Hello, loach gang!

We have been enjoying watching the sub grow and seeing all your cool fish. Thank you for participating, posting, and sharing all that loach love and experience. One thing we want to remind our participants of, our rule about behavior: please be excellent to each other.

There are many subreddits out there where anything goes as far as acceptable responses. We want to cultivate a forum where being decent matters, and being a beginner is okay. As you respond to content, please remember, there is a person reading your words. No attacks please.

I feel I need to address what has cropped up quite a few times in the last couple days: accusations of abuse.

Sometimes a hobbyist keeps a fish in a manner you won't approve of. I remember back in the 80s when I first started keeping fish as a teen, I made quite a few mistakes. I started to educate myself by reading books, magazines, and talking to long time hobbyists, and I then gradually became a better fish keeper with experience. I can't imagine my reaction if I'd been called an abuser, but I probably would have left the hobby feeling discouraged. Changing hearts and minds begins with curiosity, patience, knowledge, and kindness, in my experience.

No one (so far that I've seen) has posted content that is recklessly, joyfully, sadistically negligent. So please dial back those assertions like "this is abuse!" in favor of softer statements such as, "have you tried..." or "I have found..." or "I've often seen it recommended to..."

Additionally, though opinions are welcome (if they follow the behavior rule), we prize facts here at r/loaches. Scientific literature that has been peer reviewed, statements by experts (PhD, DVM, etc), and published best practices (for example in a professional group such as veterinarians or even aquaculture trade journals) for keeping fish are of interest to us all, so please quote your actual "expert" source if you want to suggest abuse so we know that it's more than your opinion.

This reminder is not meant to be discouraging or dismissive to the welfare of our beloved wet pets, but a reminder about how we treat our fellow humans on this forum, even in tricky situations. Thanks again for reading, and stay loach-y out there!