nd go in, i still want to go holiday wif frens, somemore got prom night, dates, etc. and a lot of extra time, so once my A's fin., i go out there and buy tank, filter, skimmer everything liao, then i put dead prawn, then i go do what i want, 1mth later when i come back hopefully all right, by then i go work liao, so can start do buy fish my LFS say mandrin fish eat brine shrip lehz...dun tell me the bluff me....

hi, i'm a newbie and would like to intro myself i'm 18, currently studying in SAJC, science, i keep discus fish and marine fish only, i own 4 2 ft.tanks, 2 discus for 3 tanks, all 8-10inches big, of breed, blue socrpion, singapore fireworks etc. i recently started keeping marine fish in my 2ft tank, its currently cycling, but i have reserved a true percula, and a mandrin fish for my tank, the owner said mandrins are easy to keep provided tt there are very few fish, so no competition for food, is this true? they said to feed it brine shrip, frozen, anyway, my tank should finish cycling by this week...and maybe i'll perhaps get a yellow band prawn goby too.... i'm using an external filter ONLY, it should be enough right? i'm only planning to keep 3 small fishes plus some live rocks in my tank... after my a levels, i'm gonna get perhaps a 3-4ft tank, will really need advise then, planning to keep those huge n beautiful angelfish... btw, can someone explain the lingo used here, eg. LFC, what does it mean?