Fish stores are becoming scary....

[StingrayKid]

I went to a local pet store today and went into the fish section immediately. They have a 100 foot stretch of 30g fish tanks of all types of environments. As I passed the saltwater section, I came across the brackish tank. In the tank was Monos, some Knight Gobies, and some orange fish I had never seen before. I noticed that they were all chasing something and it came to my attention that they we all eating/canibalizing an dead orange fish. Most of the fish that come from this store are healthy, but you will most of the time find a bunch of fish eating/canibalizing another fish. I also went to another LFS today and saw many dead fish in the tanks. You would think stores would pay attention to this stuff and customers would be turned off because of the dead fish in the tank. I know I never buy fish from a tank with dead fish in it. But anyway, its just becoming appauling...

 

[sylvia]

I've noticed this too - you would think LFSs would try to keep their tanks dead-fish-free... but no. Everywhere you look in some of them there's a dead fish. I've actualy complained on several occasions but to no avail. Once I pointed out a dead guppy and the guy took it out... however, there were other dead fish and he didn't bother to take any of the others out until I complained. Even then he only took the dead fish out that were in the guppy tank - didn't bother with any of the others. And yeah, it puts me off when I see dead fish - especialy one time when I saw a huge dead common plec - somehow seeing that fish floating belly-up was just so disturbing... Surely LFSs would realise it's in their best interest to clean up the tanks. At the very least one of the empleyees should look over all the tanks twice a day and make sure there are no fish floating around... If they do it often there won't be so much to remove and less work to do and fewer complaints and more customers...

 

[rick999]

my LFS gets fair busy and it's just a one man band job, all he does if he gets a dead fish is cover up the tank and stop selling from it for a few days to check nothing's gonna follow if u peek in there's often a dead one or 2 in there waiting for closing time he's very good if u get a fish that don't last very long he'll normly give you another free or cheap

 

[StingrayKid]

I don't know. It just seems to me that thosem fish are going to cause health problems to the other fish in the tank.

 

[BobK]

Yeah, and most lfs don't have individually filtered tanks. They share a common (huge) filter or two so the other tanks are exposed to the dead fish too.

 

[Sorrell]

In defense of fish stores...you have to remember the mass amount of fish that the recieve once or twice a week. The stress of arriving at that store has to be immense, many of the species are wild caught and almost all of them have been shipped so that's at least two car rides and a flight in bags and variable temperatures. It's not that far of a stretch that a few won't make it.

I'm not saying that it's ok to see tanks with piles of dead fish or dying fish in every tank and I shy from buying fish who have dead tankmates. However, I don't think it's fair to condemn an entire store for a dead fish here and there

 

[Opcn]

Lots of fish die in airports, however those fish shouldnt be added to the tanks, the best LPS in town (there turning to an LFS over the next few weeks ... yay) is very good about keeping illness down and never lets any fish be sold if there is a dead one in the tank or any problem identified which is annoying and nice at the same time; However other than feeders dieing they dont really have any problems and they keep creyfish and big plecos with the feeders so when one dies its gone right away and doest kill the water quality.

Nice place

 

[sylvia]

And any fish that do die in the tanks should realy be removed as soon as possible.

 

[SailfinGirl]

People who work in petstores often have other things to do than watch the tanks to pounce as soon as a fish dies. Give them a break.

 

[sylvia]

I'm sure they do but there should at least be rules about looking over the tanks now and then - maybe just twice a day or whatever - and taking out dead fish which are detrimental both to the other fish' health and to the shops' sales.

 

[jacblades]

In defense of fish stores...you have to remember the mass amount of fish that the recieve once or twice a week. The stress of arriving at that store has to be immense, many of the species are wild caught and almost all of them have been shipped so that's at least two car rides and a flight in bags and variable temperatures. It's not that far of a stretch that a few won't make it.

I'm not saying that it's ok to see tanks with piles of dead fish or dying fish in every tank and I shy from buying fish who have dead tankmates. However, I don't think it's fair to condemn an entire store for a dead fish here and there

sorrell hit it on the head.

i work at petsmart and we have to pull the dead fish out at the beginning and end of the day. its of course implied that if we see a few in between that time, then we pull those too.
i scrub tanks and watch fish all day long...and i always miss some dead ones. there is never a day where fish dont die at the pet store. its just a fact.

everyone seems to think that a few dead fish are going to produce a massive ammonia spike and it will kill all of the other fish...the filter systems for these tanks are massive and theres no way that could happen.
2 weeks ago we had a chlorine spike and 2/3 of our fish died. (that was awful pulling out garbage bags full of dead fish.) even then, the ammonia was only .25

the only harm i could see is the other fish making a meal out of a fungused carcas.

i used to have the same attitude as yall before i started working at petsmart but now i realize with thousands of fish being my responsibility each day (not to mention birds, small animals and reptiles as well), i am going to miss a few dead fish here and there.