Aquarium Store & High Ammonia Levels

[EvolutionOfDemise]

The aquarium store I usually go to has had a lot of ich outbreaks in the past few months and they lose a lot of fish while treating. The fish I get from there have a 50-60% survival rate in the first month I have them. After discussing this with the guy I usually deal with, he told me it was my water. Something was wrong with it, I am an absolute perfectionist when it comes to my aquariums. So I brought in my water from all 7 of my aquariums and nothing was wrong. I go to another LFS as well, the fish from there have a 95% survival rate from when I bring them home. So after some thought, I figured, there's nothing wrong with my water. Yesterday I picked up a fish from aquarium store #1 and I decided to test the water it came in. These were the results; Ammonia: around 2ppm, Nitrite: .8ppm, Nitrate 20ppm. Granted, the fish was in there for a couple hours and I didn't test the water until today, but there was no waste in the bag or anything that could have created that much ammonia within 24 hours. And that pretty much covers why the ich never goes away, because you can't get rid of parasites in ammonia filled water.

So here's my dilemma; they finally got a shipment of fish I've been waiting for, I would just ask the other aquarium store to get them in, but whenever I do ask, they say they will, but they never do. And plus I've been waiting months for these fish to arrive, they're very rare and hard to find. These fish are also wild caught, so they're used to clean, ammonia free water and now they've been put into dirty, parasite filled water. And usually when this happens they'll go into shock, get infected with something and die within a week. So what I want to do is get the fish and heat treat them for ich. They use chemicals even though I talked to the owner and told him chemicals will kill them and clean water and high heat is the best way to get rid of it.. But yeah, no one listens to me anyway.. So any opinions on what to do? Should I get the fish and treat them myself, or should I just leave it and stop going there?

 

[Cazgar]

If you know the store has bad water & sick fish, then I wouldn't buy from there.
Don't give them your money, as if you do then nothing will change,
If we all voted with our feet, a lot of these bad stores would go out of business.
I'm all for supporting independents, but only the ones who genuinely care about their fish

 

[RossC]

Yer resist the temptation in my eyes its not worth the infections and poor quality fish.

 

[ShinySideUp]

Look for your fish further afield as neither LFS seems that bothered. Trimar in Cornwall have many fish and will ship them nationwide; they have won awards for their fishkeeping. Here they are

 

[EvolutionOfDemise]

I suppose it would be best to stop going there; however, I do have over $200 of store credit I'd like to use before I totally boycott the store.. It's really unfortunate too, since the owner always gave me discounts and free fish..

 

[MBOU]

Set up a little quarantine tank?! Ask if you can take the fish as soon as they come into the store and say you are quarantining them yourself.

What fish are they?

 

[PrairieSunflower]

This is the same problem I had. I started off keeping goldfish, but around me there was only one place to buy goldfish. And it was the same story with these fish. It was completely disheartening. I gave up keeping goldfish, cleaned and cycled my tank fresh and switched to keeping guppies... and its been fantastic as the place I've got my guppies kept them beautifully and not a single one died due to having been kept badly.

I went as far as to report another pet shop that sold fish to the RSPCA as I'd never even seen fish kept so badly!

 

[EvolutionOfDemise]

Set up a little quarantine tank?! Ask if you can take the fish as soon as they come into the store and say you are quarantining them yourself.

What fish are they?

Yeah, I've thought about it, I'm going today to talk to him about it.
I can't quite remember the types of fish now.. But one is sternarchorhnchus oxyrhynchus.
My quarantine tank was made into an axolotl tank, I finally got another grow out tank setup too after the other one broke. I could probably move the fish in there somewhere else, I'm starting to run out of room to put new tanks, and fish for that matter..

I went as far as to report another pet shop that sold fish to the RSPCA as I'd never even seen fish kept so badly!

I tried calling the humane society on an aquarium store before (most the fish in their tanks were dead and rotting, their 'display' tanks were overstocked with dying fish. They had a rabbit in a tiny wire cage and below that cage was an unhealthy tortoise, because the rabbits cage was wire all of its waste would land right on the tortoise, many other things as well).. If they didn't care with something that bad, I'm pretty sure they won't care now... Like I said, I'm going to talk to someone about it, and if they do something about it, great. If they don't than I'll just stop going there.

Here there are probably 8 aquarium stores, 5 of which the fish are badly kept. If I wasn't in Canada I'd just say **** it and buy my fish online. But unfortunately since I am in Canada, there aren't any places that ship here, at least that I know of.

 

[EvolutionOfDemise]

So, I went to the aquarium store this afternoon and ended up coming home with 3 fish. I originally went there to talk to the owner about the high ammonia, but of course he wasn't in. I ended up telling some chick, I don't think she knew what ammonia even was..
Anyway, I looked at the fish I had on hold, all looked healthy except the sternarchorhnchus oxyrhynchus which had ich (not much, a few spots). I got it anyway, couldn't leave it suffering, and I'm going to start heat treatment once I actually get the fish in the tank. I got them home around 6pm and I've been acclimating them for the past 3 hours or so, using the drip method. Since the ammonia is so high there and my water is pretty much toxin free I'm being very careful not to shock them. 30 more minutes and they should be ready to go in..

The other fish are platystomatichthys sturio 7" and parapteronotus haseman (I think, still need a proper ID since I could be incorrect) 6".I'll post a few pictures once they're in their tanks.

After these fish, I should probably stop going there, at least until they straighten out their water conditions. Sucks for them too, because I do spend quite a bit of money there.

 

[Geoff-]

If you know the store has bad water & sick fish, then I wouldn't buy from there.
Don't give them your money, as if you do then nothing will change,
If we all voted with our feet, a lot of these bad stores would go out of business.
I'm all for supporting independents, but only the ones who genuinely care about their fish

This. I know it seems like you're "saving" fish by buying them but what you're really doing is giving the owner money to restock with new victims. The cycle stops with you - you need to approach the owner, tell him how much business you have given him, tell him what he's doing wrong and say you'll not buy from him again until you see his conditions improve. Then leave it to him. If he promises to fix it wait a month and then go back there and ask for a water sample, take it home and test it. Don't spend another cent there until his tanks are kept properly.

 

[EvolutionOfDemise]

This. I know it seems like you're "saving" fish by buying them but what you're really doing is giving the owner money to restock with new victims. The cycle stops with you - you need to approach the owner, tell him how much business you have given him, tell him what he's doing wrong and say you'll not buy from him again until you see his conditions improve. Then leave it to him. If he promises to fix it wait a month and then go back there and ask for a water sample, take it home and test it. Don't spend another cent there until his tanks are kept properly.

The whole 'saving' thing, yes I know. I've explained that to people many times (especially about Walmart bettas and other fish). I know, supply and demand. The best way you can save them is stop buying from the store. If I was buying them to 'save' them, I would have bought a lot more. It was more about caving in, and getting them because I've been waiting months, and they were only there for a few days. The longer I waited the more damage it would do to them, and I knew I'd end up getting them sooner or later, either it would be me buying them, or someone else in my house, because you know, no one listens anyway. (Yeah, now I'm just making excuses.) I despise myself for caving, but I'm also pretty happy. In my opinion, saying you bought them to 'save' them is just making up excuses to make both yourself and other people feel better because of what you chose. Adopting is saving, buying is greed.

You're right though, I will talk to him. I'll have to call next time, before driving an hour only to find out he's not in.

 

[Justaerin]

I can totally relate to your situation, I've been getting corys from p@h and.everytime I get some they don't last long.
Looking at their tanks they are spotless but there's always deadones in some, I know there's bound to be a couple from stress but when they have to close down entire tanks because the stocks dead it stops being.stress...

As soon as I find a.site that will ship to me ill stop going.to pets for fish.