michaelb323

This has been on my mind for a while. Basically we should make a professional looking template for a flyer that explains the nitrogen cycle, possibly including a link to this site.

As a community we start a donation fund for printing, perhaps even making a flyer that can be printed at home on a color printer. We proceed to make batches of 50 flyers explaining the nitrogen cycle.

We hit up all our petstores that sell fish including petsmart and petco and talk managers into handing out a flyer with every new aquarium. Managers would quickly agree since that means less dead fish refunds. Eventually we might have these stores logo on the flyers as they are donating to the cause. Animal rights groups might also get involved.

In the end the fish win as people are much more informed and will not make mistakes that lead to tanks full of fish killed by ammonia overdose.

thoughts? Wanna volunteer?

thorpbrian

That sounds like a great idea. Don't know if it's been tried before but it would take some planning.

bigreddog

That is a great idea, I did something similar with our local fish store . He was selling fish and had no idea what they were or what they needed so I printed off care sheetsfor each of the fish he was selling and it helped him out tremendously.He can now sell them and be educated on there needs.

michaelb323

SO to get this started then.

First we need to get a flyer template put together explainng the nitrogen cycle in a logical order.
We need a picture or diagram on the cover, and links on the back.

peacemaker92

IMO, how about forming a lil' group or society first before planning? That way, you can elect some members for different roles in making this wonderful idea work. Someone or a few people can be in charge of the template while some in printing and handing out the flyers. Just a suggestion. And you'll need real commited members who won't mind carrying the flyers around and will be able to hand it out to their nearest LFS.

click

Great idea. Although the pet stores I've been to seem to have an educated staff in the aquarium area, it is one thing for the store staff to point out something like the nitrogen cycle and is something much more effective for the customer to take the information home, read it and digest it.

Maybe the fliers should be handed out with every fish purchase if the customer is identified as new to fish keeping (I think it's easy to distinguish a new fish owner )

A further step would be to convince the major aquarium manufacturers to include in every new tank package a booklet with the benefits and steps of the nitrogen cycle.

nater

I was at one of our local petcos the other day and walked by the fish. After taking a look at them I passed the care sheet rack. To my surprise on the top row, in the first spot, was a nitrogen cycle sheet. I couldn't believe it and thought to myself, this is great info for them to have. I then thought, I wonder if any employee here could even explain what the cycle is and why it is important even with the sheet. Still at least they had the info there which is better than nothing.

michaelb323

If this idea goes where I think it may very well end up if it gets started, it would not be unlikely to see flyers like this being printed by many major chains on their own.


Should we start getting a group together in IRC somewhere?
Would the admins of this site go along if we purchased a domain name like nitrogencycle.com and pointed it to the webpage on fishlore.com about the nitrogen cycle?

sirdarksol

Okay, the mods have been watching this thread since it cropped up, and we've been getting more and more leery about it.

If you wish to do something of the sort, that's fine. I'm sure Mike would be okay with a linkback situation.
However, we can't have fundraising for this kind of thing on the forum. Because there is no way to guarantee that the money is going to the cause that it is supposed to be going toward, allowing requests for money for it could lead toward hard feelings between forum members.

aquatic mouse

We have one @ Jacks. Actually it's on the site too with Flash.
http://www.jackspets.com/pet_tips/fr...stablishingthe

peacemaker92

That's a good point there...

Red1313

I think I'm agreeing with Sirdarksol.
I fully support the idea of getting a group togeather to design a LFS friendly flyer on cycle information I'm not sure I'll willing to pay to do that. A group volunteering to make/design the flyers and then simply have interested members able to print them off and distribute them at they're own cost sounds like a good idea. However I can't see the need for any $$$ to exchange hands...
We could even make a forum wide contest for the winning flyer design. Some fun competition, and no need for anyone to pay any more then for the paper at home to print them off if they wish.
Just my

michaelb323

Since money came into the discussion here, I don't see any need for money to be an issue. Once we have a digital template we can take it to a Kinkos or OfficeMax and print out 20 for $1.20. After beginning to make some phone calls yesterday it seems that there is quite a bit of interest. Corporate offices of Petsmart are very open to this idea including the cost of printing batches being laid onto individual outlets. According to the people from Petsmart, they would see no problems at all unless there was advertisements to competitors in the flyer.

Walmart Corporate hung up on me as soon as I asked them about the idea, suggesting that having morons in stores. telling people that tanks need 3 days to cycle is borderline animal cruelty.

In short, there is completely no nede at all for money since the decent petstores are responsible and understand that a customer with success the first time will be coming back for fish. Wise petstore owners would rather give away a $0.07 flyer with a 10 gallon tank over having to replace $12 worth of fish that were under warranty.

Right now I am more interested in seeing how many people can help work on designing and creating some samples.

sirdarksol

I actually didn't bring money up. It was in the first post. "As a community we start a donation fund for printing"
Then it was said that "we" should get a domain name. This also costs money. The mods just wanted to be sure that it was understood that any gathering of funds for this kind of thing will not be happening on the forum.

michaelb323

I see what your point was now.

At this point if this was ready to get off the ground I would be willing to pay for a domain name.(I have a 80% discount with godaddy.com)
The reason for even asking about such things is that if we put a URL on the fliers, and that links here, there could be the potential for a decent sized flux in bandwidth usage and strain on the servers.

Right now it appears that a few petstores would be quite happy to pay for the cost of printing themselves.

At this point I believe the best flyer would be what is called a Tri-Fold design. Smaller will be much better since people will be excited about the tank, not reading instructions.
The better looking flyers should be on a glossy paper but I would also like to have a black and white version that can be printed on regular paper of any color.

peacemaker92

Cool! I'd like a copy of a flyer too when it's done. It would be hard to get it from you or some sort since I'm all the way in asia, so you'd probably have to email me. I'll do the same by giving it out to my LFS.

Mike

This is a good idea. I agree though that it should be all volunteer and no money should have to be exchanged anywhere in the process.

What about this: Rather than setting up a new website why not just create a nice looking printable pdf, store it here on fishlore and link to it on the nitrogen cycle page here on fishlore? Then anyone that wants to help could download the pdf, print out copies of it and deliver them to their local stores. We could use forum posts here to keep folks aware of the campaign and on the cycle page I can make the printable pdf prominent to try and catch the reader's eye to help get more help with the printing and delivering. I can also link to the pdf on the fishlore home page. Anyone good with making a nice looking pdf? We can use the content on the cycle page or if someone wants to rewrite the content to make it easier for a fishkeeping beginner to understand that is fine too. We could include links to other helpful cycle articles too.

To sum up what I'm proposing:
1. Create a printable pdf
2. Add links to the pdf on the home page, nitrogen cycle page and have a reminder thread here on the forum and write up a brief article on this campaign to try and gain interest in the project.
3. Volunteers download it, print it and deliver to their local stores.

michaelb323

That's the plan man, have a domain like nitrogencycle.com that redirects to the page here on fishlore about the nitrogen cycle. As far as the flyer, it will be a .JPEG when it is finished, then you can just print it out on a sheet of paper. Once you have your sheet or digital copy, you can mass produce these puppies.

fishnob

Hey All

I am in to helping with any type of design that is needed. My day job is in IT, so I can handle doing a brochure, pdf, jpg etc. The only thing I ask is that someone help with the content. As I am a newbie myself so I haven't completly grasped the whole understanding of the cycle myself!

whisper

My suggestion to you would be before putting the time and money into this project is to contact the CEO's of the fish store companies ( Petco, Petsmart, etc.). If approved by them you could get these chain stores to put them in there stores nationally instead of just your local ones that you can get to.