None of you have tried one... so how do you know they don't work.
Well, because the way that they are described they cannot work based on my understanding of science. If I told you that I can keep my reef aquaria in alcohol mixed with salt rather than water mixed with salt, would you need to test it yourself to believe that I was wrong?
They may work in some fashion other than as described by the people selling them, and they may not work at all. But they don't work by the mechanisms described.
That said, there are millions, if not billions of people that use products that don't really work, but for whatever reasons they believe them to work. Hope? Coincidence? True placebo effect? Who knows.
That's why approving pharmaceuticals in the US requires testing on huge numbers of patients (often many thousands). The effect on one or ten or 500 people is often not enough to demonstrate whether something works or not.
Still, you can run a nice experiment yourself. Now that things look good, change nothing except remove that product for a few weeks and see if things decline. Then if they do, add it back. take photos or otherwise record exactly what you mean by fish look better and more lively. Keep shifting back and forth a half dozen times. Your experience would be much more convincing if you went back and forth many times and saw the same effect every time.
Well, because the way that they are described they cannot work based on my understanding of science. If I told you that I can keep my reef aquaria in alcohol mixed with salt rather than water mixed with salt, would you need to test it yourself to believe that I was wrong?
They may work in some fashion other than as described by the people selling them, and they may not work at all. But they don't work by the mechanisms described.
That said, there are millions, if not billions of people that use products that don't really work, but for whatever reasons they believe them to work. Hope? Coincidence? True placebo effect? Who knows.
That's why approving pharmaceuticals in the US requires testing on huge numbers of patients (often many thousands). The effect on one or ten or 500 people is often not enough to demonstrate whether something works or not.
Still, you can run a nice experiment yourself. Now that things look good, change nothing except remove that product for a few weeks and see if things decline. Then if they do, add it back. take photos or otherwise record exactly what you mean by fish look better and more lively. Keep shifting back and forth a half dozen times. Your experience would be much more convincing if you went back and forth many times and saw the same effect every time.