One of the many things everyone tries to avoid is getting into an incident or event one does not plan for. Such things always results to wastage of useful energy, resources, time (which is the greatest factor) and missing out on important things. Many ways have been deviced to curb or at least reduce it to the minimal level, @Aimure even wrote one or two things on this in one of his recent articles. But with all these methods and ways or plans that have been developed, it is still cases where we get entangled in unforeseen events, more like why efficiency of a machine can't be 100%.

This is what actually happened to me about three days ago in the morning. I was supposed to go help someone treat her fish because from my observation, they were suffering from a parasitic disease called Ich. This is one of the most observed and one of the most notorious diseases of catfish. It is caused by a protozoan microbe called Ichiobodo. I remember the day a colleague of mine gave the presentation in my school then, it was quite revealing. This disease even though really tough to totally eradicate once it enters your pond, it can actually be prevented from entering it in the first place. Do you know you can actually be the very person inviting them to come and feast on your fishes? This can be possible if you are someone that doesn't value good water management skills or that doesn't clean the surroundings of your fish farm. The worst off is if you decide to use a stream water as your primary source of water without treating the water before introducing it to your tank, you can be sure to have opened your farm to various attacks from wide range of causative agents and vectors (one of which is the notorious water snail🐌).

Enough of that, so I woke up as early as 5am, took my bath and was already on my way by 6am. I got to the woman's house around 6:30 to 6:40 because my house was quite far away from her house. But I didn't see the woman till around 8 because they were still having their morning devotion. Although that's a good thing in a way but in respect to the fish it isn't, because I have told the woman that we have to start very early so as to round up before the sun comes up to avoid stressing the fish. And when she finally shows up, she told me she had forgotten to get what I told her to get the previous day. It was at that point I started sensing that my day is going to take another turn especially in a way I didn't expect. She then begged me to help her get it on my way going then come the following morning to carry out the treatment, of which I oblige. She gave the money and I took my leave. I had actually thought of a place I could get it and I went straight to the place but to my amazement, they don't sell fish materials there. Infact I trekked the whole commercial areas of my city and I was shocked to find out they don't sell those things. But they all kept shouting one man's name that he is the one that has those things. This man's shop is quite far from where I am, so I decided to still look around maybe I could find what I was looking for, but u couldn't so I decide to go to the place.

I did got what I was looking albeit at a higher price since he is the only one that has it hence he monopolized the prices. I guess that's why the poverty rate is still very high in my country; everybody is investing, jumping and pointing in one direction and the result is high competition, scarcity of job in that area, low profit and so on. I was told during my IT days that only one man imports the fish feed that is been distributed in Nigeria. Just one man! Imagine what will happen if he decides to increase the price, everyone will feel the impact. Most people see fish businesses and agriculture as a lowlife job that doesn't pay much, but little do they know that agriculture is what take over 50% of their overall income. If you won't mention 4 to 5 wealthy people in Nigeria, you would find out that atleast 2 of them is deeply involved in agriculture, directly or indirectly.

I think it's high time people still using their brain in choosing what they want to do. You can't just jump into what many people not thousands but millions are already doing and expect to make it in that endeavor without having a stand-out skill or personality. There are very many other things that are not yet popular that can fetch you huge amount of money of you start investing in it right now. Take for example, in my country 8 out of every science student won't choose medicine and surgery in when filling forms for university exams and the result is many will not be giving admission. Now those that chose the somewhat low and unpopular courses like guidance and counselling, radiotherapy, french language other linguistics, agriculture and so on, will giving admission almost immediately and when they graduate they have higher chances of securing jobs or better still using their acquired skills to start up their own enterprises which will start fetching them money will the medicine and surgery graduate is looking for job and when he can't find, he starts working for the person that read the supposed low values course or start looking for way to leave the country to seek 'greener' pastures overseas (which might be dangerous if they decide to take the libya or sierria Leone routes, if you know what I mean).

Leaving that, I was able to get what I was looking for and also got some advice from my colleagues. I took the materials to the woman's house the next day and to my surprise I found that It wasn't Ich or any other infection. It was the water and the environmental conditions. The woman had told me from the out set that an expert helped her to set up her fish farm so I never actually bother to ask about the water quality and the likes. But while I and her security man were conversing I found out the water were not treated or at least left for some times before the impounding also the tank used for the culturing were not treated before the introduction of the juveniles, no acclimatization, no treatment was ever. I was told the fish were supply in the afternoon and whenever they will wash the tank the fish will be in the tank while they wash and more so, since about a month plus since they have brought the fish no sorting as been done which made some of them to swallow the others (I witnessed this personally). I was amazed they don't even know the number to fish in the tank! Anyways after hearing this, I decided to give a milder treatment instead of the proposed one. I then have them some instructions. I became more of a consultant than a doctor 😂

I was told they stocked 1000 juveniles but when I counted them, they were remaining 680 fish! The woman went wild and was really angry. She had to call her supplier and demanded that 250 fish be given as compensation since 320 could not have died with in that period of time according to her calculations.

Conclusion

Honesty pays. The so called expert and the supplier got exposed and were told to compensate accordingly. Also I believe what ever you find your hands doing do it well in all sincerity, truth and diligence. Let excellent be your minimum achieve and success will be yours. Afterall, all that matters at the end is a job well done!

Thanks for reading this article. Shalom.