No Sick Fish, No QT, No water change

[Randall_James]

is it not possible with all the time that has passed that the fishes own natural ability to fight off what ever has succeeded and the outcome would have been the same had flavored water or nothing at all been added to the tank?

I mean there is evidence to the fact that some fish will fight off the parasite to survive without intervention of any kind.. Hence the problem with proving any treatments ability to work..
All it takes is a manufacturer with enough confidence in their product to commission an unbiased study..

[GTR]

Further shame on anyone that stands to defend the second group of people. Maybe more so than most as you make it possible for this group to continue on... perhaps you yourself have pulled such scams and so defend the others right to do the same thing..

Now, now, now. Because someone voices an opinion on how the free market works suddenly they're all scam artists? please

Personally I don't think there's enough profit potential to run FDA style drug studies on a fish med being marketed to the hobbyist. If you thought having a lab determine the contents of this product was expensive you should research the funding this type of study would require. If they do it any other way no one will accept the results so it seems fruitless. I'd guess that's why you wont see further post by the maker.

SteveU

[Randall_James]

I think the market for a "reef safe" product that cures the scope of ailments that this does is tremendous. Ich alone would generate figures that would make most reasonably wealthy.

Lest we be naive about the amount of money spent in this hobby:

Year 2003
an estimated 20 million coral reef fish were purchased for trade in the salt water tank hobby

Revenue in the aquarium hobby rose from 16.9 to 17.2 BILLION dollars

This is a lucrative market to say the very least...

As Ich is arguably one of the leading parasite issues facing reefers, do you think that maybe there is a likely source of revenue for the guy that comes up with a "Reef Safe" cure?

Please....

[aaron23]

-----Original Message-----
From: Billy B [mailto: @RiptidesReef.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 12:14 AM
To: sales@nosickfish.com; Sales
Subject: Contact Request
Name: Billy B.

Customer Type: Retail Customer

Email: @RiptidesReef.com

Phone: 2148944

How they heard about us: Other - @charter.net

Hi, It's Billy from Riptide's Reef. We just received your product and I wanted to thank you for the expidited shipping. I was under the impression it would take a couple of weeks to recieve the items if we did'nt choose express shipping. We have'nt had the opportunity to use the transit yet. We are also a small company trying to grow but I'll let you know after we use it. We had a whipfin fairy wrasse with ich and used the ich treatment you included in our order and it cleared up in 24 hours. The fish system is connected to 300 gallons of coral tanks and harmed nothing! Thank you for your professionalism and please give credit to the gentleman who suggested your products. His name is Randy and I included his email address. Sincerely, Billy B www.RiptidesReef.com
LEESOCCER: it says you used the ich product...
LEESOCCER: ???
LEESOCCER: tell me the truth billy
LEESOCCER: cuz this guy is a sponser for reef central
LEESOCCER: and i really think
LEESOCCER: he is cheating everybody out of their money
LEESOCCER: did you say this stuff ?
LEESOCCER: i was like wat the hell hey i know billy
LEESOCCER: and i read it and was like hmmm this seems kind of fishy let me ask him
RipTides Reef: yeah he added the part about us using it on the whipfin lol
LEESOCCER: LOL
LEESOCCER: ur kidding
RipTides Reef: no Im not
RipTides Reef: I wrote the rest though
RipTides Reef: thanked him for the fast shipping
LEESOCCER: would you allow me
LEESOCCER: to post this on rc?
RipTides Reef: the transit seems to be working fine
RipTides Reef: you know whats funny?
RipTides Reef: if you read that post
RipTides Reef: you can tell its an email thanking him for the product and fast shipping
RipTides Reef: and then said, I havent had a chance to use it
LEESOCCER: LOL
RipTides Reef: then it says it worked good lol
LEESOCCER: would you mind that i post that he made that stuff up about the whipfin?
RipTides Reef: go ahead
RipTides Reef: i dont care


Boy o boy... CAUGHT RED HANDED SON!~

BADABING BADABAM .... PEACE CHEAP SKATE!~

Ownd / Beat by,

Aaron

[Pyrrhus]

It would appear that RC has one less sponsor than it used to.

[Anthony Calfo]

No kidding, joking or pretenses here... I sincerely love the Information Age.

The Internet is a lot of things. Indeed, it is enormous and growing exponentially.

But in so many ways it is an incredible tool to be used.

The speed with which communications (and verification!) can now occur is staggering. And impressive.

I'm especially delighted to see even small acts of consumer advocacy finessed this way. It's especially welcome in our aquarium industry with almost no watchdogs or accountability whatsoever.

Kudos.

[Pyrrhus]

Absolutely, Thumbs up to the staff of RC.

Regretably the "testimonials" from Bob and Billy are still on the NSF website.

[Anthony Calfo]

To be clear... no decision has been made on the sponsor. The owner of the site is away and has yet to be informed to the best of my knowledge.

All we are talking about here is consumer advocacy/chatter among aquarists.

And I strongly favor sensible self-policing of any industry or people when possible, rather than have excessive regulation.

[Steven Pro]

Speaking of products that make unsubstantiated claims, I just got an email from SANO. My first reaction was I could not believe they were still around. Then I read the email.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sano

Beyond Chemicals

"Safe For Invertebrate, Plants, Fish, The Environment & You"

The quick, easy and safe way to:
Increase Oxygen
Reduce Water Changes
Control Bacteria & Fungus
Reduce Indoor Air Pollution
Reduce Aquarium Maintenance
Stop Chemical Induced Disorder
Eliminate Wastewater Chemicals
Get Rid Of Parasites Overnight
Increase Nutrient Absorption
Protect Endangered Species
*Slow Climate Change
Clear Hazy Water

"Email Sano Today For More Info On Our Products"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They have got to be kidding! They left out regrows hair, helps you lose weight while you sleep, and adds length and girth.

[kevin2000]

Originally posted by Anthony Calfo
there is always concern about the intent of low post history members whose first/early post(s) are testimonials.

Right on the money ... nosickfish.com showed up at the saltwater forum sponsored by about.com with a number of independent testimonials ... when some of the "discussion" got heated the Moderator did some checking and discovered that the independent testimonials were coming from the same IP address and the NSF crew were admonished for SPAM and encouraged to find another forum.

[Randall_James]

Originally posted by kevin2000
Right on the money ... nosickfish.com showed up at the saltwater forum sponsored by about.com with a number of independent testimonials ... when some of the "discussion" got heated the Moderator did some checking and discovered that the independent testimonials were coming from the same IP address and the NSF crew were admonished for SPAM and encouraged to find another forum.

Sorry but without links to the posts, this post is about as valid as the testimonials, not trying to get you riled up but the main issue is "Unsubstantiated claims" and even though I believe what you say is possible, without direct links, I just think it falls into the "Unsubstantiated" claims dept.. So if you have those links I would like to see them is all...

[mmoore0803]

I tried the stuff as I was freaking out and was looking fo rthe quick and easy way out (yeah yeah I learned my lesson and I just added new fish after an 8 week qt of the main tank)...here's a link to a thread on the snake oil being peddled

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...ght=nosickfish

and here is my post

I bought and treated my tank with NSF Ich treatment and evrything (in regards to fish) in my tank still ended up dying. Dosed as it said on the package and the first day it looked like it might work (Fish started looking better...fewer spots) but after day 1 treatment, it went downhill. I lost a white-faced powder brown, a juv. imperator, then 4 little oscellaris'...slow die off...All the inverts and corals in the tank are fine so the product doesn't seem to infect reef inhabitants...I sent NSF a letter of what happened and was told I had the strain that is difficult to get rid of (though I only know of 1 strain of marine ich). Ich came into my tank via LFS (got me once in my FW and now in my SW....no more $$$ for them) and now I'm looking into a UV purchase just to make sure all parasites are in fact dead (plus waiting 6 weeks b4 thinking of adding any fish)...just another of life's lessons (yeah yeah...a QT would have prevented this and yes I plan on QTing all new fish in the future)

Mike

[kevin2000]

Originally posted by Randall_James
Sorry but without links to the posts, this post is about as valid as the testimonials, not trying to get you riled up but the main issue is "Unsubstantiated claims" and even though I believe what you say is possible, without direct links, I just think it falls into the "Unsubstantiated" claims dept.. So if you have those links I would like to see them is all...

This may help

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum....b-saltaquarium

There are some monster threads covering this outfit on that forum .. if you are interesting in viewing them use their advance search feature and use "nosickfish.com" as your search term.

[cduran02]

Another win for the internet!!! Information travels too fast on the internet for scams to go undiscovered for long.

Originally posted by kevin2000
This may help

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum....b-saltaquarium

There are some monster threads covering this outfit on that forum .. if you are interesting in viewing them use their advance search feature and use "nosickfish.com" as your search term.

[NSF]

I just finished reading this thread.

The first thing I did was call Billy Brock to see if aaron23 was a liar. He is!!! He said that he had no recollection and asked that I forward him the link so that he could read it. He said that he would post! I am going to include his email with this post in the form of a picture. You can see the email directly in my inbox. No alterations. Except phone numbers removed.

http://www.nosickfish.com/advertising/billybrockweb.jpg

Mmoore0803: It didn’t work for you. I am sorry. There is nothing that I can do about it. We have been direct from the very beginning about our medicine. It is not perfect, and we publicly state that it doesn’t work all of the time. It does however work a high percentage of the time. Were you running a phosband reactor, or any other phosphate reducing media? They need to be removed!

Bob F/ W.W.M./ Atomikk: Clearly some errors were made by our web technician. There was no intention to mislead anyone, and things will be corrected. A couple web site related issues is completely separate from our company and what we do. I think it is clear that a mistake was made, and that alone. He mis-spelled a name, he used the wrong name/word. The very last written word on the post is Bob Fenner. I can clearly understand why he would mistakenly use the wrong name. Some asked why F. was used in place of Fenner. Look at every single testimonial. None of them use a full last name. The user marshal on wet web media. I hope he can be contacted, and tell us his story. I bet he will use the word “successful�

I find very interesting that every time that we have users post in a positive manner they are instantly attacked! I understand the credibility of posts if they have a week record. What about the posts with a deep history. Regardless, Why attack them?

A re-occurring comment that I have read on this forum. “ I wont put anything in my tank unless I know the contents in it� We have thousands of customers who use it in reef tanks with out problems. If you don’t want to use it, that’s fine. We have some of the Big Boys using our medicine. There is a really good chance that your fish/corals/inverts have already been subjected to our medicine before you ever bought it. They don’t know what is in it, but they don’t care. They can see what it is doing for there fish, and business!

I have $63,000 dollars in-vested in the formula. I could have spent money on patents, but I choose to spend money on masking agents, and a better formula. It will take a lot more than $12,000 to figure out how the medicine works. There are 11 ingredients in it, and my chemist’s ensured me that it would take $40,000-$60,000 to find out what is in it, and how they all work.

For the people that cry, moan, and complain about a product they have never used. I hope you never get the opportunity to own an aquarium where you don’t have spend each night looking at your quarantine tank taking care of sick fish, while your neighbor is looking at his Show Tank!

** post edited to remove advertising and profanity. A.C. **

Hundreds of happy customers each month and few complainers who have never used the product.

No Sick Fish

[Anthony Calfo]

NSF... your advertising (reported by RC member(s)) and your profanity have been removed form the post above... consider yourself warned.

It will not happen again as long as you intend to be an active member of RC.

For however long that lasts.

Anthony

[Steven Pro]

I have $63,000 dollars in-vested in the formula. I could have spent money on patents, but I choose to spend money on masking agents, and a better formula. It will take a lot more than $12,000 to figure out how the medicine works. There are 11 ingredients in it, and my chemist’s ensured me that it would take $40,000-$60,000 to find out what is in it, and how they all work.

I particularly like the comment that you need to spend "$40,000-$60,000 to find out what is in it ..." How in the world as a manufacturer do you not know what is in your own product? How they all work is a different matter completely, but what is in it should be very simple and straightforward. I understand the need to protect your product secrets and not wanting to disclose the ingredients, but don't say you don't know what is in it.

If you have conducted bioassays to make sure your product is safe, please post this. If you have conducted experiments to prove that your product works, please post this. If all that happened was you created a concoction, added it to a display with sick fish, the fish got better, and nothing else seemed to die, then say that and be done with it. If all you have is anecdote and testimonials, be up front about it.

[Anthony Calfo]

worse... rather than make an effort to patent and define (as per patent laws) the formula (assuming a patent could be granted for this product) that could back up NSF claims like "No QT, No water change"... and "it works a high percentage of the time," an effort was said to be made instead to use that money to create masking agents.

Er, riiiiight.

Now I don't have any problem with the use of masking agents. On the contrary! By all means protect your investment of a whole $63K. Although thats's really not much money for total product development.

What concerns me is the statement that NSF did not have enough money to do both the patent/trials AND create the masking agents.

So in essence we are left to wonder (still) how the claims of success and safety can be asserted by the mfg via testimonials and otherwise, when the mfg's own admission is that limited funds were focussed instead on creating masking agents?

NSF - do not take these (the whole thread) comments as attacks, but instead consider (if you are a wise businessperson) the value of negative customer feedback... for its inherent worth to improve your product and advertising, and to finesse/imrpove PR.

You need to somehow address the concerns (legitimate or otherwise) of your customers (potential and real) in a civil and sensible manner and without the use of profanity in your replies if you are to succeed.

Using profanity or shills is not a good strategy under any circumstance.

Neither is spamming.

It's a small world.

BTW... Stan and Debbie Hauter are very fine people over at their saltwateraquarium guide (about.com). Yep... small world.

[GTR]

I particularly like the comment that you need to spend "$40,000-$60,000 to find out what is in it ..." How in the world as a manufacturer do you not know what is in your own product?

When I read the statement below I don't interpret it to say that he doesn't know what's in it but rather it would require $40,000 -$60,000 to find out and not the figure suggested earlier in this thread which was considerably less.

I have $63,000 dollars in-vested in the formula. I could have spent money on patents, but I choose to spend money on masking agents, and a better formula. It will take a lot more than $12,000 to figure out how the medicine works. There are 11 ingredients in it, and my chemist’s ensured me that it would take $40,000-$60,000 to find out what is in it, and how they all work.

I'm not sure why anyone would spend $12,000 let alone $60,000 to discover the contents of these products or any others for that matter unless there was another motive besides "I just want know" or "we have the right to know". Obviously the way the laws stand now we only have the right to use it or not.

SteveU

[Anthony Calfo]

Indeed... it is as SteveU says. It boils down to "you can buy it or not."

And if the mfg can inspire, reassure and/or convince enough consumers of product merit, then the rewards will follow.

There is potential and room for improvement always.

Growing thick skin helps too

[GTR]

Originally posted by Anthony Calfo


Growing thick skin helps too

Best advice I've seen in this thread.

SteveU

[Randall_James]

I'm not sure why anyone would spend $12,000 let alone $60,000 to discover the contents of these products or any others for that matter unless there was another motive besides "I just want know" or "we have the right to know". Obviously the way the laws stand now we only have the right to use it or not.

SteveU

Agreed, you would be a darn fool just for the "I want to know" aspect.

However: Many companies maintain their own labs and are fully capable of reverse engineering the mix and I might venture to say it is likely already been done or in process if they felt it was a worthwhile endeavor?

Given the scope of the efficacy claims, revenue invested, failure to start patent process would be well.......poor business sense?

Even filing for a provisional patent would make perfect sense. This gives you a year to run the process as well as gives you some protection (whether you follow thru or not).

The revenue potential would warrant some type of action IMO if the maker truly felt the product did what it claims.

[NSF]

*post edited - advertising/testimonial removed. A.C. *

second formal warning - PM to follow to help clarify the specific UA violation for non-commercial posts

[dcoufal]

Originally posted by NSF
.... Feel free to post this on RC. We would like to be left out of this completely!!!

Feel free to post this email.... but, leave us out of it....

Am I the only one that thinks this makes no sense?

Dwain

[graveyardworm]

I am glad to finally see the manufacturer getting involved with this discussion about thier product, I just wish they could've brought alittle more proof that thier product works, rather than just trying to debunk whats been stated with accusations. "The best defense is a good offense" would work wonders here.