Scenario of Live Food Cultures

[Romi]

@sumer, Ishaan, Arjun

I think the problem is that freebies attract a lot of Indians. Even if those freebies are not really needed, people take them because they are 'free'. The problem is, the freebie-giver gets really tired after a time. Then he starts to get irritated. ... then his temper starts to rise...

The next time if even a nice person asks for a freebie, he gets it nice and proper from him, lol. I think this will keep happening for a while. ..till the hobby scene matures further.

We all have seen Aquapetz meetings where many people appear suddenly for 'freebies' and go home happy. But when the same people later become sellers, the people who gave them stuff for free earlier, start seeing RED. hehe.

i personally dont mind sellers selling live food. To be frank, i have myself suggested to friends who complain that they give more and get little back, that they sell them, but only at a fair price.

Personally, i would never sell live food cultures. But if i didn't know a person, and he comes SUDDENLY ONLY to demand a free culture, i would like to ask him a few QUESTIONS

I have seen, since 2008, so many people grumble about giving free plants or stuff before, and not even get genuine thanks from the takers..... they forget them as if nothing was done at all. I always ask them why they did it for so long then....... If i meet a nice well spoken decent hobbyist, he explains his situation, talks about it, and he asks for help, i give it. ... so it all depends on the situation. And it is a SUBJECTIVE situation.

Giving a calender or similar stuff that everyone likes, like Sumer does, is a great idea. i also try to give something or the other. In exchange for plants, for last 6 years, i have given, fish, driftwood, seeds, cactus plants, even snails! There are people for whom i have requested a friend to give me something, so that i can give it to them, becoming a kind of medium of exchange.

but just taking and vanishing is a BAD idea, and sorry guys, I KNOW plenty of people who do that.

There is no hard and fast rule. It is a matter that gets decided fresh every single time live food goes from one fishy place to another

if the 'live food culture police' as you guys call it, is banning people, let them. It is their right to follow their ideas. Sellers can still find customers. And sell. When a seller sells microworms for 500 bucks, it proves it is valuable. so when someone else gets it free again, they have more respect for it! So both win.

[sushant]

We all have seen Aquapetz meetings where many people appear suddenly for 'freebies' and go home happy.

I have seen, since 2008, so many people grumble about giving free plants or stuff before, and not even get genuine thanks from the takers..... they forget them as if nothing was done at all.

i may be exaggerating and going off topic but will like to add that i have been with this forum since its inception and have realised that is in common practice. The purpose of supporting the hobby helping a emember has been clearly defied. for the last 3 years we have been doing this and as Romi has mentioned seening many new Faces joining the meet but never to be found again, i don't even see most of them active no this forum. This shows that they are neither are thankful to the member or the forum for helping them out nor faithful to the hobby.

[saikumar]

I think it all also depends on the type of culture....
There are cultures that establish easily and don't need a lot of maintenance once you get things right like microworms, grindals, vinegar eels, daphnia, etc.
But there are also those cultures that need proper equipment and a lot of time to split. In this case the hobbyist must have spent a lot of time and effort and even money to
share the culture. e.g. mealworms, red wigglers, superworms, etc.

Sharing cultures for free not only leaves a room for others to take things for granted but also creates a sense of worry that they might not be able to get things right or return the favor. In some cases, a small fee could help the person to expand his cultures and allow him to share with more people. Meanwhile, if the person who got the culture got things right, he could start sharing too.

So I believe that be it for profit, or for expanding things, or covering shipping costs, or a defense for not being taken for granted, it all helps others (beginners and experts alike) to have a ready supply of cultures.

When I needed live plants for my aquarium, I felt that I might not be able to keep them or return the favor to anyone who gave them to me. And these are the desperate times when people like me go looking for online sites to find live plants. Luckily I got them from ebay and all the plants grew very well for me. And there is not a single day I don't wish that all the live food cultures were sold on ebay. It all depends on the person holding the culture whether he wants something in return or not. But if he allowed others to sell them or make the choice, things could get a lot easier for others.

Very important point boss

Some people have more than enough time to give attention to cultures to breeding to doing daily WC etc.

But some people just put lotsa extra efforts to make it happen. This expertise needs to be rewarded, if the gentleman is fine to giveaway I ll still anyway call him a gentleman.

Well for that matter mother nature gives us wood/rock/fish etc for free. Does it mean you should scold, chide and ban these guys as they are not giving anything back to nature? Then why not behave like Mother-Nature

[Romi]

@Sushant and Saikumar, have to agree with you...

Even if one in four the people who came to meetings in such a long time, stayed around to share in return what they took first, our hobby would be enriched. But we remain a limited group..

In 2008 i took Java Fern from Nishant Dutta, and i still have a special friendship with that good man. But their group Aquarium Club Delhi, where Scorpio was with me, soon fizzled out. All because people got tired of sharing information and things, with people who never repaid or showed gratitude. Aquapetz is exceptional in that the meetings are organized by generous host members, but beyond that...

Now Aquarium Club Delhi is surviving on facebook, but it is mostly about, 'see what i got!!'...

Ishaan, chotay bhai, take grindals from me, don't be fussy, boy!

[ishaan]

Looks like none of the poster over here was against selling live food cultures at nominal cost , so can someone please ask neil sir and deepak sir to kindly share their own view on this topic, i know they are on this forum and to bring a change in the Indian culture of live food culture we need to know their views also before coming to any conclusion.

@romi bhai: come on yr,its not about getting starter. you yourself can see not even a single person was against the practice of selling them, don't you think this topic genuinely needs attention. and regarding starter, neil sir has promised to send them to me so i am waiting, in case i was desperate to get them i would have posted a Want to Buy topic.

[saikumar]

Professionally done Ishaan! Things like these need to be discussed in a closed forum , rather than in public fb where your social life is at stake. You get tagged and you will be in a ugly status clarifying your pals at work and life.

Though having multiple IDs make it better, just not convincing.

Cheers!

[Arjun Tandon]

@Romi, Sushant : Definitely guys! I''m getting your point here and its quite natural for anyone to get exhausted. And these people who come and go in a flash, never get to realize how much effort you had to put in to obtain the cultures and share them. And most of them are ungrateful and selfish. Its sad and heartbreaking.

But thats why we are here discussing the issue. We must encourage more sellers into live foods so all these people atleast have to buy their stuff. This way, they'll value things a little more. And as far are close friends and genuine hobbyists are concerned, we can always help them. And In most other cases, redirect them to a low priced seller.

[VishaalDalal]

I have been keeping some king of live culture since I started the hobby.

I have shared a few cultures and accepted from people. the only reason that I share for free is so that people have the culture in case mine crashes. let me tell a very recent Incident.

I lost all my cultures and wanted to restart. got starters from friends and hobbyists (for free) and started the culture. Grindals were not doing well.

in the meantime I saw an FB post of someone selling Grindals. and on the same post many people offered cultures free. naturally I asked these people to share.

1. They wanted to and checked my credientials.
2. And found that I am not a hobbyiest who can get cultures because I sell my fish.


this is where Sumer is correct in saying that the obligation of free sharing is more expensive than buying this.

So if you sell fish or don't breed them your not a hobbyist as per them ? That would be a lot of us in that case.

They classify People as LFS ans HFS both categories dont get Live food cultures (Even at payment) but are rudely told to search for and buy from Ebay etc.

[vijendra_s123]

As mentioned by Romi and Sumer, I also believe that to have a healthy relationship with a fellow hobbyist their should always be ‘give and take’ and not just ‘take, take and take’. There are certain people who won’t believe in barter exchange but would think it is their right to take something for free from a hobbyist and turn up at his place demanding stuff. To take something for free one should first develop that kind of give and take relationship with the other hobbyist.

1. They wanted to and checked my credientials.
2. And found that I am not a hobbyiest who can get cultures because I sell my fish.

These so called guys who claim to give the cultures for free with an intention to develop the hobby want the guy who takes it to share any fries of the fish he breeds. Then how is the culture ‘free’ if you are expecting fries in return.

Vishal here is selling whatever extra fish or fries he has and he has all the right to do so after spending countless hours in maintaining his tanks, buying and conditioning his breeders, raising the fries. How can one expect him to give his fries in exchange for a starter culture which they themselves got for free from someone else. He is not making a profit out of his hobby if that is what the ‘culture police’ think he is doing. I am pretty sure that will not even cover the running expenditure of his setups for a month. I sell or exchange all the fries that I have after having some pretty bad experience of distributing them for free earlier. And trust me selling these do not even cover the expense of buying feeders for my Chaca chaca for a month or two. At the most I can do is buy a new pair of fish.

What Sumer does with gifting pictures and calendars is excellent, its shows that you respect what the other guy is doing for you. One hobbyist who took a microworm starter culture from me brought a few chocolates for me and it felt good not that I wanted something in return but just for the gesture on his part. There was a kid (13-14 yrs old) who took grindals, microworm and beer worm cultures from me and offered a few convict fries in return (and he got those fries along with him as well). But there have been lot many who took starter cultures killed them within a day or two and shamelessly came for more. What this has done is made me wary of giving cultures to unknown people now. There would be many genuine hobbyists with good intentions but my past experience with the other kind will not allow me to trust even these genuine ones.

Sharing cultures for free is a personal choice. To ensure that it is put to good use what we can do is rather than giving it to any tom dick or harry that shows up start asking simple questions like what set up he has, what all fishes does he currently have or have had in the past. His answers to these simple questions can tell a lot as to how he is placed in the hobby.

If someone is selling a culture then that is not bad either. Let him do so, one is not obliged to buy, you can always find a person who is willing to share some of his cultures and take it from him rather than criticising the one who is selling it. You never know that person would have bought it from some one or would have purchased it from abroad. You just cannot assume that he has got it for free from someone. If not purchased than he might have given something in exchange for it, some plant that he propagated (he would have spent something on propagating them, CO2, Lights, Ferts, etc).

The best thing about the US hobby scene as mentioned by Sumer is how people don’t expect anything for free and appreciate the other person’s efforts by willingly participating in auctions and buying stuff. Such thing will never work here unless people are willing to change. Romi and I tried to bring the auctioning thing here and also held an auction at the meet at my place last October, but later no one showed any interest as perhaps free loaders thought that it might prevent them from getting stuff for free.

[VishaalDalal]

Beautiful Reply Vijendra,

I think almost all the Hobbyists who have faced the same problem of people not respecting freebies are now taking a token amount which is usually the market price or lower.

and to be very honest If I dont like the Price I dont buy.