There are so many personal agendas and egos at stake and so little about our love for Koi. We seem to try and force others to see it our way or the high way. We have no tolerance for other opinions. Should others not follow Koi keeping protocol then clearly we / those with more experience have failed and we should try harder by setting an example and put the fun back into our hobby. Should we believe ourselves to be so good then why do we have to force this down someone’s throat? Leading by example should be enough to lead the way forward without all the bashing and complaining. A lot of complaining has been done lately and very little about having fun in our hobby. Our irresponsible "know it all" posting is chasing newbie’s away from our hobby. I do not see many positives and initiatives coming from the dealers, breeders and retailers to further our hobby but instead complaints and comments about keepers and hobbyist that does nothing for the Koi hobby in general. Instead of all the complaining, help us right and show us the right way forward, in a positive manner. We all seem to be experts to criticize the hobbyist / keepers but do we ask ourselves, what do I do, to grow the hobby in general. it is something we as a nation has perfected, the criticize thing.
This forum is supposed to be fun and a place for as all to learn from one another. I prefer to evaluate all comments good or bad and use what is best for my needs and budget. Lately it has become a place where we people are more concerned about their value, alleged superior knowledge that is not respected by all. Nobody is stopped from sharing knowledge and showing us/me the right way, but we prefer to play games, with an end result that we all loose and the Koi industry suffers, newbie’s prefer to stay away to avoid being attacked from us wise men. We should use our energy to assist and educate those in need and stop with all the threatening "Know it all" attitude.

Jaco is sitting on the fence..it's a bit wobbly but I'm hanging in there

Never regret anything that once made you happy just know when it stops making you happy it was a mistake.


if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking its stupid

Bobby ek weet nou nie mooi hoekom die thread en post in hierdie afdeling is nie maar ek gaan maar post

In die begin toe ek hier gekom het was ek regtig heeltemal stupid met die koi ding en al wat ek geweet het is dat ek gaan drie moerse damme bou en ek wil koi daarin hê.

Gelukkig vir my is ek a befoeterde ou ballie wat my nie sommer laat voorskryf nie en ek grou diep agter goeie raad aan. Ek vra vrae en ek vat antwoorde en ontleed dit en kom terug as ek dink dis a swak antwoord gewees.

Maar nie alle mense is so nie ... ek stem saam dat die trant van sommige antwoorde newbies bloody nervous maak.

As jy my pond storie mooi gaan lees sal jy sien dat ek 'n paar mission objectives gehad het en ek het seker gemaak ek bly daarby en beskryf my sparteling mooi duidelik. Ek het dit gedoen by uitstek sodat newbies die thread kan lees en kan verstaan.

Nie almal kan pressure systems bekostig nie. Nie almal het die plek wat ek het om a 45,000 liter veggie pond te run nie. Iewers tussenin is waar die meeste ouens is.

Ek is tans baie besig met a groot projek maar ek hoop dat by Junie rond gaan ek tyd kry ... ek will a 25,000l pond bou so goedkoop as moontlik met soveel as moontlik gravitasie filtrasie en kristal helder water ... of ek dit gaan regkry weet ek nie nou nie maar for sure gaan ek probeer want my pelle wat my damme sien is almal aanvanklik van mening dat dit a fortuin kos en di snie waar nie ... dit kan a fortuin kos maar dit hoef nie. So ek is nou nie eintlik die commercial members se ideale lid van die forum nie want ek soek goedkoop oplossings vir my probleme.

EK is egter van mening dat as die gekombineerde harde kennis geskei kan word van party humongous egos af kan ons gesamentlik a manier vind om koi eienaarskap meer beskostigbaar en minder intimiderend te maak. Dit sal baie vir die koi industrie beteken ... meer eienaars, meer visse, meer toerusting, meer kos en hopelik minder botsings.

Nouja nou het my eier gelê en heel waarskynlik in die verkeerde plek maar dis maar ook ok ... delete dit maar as dit aanstoot gee.

Ek dink ook die thread is in die verkeerde plek maar die message oor die forum en die members en waar die fun gegaan het - het 'n punt beet.

Ja dit is seker op die verekeerde plek en Admin kan dit skuif indien hy so voel.

Hi .Colyn daar moet plek wees vir alle mense in al die verskillende vlakke van die hobby, daar moet ook plek wees vir die "purist" wat die beste potensiaal uit sy Koi wil kry waar bloedlyn en skou gehalte van groot belang is. Ek glo dat die speelveld ietwat anders lyk as vir die deursnee Koi keeper. Ek kan jou verseker dat geld dan vir 'n bepaalde doel en resultate gespandeer word en nie om ander mense te beindruk nie. Elke stokpertjie het maar sy vlakke van gevorderheid en koste struktuur. Dit beteken nie dat die hobby nie op alle vlakke geniet kan word en dat die een beter as die ander is nie, maar slegs wat elke persoon daaruit wil kry.

My probleem is egter al die kritiek wat ons uitdeel en die min energie wat ons gebruik om werklik die hobby te bevorder op enige vlak. Baie van die kenners sit net reg om dwars klappe uit te deel in plaas van om met geduld die koi keeper van inligting te voorsien op 'n manier wat nie afbrekend of neerhalend is nie.

we need to go back to what we are talking about our hobby koi. The most beatifull thing about koi is that we all can share our thoughts and experiences if you are the president or the gardener at someones house. This is the beaty of koi it brings together all walks of live with the same passion KOI!!!In the same token Koi are our pets, be it a grand champion or not is not the issue in our hobby. Do you love your pedigree dog more than the pavement special you have?? I think not!! So with Koi some people show koi some not, some want the best koi some want pets. This is the fundamentals of the hobby we all love Koi!! this is something we should not forget!! It has absolutly nothing to do with having big budgets or not. It is the individual's decision where he wants to go with the hobby and we should respect that. In the same token a LOT of serious Show koi keepers do not buy big koi and rather buy tosai as the want to see tham grow and play with them and learn the traids of diiffrent bloodlines breeders. One does not have to pay a fortune for a good koi. A good koi is a good koi no matter where is comes from. Sorry diviating here.
The hobby of koi has a place for everybody and we all need to remember that we all started with it and we all paid the price going through the variuos learning curves. We need to do what works for us and learn from each others mistakes!!
Koi should bring us together not make people feel inferior becasue someone knows better.

Hi,

I have been in the wonderful hobby of koi keeping longer than most. I still have much enthusiasm for the hobby and I still love my koi. I have seen it all before. What has happened here comes and goes in cycles. More often than not it is centred around one or two individuals.

Can I give you an example - If you have two people standing in the same room but standing in opposite corners you have two people with two different perceptions of exactly the same thing. Both people will be looking at the same room but from different perspectives. Both are correct in their perceptions, after all its still the same room.

When its comes to expressing an opinion the difficulty occurs when one person thinks or believes HIS perception is the ONLY correct one. This is further complicated by people want to be the first or only person expounding an idea or a fact.

When we are really honest most opinions expressed by koi experts are ideas and scientific material gleaned from scientific research and interpreted for the hobbyist.

The internet does not allow a person to evaluate another persons ideas or comments properly because you cannot take tone of voice or facial expressions into account. So whilst a comment may seem funny to the person posting it this same comment can be taken as a great personal insult to another person.

Its the tolerance without personalising that is critical. Respect someone else's ideas - they may well be better than your own. No one knows everything - we may fool ourselves into believing this but it’s true.

As an instructor in the American Koi Health Advisor program I have written the study material for Koi Filtration and Koi Nutrition. In the exam paper I set my last question for the Filtration section is -

"50. Whilst standing at the edge of a pond is there a very simple method you could use of establishing if the filtration on a koi pond is working? Answer: "

(So what would your answer be to this question?)

It's simple really - If the koi are alive and healthy for any length of time there is nothing wrong with your system.

This implies that all systems work - its just when we break certain parameters that things go wobbly. (Nice word that - wobbly).

This forum has been the most successful koi forum in South Africa. The people who have contributed have helped many aspiring koi keepers. I have learned a lot by following the thinking of others.

Cut out the personal insults - have some respect for others - and don't forget your manners.

Sorry about that outburst - must have been a flush of oxygen to the brain.

Kind regards,
Chris

This is a copy and paste from the general information on this forum.

Quote :

We have started this forum to provide a service to the koi hobbiest after numerous request from our clients over the past six years to create a service where questions can be answered and information can be exchanged.
Knowledge is power, so let us take hands and learn from each other.
Have fun!

I agree with this goal and I for one is in desperate need to get information from the more experience members that visit this forum. I question if this is still the goal of our members or has the monetary gain become more important to us than the hobby value. I have no problem with open and fair advertising of Koi and koi related products on this forum by any dealer, breeder or retailer.

I do have a problem when this forum is used to discredit our hobby, as a platform to talk down to us hobbyist, as a place we can personally attack and play games with the members to show our superior knowledge.

What I miss is for the experienced members, breeders,dealers and retailers to show us keepers how to grow the hobby on all levels and have fun. To create a platform were newbie's will feel welcome and will dare to ask a question without the fear of being criticized. How does the industry expect trust, loyalty and growth with the example being set to date?

Bulldozing and with the attitude of I know more than you will not pave the way for the industry to grow, in my opinion it will have the opposite effect.

Quote :

Knowledge is power, so let us take hands and learn from each other.

Should this statement not fit the vision statement of the formal Koi Industry, then we as hobbyist must do it for ourselves and the benefit of our Koi.

Of course there are politics involved! Really Bobby - I am surprised at your original post! And as Chris Neaves says, having been around longer than most, these things come in cycles. My personal observation is that there are personalities involved in this hobby. Imagine that. Then you get a group of these together, throw in some money and the massively subjective thing of a living art form (like Koi) and a good measure of complexity in the subject of water and is it really surprising that heads get bumped together?

:-)

So don't worry about it. It's going to happen, people will come and go and that's Koi for you. As we have always said, to anyone and everyone in this stupid mad thing called Koi. they WILL teach you patience! After all, like life, it's a journey, not a destination and with any journey there are speed humps...

Hi William, I am impressed that you are sharing views on the hobby Please continue to do so

After all, this is an hobbyist forum and it is our goal as hobbyist to gain experience and grow the hobby in a positive manner for all to enjoy.

And that's exactly the problem. We're not hobbyists. We're Koi dealers.
There is a world of difference between the two. I started a litany of why but deleted it because it's not important and the reasons for it will never change. Suffice it to say that when we hand out free advice we end up with Koi dealer importer wannabes that compete with us for our market in fish. Doesn't make much business sense does it? And that's our bottom line.

So if you're our customer you'll get this thing called service. If not, you won't. We think that's fair.

Bobby wrote:

Hi William, I am impressed that you are sharing views on the hobby Please continue to do so
After all, this is an hobbyist forum and it is our goal as hobbyist to gain experience and grow the hobby in a positive manner for all to enjoy.

Let me start off by saying it’s only with serious constraint that I am posting further on this subject, but seeing the dealer has given me a typical example of why this tread was started namely ego, money and talking down on the hobby in general.
May I make use of this opportunity to remind you Mr Dealer that this is a hobbyist forum and not a dealer forum, so any posting and advertising done by you as a dealer is free and not forced upon you?
It seems that you have interpret my friendly request for you as a dealer to share experience on this forum as asking for trade secrets and another opportunity to use this platform to air your frustrations with our open market system which apply to all businesses.
May I remind you that you had no problems in the past to openly and freely market your products on this free hobbyist forum. May I point out that you as a dealer has used this forum in the past in displaying very bad business practice ethics in running down one of your competitor’s product after a reasonable request made by a hobbyist on a spesific product?
Help me if I am wrong Mr. Dealer. You are not a manufacturer of food products and yet you have a monopoly in this day and age on a certain brand of food. Well your marketing is normally very good and I have not seen that you have ploughed back into the SA koi hobby the past 3 years, seeing you are the sole distributor of a certain brand. Its normal business practice Mr. Dealer for business to do so, and I see your brand being a front leader as sponsor in many parts of the world. Friendly requests in this regard from myself as an hobbyist for our hobbyist organisation have been ignored although I am sure our money and support to Mr. Dealer is welcome.

I am sorry Mr. Dealer but not all hobbyist are idiots (a phrase you like to use) I am sorry you find it necessary to step on others to show us that you are a dealer with all the answers and products that we cannot do without at price determined by yourself as the sole distributor.
I am sure myself as a proud hobbyist and my beloved Koi will suffer extremely without the wisdom of Mr. Dealer, but together we will find a way to survive.

Ps. Should Deales and Hobbyist copy a manufactures design does that fall under a different trade secret rule?

Bobby good point, I think have to have permission from the manufacturer or else it is illegal.


Thanks for all these comments!!! and lets try to stick to them

You see Bobby, we are actually on the same page here.

ALL that I said was when we hand out free advice it bites us in the ass with all and sundry jumping on the bandwagon. The same seems to apply when I state my views as a dealer on this forum!

I stated that we dealers end up competing with our former customers in our own market for fish. And I stated that we do not dispense free advice to our non-customers in order for them to compete with us. Why should we?

I see nothing unreasonable about this.

YOU choose to now make this a big personal issue from your side. And you choose to vent your frustrations about Hikari - in an open attempt to run our business with Hikari down. Yet you conveniently omit every other food manufacturer or brand, of which only Aquamaster is not under a sole agency.

And then you wonder why dealers don't participate on your open forum?

But seeing as you have now attacked me for whatever reason you chose, let me state, for the record, in the past the only issues I have raised have been with Shogun because for years Chris Neaves has claimed to have modelled it on Hikari Gold. All I have done is defend the brand in this issue.

Again I see nothing unreasonable in this.

YOU choose to accuse me of not sponsoring the Koi show which somehow you seem to think we should because we have the sole agency for Hikari.

Why does this not apply to Shogun? Aqua Nutro? Aqua Master? Tetra (who I see are not sponsoring the KZN show this year)? Why is Hikari and Happy Koi being singled out here? Because I simply stated that we're dealers and not hobbyists? And that this fact presents as a problem on an open forum?

As it happens, for the record again, we DID sponsor the National Koi Show in Johannesburg in 2006 to the tune of over R90k in direct prize sponsorship, and in cash payment. For which return on investment we received maybe R10k at the show in TURNOVER of the food. We also attempted this for the KZN show - with similar dismal results.

So if you can make a business case as to why we should sponsor your Koi show I'd be more than happy to look at it. As a business owner yourself, put yourself in my shoes and ask the same question.

With regard to trade secrets - I am not aware of any in the Koi industry. Patents are a different issue. Again I am not aware of any relevant ones. We have none. All of our designs are freely available on our website and are used and copied by numerous hobbyists and dealers alike.

Further I must be an idiot because I don't understand the statement:

"I am sorry Mr. Dealer but not all hobbyist are idiots (a phrase you like to use) I am sorry you find it necessary to step on others to show us that you are a dealer with all the answers and products that we cannot do without at price determined by yourself as the sole distributor."

Again, we are not alone in being sole distibutors here! Please, at least if you're going to have a go, make it a balanced one. You do us and yourself an injustice flying off the handle where, as illustrated above, there is only ONE food manufacturer that is not on a sole distributor agency in the entire country. For the record, we do not set the prices of Hikari - we retail at what we think is reasonable. Others can sell it for whatever they like.

Lastly, if you are so starved of information or these products why AREN'T you talking to your dealer? I doubt there is anything that we or any other dealer has that any hobbyist cannot live without - so the choice remains yours. There is no Koi dealer that we know of that doesn't talk to their customers when they need advice or help, so I fail to see how this comment of yours has any validity.

I think Bobby just wants us all hobbyists and dealers to pull in the same direction instead of bashing each other when ever a oppertunity arrives.

In my own opinion, The last happy koi newsletter for example about the other koi food from japan was done in a bad taste. Your newsletter is usually very good and informative and your marketing is very good...but who cares what the opposition writes or advertises. that is just a simple example of what i am sure bobby is talking about...then again its your news letter and i guess you can what you want in it.

In the cape our dealers are working together with the hobbyist organisation to better koi, yes they compete on their idividual level with each but they can sit around a table and help plan and organise. They dont simpl just show up and leave at the end of the koi show, they are involved and i really want to thank them for their input. No where on this forum did any of the Cape dealers ever bash one another.

Shogun has been the sponsor of prizes for the last 2 years in the cape.
This is what we got last year...160 kg of koi food ill say that its pretty impressive and generouse.

4 x 20kg packs for:
1 x Supreme grand champion
1 x Reserve grand champion
1 x Grand champion B
1 x Jumbo champion

13 x 5kg packs for:
1 x mature champion
1 x junior champion
1 x baby champion
9 x Supremes

3 x 5kg packs for raffels

I know shogun is made locally and therefor they can do it but surely another Koi food dealer/agent can sponsor the top 4 prizes for example? I sometimes feel guilty asking Chris Neaves for sponsorship because he has already given so much in the past.

Mr. Dealer in my opinion you fail to see lots of things but thank you for posting your views, after all this is what our free market system is all about. How we market, how we treat our clients and prospective clients, how we sponsor, how we view our short and long term goals when sponsoring, the message our actions delivers to business, these are all choices we as business make on a daily basis.

In my view the integrity of this forum as a hobbyist forum is seriously been compromised by wise men with personal agendas and a axe to grind.

We find members guilty without considering all the facts, hang them out to dry on a public forum and tell them to defend themselves on a forum to prove their innocence. How do we justify this in the interest of building a hobby on a hobbyist forum?

We are asking why members or committee members do not post and do not take part, as if the answer to that question is a national secret. The answer to that question is surprisingly very close to home.

As hobbyist we need to protect what is important to us and should always be fair and tolerant to one another especially on a public forum. In my view the objective to post on this forum is to have fun and to learn from others and to limit my mistakes.

One should not underestimate the intelligence and vote of the koi industry as this is clearly demonstrated on another SA forum.

This is a provocative posting Sir, and it should be directed at the individuals you are trying to reach by using the PM facility.