No Sick Fish, No QT, No water change

[thrlride]

Originally posted by NSF
Thrlride- The ingredients are proprietary information to protect our investment from other manufactures. I wouldn’t care if you or any other individual new how we developed our products and what was in it. The reason that they are not being released is to prevent other manufacturers from stealing our ideas.

I understand your reasoning with keeping the ingredients hidden as you don't want other companies to take the ingredients. Just understand that many people claim to not put anything they do not know the ingredients of in their tank and then adamantly say that in these types of threads. Been around and seen it too many times I guess...

[spawner]

NSF,

Why don't you give a load of your product to a researcher that works with fish disease in an aquaculture setting, then they could test your product. No I am not asking for samples, Your going to need to cover a lot of ground after your ads. I for one, when I saw your ad was so POed I almost had your product ran through a HPLC and a mass spec to see what the heck you have in there to make the claims you make. I don't like the fact that beginning hobbyist will mistake your "No Q" for not Qing in the first place. I personally don't care what your product does. when you make claims like that. I might work great but when you say No Q and no more sick fish, that is plan BS. You might have all the best intentions in the world, but when you make statements and place ads that the newbies well for sure mistake it is WRONG, end of story. Again you might have the best cure for fish disease in the world but you should never have No Q in an ad like that without a huge in bold disclaimer that you need to Q all fish before putting them in a tank. If you want to have your product tested by a real lab, in a real aquaculture setting with real disease issues let me know and I'll put you in contact with a few labs that have plenty of needs for a cure. I still have the itch to run it through a column.

[GTR]

Originally posted by NicoleC
Tyler,

Do you have the results and methodology of a controlled scientific study that proves the effects of the medicine? If you spent 3 years creating it, I would think that some sort of series of controlled studies to test the effectiveness of the product MUST have been done. Said studies would then cumulate in a study that shows the effectiveness of the final product -- and would be far more persuasive than testimonials.

If you haven't done those studies, how did you finalize the formula? And if you have done them, why have you not shared them? Granted you may need to change the names somewhat to "Ingredient X," "Formula Y," etc.

Clearly in independant study would carry much more weight, but any study -- proved the methodlogy was clearly explained -- would be a valuable tool to prospective customers. And might, in fact, shut up the critics.

Nicole... to be fair I don't think I've ever seen that information offered to hobbyist for many products in the 40+ years I've kept FW and SW fish tanks. That's not limited to medications but additives that make claims of wonder by well known, some well respected, some well liked and some just really big companies owned by larger companies listed on NASDAQ. Well maybe some of them, but everybody questions the results and methods and nobody believes them anyway.

SteveU

[Anthony Calfo]

Tyler... your first testimonial was allowed and given (IMO) due leverage for the very reasons you cited. It's leverage I don't have to give regardless of the nature of the argument: the UA is crystal clear... no endorsing of products by merchants. The use of a testimonial is not your only means of posting. It is, instead inappropriate advertising used by you. If Mr Brock wants to come on voluntarily, then that is reef discussion by a reef central member.

But you are more than a member. You are a merchant and a sponsor. To spare all RC members the pollution of these threads and this database by a wide variety of folks with commercial interests... the rule exists. And its hard to enforce too on a site this large with a majority of the administration generously donating their time for free. That is why mods are so appreciative when someone reports a UA violation. They/we cannot see them all as soon as they occur. High profile threads like this get fast notice... obscure threads may go completely unnoticed.

But it is your default and tenacious use of testimonials that is the problem with me as a mod.

And it is your use of testimonials almosty to exclusion in response to any question or challenge that seems to be concerning some people that just want answers to fair questions like "will this harm my tank, how does it work, and how do you know?"

None of those questions is unfair. And the exploration of them is not an "attack" as some in this thread have suggested. Please, people... grow up.

So after two formal warnings not to shill... several banned alter-handles... your use of profanity as a response (unacceptable under any circumstance) and a PM from me copied to the admins and clearly warning you not to shill a third time... your respond with yet another testimonial?!?!?!??!:

"If you heard the things they tell me you wouldn’t ever think twice about the medicine... I just get off the phone with Jud McCracken... He told me it worked great each time... 4 successful treatments with one bottle! His email address is: declevis@hotmail.com. When someone emails him please forward the email onto the thread, so every one can read it."

To say I am confounded at your staggering inability to comprehend (if you even read) the User Agreement woud be an understatement.

You shilled... you used profanity... you disregarded two formal warnings. I am giving you more leniency here than most mods Tyler. Moreover, we all want to make friends not enemies here. To do that you need to understand and heed the simple rules of this privately owned message board. You will then benefit by earning the respect of customers, me, etc.
I am giving you third and final, formal chance here.

Don't waste it.

I'd much rather see another RC sponsor member that wants to advance his business by advancing the hobby without needing to resort to (more) shills, planted posts or other unsavory tactics.

BTW... your invitation to have folks e-mail Jud is dubious to me in light of your history that has been discussed offline. If I see new posters with low post counts planting testimonials in here... its not going to be pretty.

[NicoleC]

Nicole... to be fair I don't think I've ever seen that information offered to hobbyist for many products in the 40+ years I've kept FW and SW fish tanks. That's not limited to medications but additives that make claims of wonder by well known, some well respected, some well liked and some just really big companies owned by larger companies listed on NASDAQ. Well maybe some of them, but everybody questions the results and methods and nobody believes them anyway.

Let's set aside the example of dubious additives and other snake oils, the miracle claims of which are rightly ignored. We're talking about a medication here; in fact a series of medications (assuming that every bottle doesn't contain the same formula.)

If I purchase "Rid-Ich," I can easily get the Product Data Sheet including ingredients.

If I purchase Kent Marine's RxP, I can get the MSDS even though the ingredient list is pretty dubious. ( Deionized water, natural plant extracts, pepper, stabilized vitamin c, stabilizers.)

If I want to know about SeaChem's NeoPlex, I can get the MSDS and a list of ingredients and contraindictions.

Every medication from Aquarium Pharmeceuticals lists the active ingredients on the label with MSDS's online.

If one wants to use Prazi-pro, you can look up the history of the active ingredient, praziquantel.

Even something as fairly useless as Ruby Reef Hydroplex has the ingredient list on the bottle. (Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Imidazolidinyl Urea, Methylparben, octyl dodecanol, polysorbate-20, polyvinal pyrolidone, potassium phosphate, potassium sorbate, propylparaben)

With the ingredients and MSDS in hand, one has the tools to research contraindications and past performance. Not everyone will do this, of course, but the information is available for anyone who desires to do so. (I have a bit of difficulty understanding why a business person would take the risk associated with not producing a MSDS to protect one's, er, business assets, but that's a different issue.)

I only suggest revealing the results of internal studies done since Tyler is so strongly opposed to revealing the active ingredients.

[spawner]

Nicole,

Pepper (RxP) treatments work very well on external parasites (copepods mainly). Not as well as Dilox but then I again it won't kill you if you inhale it either. I still prefer Dilox
I beleive that any time a product has a harmful ingredient it must have a MSDS. Not exacty sure, someone might know the exact answer to this.

andy

[NicoleC]

Yes, but the definition of harmful is vague enough that most companies write one for anything remotely resembling a chemical, just to cover their butts.

I mean, can you imagine hot pepper in your eye? Eee-yow! Not a "dangerous" chemical, but the company would probably get sued if they didn't have one. We live in a world where you can be sued for not telling your customers that hot liquids might burn you...

[billsreef]

Originally posted by spawner

I beleive that any time a product has a harmful ingredient it must have a MSDS. Not exacty sure, someone might know the exact answer to this.

andy

The need for harmfull ingredients is not needed in order to require a MSDS. Simply using it in the workplace is all that is needed. i.e. if I was to own a store with employees and used any type of chemical, meds, cleaners etc., I would be required to have a MSDS on hand for my employees to examine at a whim Fish meds are no different. Saying that, gee, the manufacturer won't say whats in it, would not wash in an OSHA ispection.

[NicoleC]

Thanks for the clarification, Bill!

[billsreef]

Those OSHA requirements for MSDS sheets are so strict, that if you were to say typically use windex to wipe down your tanks and than had to buy another brand of glass cleaner for some reason, you would need to get the MSDS for that other brand Kind of thing that makes me glad to be a one man operation with no employees Heck, I can even legally use child (family) labor

[puter]

Tyler,

First, thanks for participating here. Your continued presence and forthright responses to direct questions, sans advertising, can only improve the perception of your company and product.

The gist of the criticisms here are that a product of undisclosed composition, with unproven efficacy and unknown origin, is being offered for sale by a small, unknown company, from an undisclosed location, with undisclosed principals, no industry background and questionable marketing practices. That's an awful lot to overcome.

Assuming you're serious about your company and product, you can address some of those things very expeditiously just by updating your website, correcting/removing the misleading testimonials, toning down claims, and providing more substantive product information.

Ironically, what you need most is not a greater quantity of testimonials, it's more credible ones.

NicoleC is spot on. I'm sure everyone here would like to better understand the scientific basis of your products (it targets which strains, at what stages, using what approach). The more of that type of information you are willing to share, the better.

I certainly understand your reluctance to publicly disclose detailed product composition information. Realistically, many/most of us wouldn't be sufficiently qualified to evaluate the information you'd disclose anyway.

However, there ARE highly respected, disinterested individuals who could objectively comment on the soundness of the approach and methodologies used to develop the product, evaluate its efficacy, and determine the collateral effects of the product.

Would you be willing to disclose your development/composition information to such a person under a NDA that prevented them from disclosing the specific composition?

[captbunzo]

Oooh... My new word of the day.

Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill

[Anthony Calfo]

C'mon Paul/all... lets stay on track with on-topic/constructive posts only please.

We are seeing good posts from Nicole, Andy, Bill, etc with suggestions, constructive crits and other(side) perspectives. Lets keep it so.

[captbunzo]

Originally posted by Anthony Calfo
C'mon Paul/all... lets stay on track with on-topic/constructive posts only please.

I apologize if I seemed off track. But seriously, the word shill really was new to me. Googling a definition made your post more clear to me and I thought the wikipedia articile was the best definition I found.

Again, I apologize if I seemed to be distracting from the point here. Not my intention at all.

[cduran02]

Originally posted by puter
Tyler,

Would you be willing to disclose your development/composition information to such a person under a NDA that prevented them from disclosing the specific composition?

I would suggest Randy from the reef chemistry forum, his sugestions and insight into chemicals is very respected on RC and with me for that matter.

[Drewcipher]

This is offered as constructive criticism, not an attack. NSF wants to be treated as a reputable dealer. IMO you first need to act as one. I am not going to speak about your product at all, but if you want to run a business you need to address the concerns of your potential customers, even if they are a bit "enthusiastic" at times.

I completely understand your desire to keep your product ingredients proprietary, that is your choice. Those of us who don't wish to add unknown things to our tanks don't have to. Those that don't mind can. There will always be some griping about the ingredients in any product, even if 1000 people come on board and say it works great. As a business owner you must understand that your business practices will antagonize someone sometime, but they are your practices and your choices.

Now, what can you do? Well, first off, fix the testimonials. You claimed they were mistakes by the webmaster, fine, fix them. Sure they might just be typos, but understand that your failure to address this item simply added fuel to the fire. As the original posts were found in a couple of cases, it should be very easy to rectify.

Next, think before you post defensively. You comment that you wish you could tell us some users of your products. You say you have some "Big Boys" Here again, the Internet is a great resource, but as we all know from getting email, there are alot of scams too. Consider us skeptical of unspecific claims. Instead, if you truly have these "Big Boys" and they are happy, then make a deal with them to give a public testimonial, and put the biggest and best at the top of your list. If they refuse to give, then best not to allude to them at all. Again, adding fuel to the fire. If they won't give a testimonial then we are left to assume (rightly or wrongly, some companies simply don't want to get caught up in it) they don't like your product.

If you react to customers questions in a timely and courteous manner (btw everyone has mentioned you are very plesant to deal with) that will go a long way towards establishing a reputation as reputable. It's funny, but in this respect, in some ways, your reaction to peoples questions or comments, deserved or not, can actually be more important at this time than if your product actually works or not. There are enough people in the hobby that that question will be answered eventually.

We all want to believe in you. You offer something that is undeniably awesome, but you need to do a little more than you are to help us. In the abscence of an ingredient list, you need to have something more than suspect testimonials. Test results performed by an independent party would be best, but whatever tests were done during development would be something. Be prepared for questions from some very smart people though. Not to imply you would post false data, but to warn you that if you do post some test reults, before you do something so simple as to fix the typos in the testimonials(which are all suspiciously misleading in your favor) then your posted results will be looked on with increased skepticism.

I love the idea of a non disclosure agreement with someone on this board, though I am unsure as to whether or not anyone would be available to do it, but it could go a long way towards future sales if you could get a Randy Holmes Farley or someone similar in your corner.

I wish you well and hope that your product is proven to work.

[racer69]

Drewcipher, that was the most eloquent written, unflaming, and to the point post in this entire thread. Thank you.

[aaron23]

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




wow.... dude i just spoke to billy you are seriously just wow QUIT LYING HOW DOES THAT SOUND?????

.......


NO COMMENT ...

DONT EVER SAY THAT I AM LYING.


giving out false feed back.

DO NOT MANIPULATE WHAT PEOPLE SAY.

end of story.


THANKS.

[aaron23]

how would it sound if i had billy himself post on reef central to say YOU ARE FURTHER LYING .... wow WHAT LENGTHS MUST YOU GO THROUGH TO LIE AND LIE AND LIE???? no comment.
totally pathetic. seriously stop trying to sell your product and call me a liar. you are seriously running some thing here.


YOU CAN READ HIS FEED BACK. FIRST IT SAYS HOW HE DIDNT USE THE PRODUCT ICH FREE or whatever the crap its called. AND THEN IT SAYS HE USED IT ON A WHIP FIN WRASSE WAT THE FREAK? GET SOME COMMON SENSE BEFORE YOU POST SOME THING THAT JUST TOTALLY MAKES YOU LOOK FAKE???? your story just shoots itself down. sorry but you have failed.

Billy's feed back. -
http://www.nosickfish.com/advertising/billybrockweb.jpg

ON THE 6'th - 7th SENTENCE OF THIS FEEDBACK JUST TOTALLY NEGATES WHAT HE SAID MEANING YOU MANIPULATED HIS EMAIL.

caught red handed.

take a look for yourself.


no comment ... further posting to this thread NSF will make you further look ridiculously dumb. sorry.

dont play around w/ me and try to lie and cover it up.

NOW: riptides reef's email in its entirety.

"Honestly, I cannot remember it has been so long ago. We dont focus much on fish and the ones we do are normally farm raised so we rarely have a problem with ich. I do remember being referred to this person selling the "transit" shipping treatment. I ordered a bottle as a test and he included a bottle of
the ich treatment for free. All he asked me was that if it worked well to let people know. He was a very pleasant individual and they did expedite shipping without my request. I know that we had a pair of whipfin wrasses that we bought from an outside wholesaler and they didnt look so hot. We used the ich treatment. One died and one lived. It has been months since then and I still have the one whipfin. At that time, that particular fish system was connected to a sump that shared with a coral system and no corals suffered. I cannot be certain if the ich treatment worked or if the whipfin that survived just fought it off. Likewise, I use the "transit" on every fish I ship and have not lost any fish that were delivered on time. Is that
because I'm using the transit or because I use plenty of water and oxygen in every bag and only ship hardy, farm raised fish? I dont know but it hasnt hurt them."

Though this may seem like i'm trying to attack your business obviously there is going to be some what of an impact but you to post that feed back and manipulate what he says is apauling. I am not saying whether or not your product works or doesnt. Its up to the customers to decide. But what i am saying is that you manipulated his email and you know it. bottom line done deal.

[Anthony Calfo]

I'm out for the weekend... will be asking fellow mods to moniter this thread. I have strategically selected mods with a hair trigger on their whips

I frankly feel this thread has run its course on the present information or lack thereof. Without any new developments, it really stands to turn into a dreadful flame and would be at risk of closing. But I'm leaving it open and asking everyone to think mindfully before they post.

This is not the place to vent.

I may still be licking my wounds next weak and in no mood to babysit boorish posting. I just had my home broken into while I was away travelling (to a hobby club, as always) and it was badly vandalized... so when I get back, I'm really hoping nobody has volunteered to be the first person I've ever banned or made this the first post I've ever closed I'm quite proud (on the reason why, not just the stat) that neither has happend yet and would very much like to keep it that way.

Thanks in advance if you can help make this so.

Anth-

[thrlride]

Sorry to hear about your house Anthony, I can't imagine having to deal with that!

[billsreef]

Sorry to hear about the vandalism

[mhurley]

Anthony,

That is unbelievably tragic, I am so sorry to hear that. I hope the police have some leads.

That said, I'm pretty hopped up on coffee today so my hair trigger is ready, waiting and twitching

Take care of yourself.

[griss]

Sorry to hear about your house Anth

[aaron23]

wow that is bad sir calfo .... did thye do anything drastic? what did they do ?!?!!? and how are your reef / marine stuff doing? did they harm anything?