My initial stock of my tank was done with Petsmart fish (a huge pet store chain in the USA). The main reason we used them is because ALL independent, local fish stores in my city have closed in the current economy, and the nearest "small" shop that does stock freshwater fish is 30 minutes from our house.
We purchased 11 fish (4 zebra, 4 glofish, and 3 guppies), and have had 3 die so far. Petsmart has a 14 day warranty on fish, and after the 2nd returned fish they require a sample of your tank water. We lost 1 guppy after 7 days, swapped it for a second guppy, and that guppy died after 24 hours. We swapped that one for a glofish danio. We then lost one original zebra danio after 10 days. They tested my tank water after the 2nd return and said it looked great. I did not see any obvious signs of illness on the fish that died. They looked normal.
I'm not going to replace the last fish we lost because I don't really like what I see when I look at the Petsmart tanks. The tanks are not terribly clean, and many of their tanks have dead fish floating around the filter intakes. We only selected fish from tanks that had zero dead fish in them. I'm just going to see how our remaining fish do over the next month as the tank settles in.
I really don't feel like we did anything wrong with our tank, unless stocking the new tank to about 70% capacity was a bad move. I fishless cycled for 2 months, and daily tests of water have shown zero ammonia/nitrites, steady 6.8 pH, and nitrates moving from 20 ppm up to 40 ppm before I did a 25% water change to bring it back down to 20 ppm after 7 days. (we lost our first fish about 12 hours after I did the water change) To acclimate the fish from the store I floated the bags in the tank for 45 minutes, then scooped 1/2 cup of tank water into the bag every 15 minutes for a total of 3 scoops. Then the fish were netted from the bag into the tank, discarding the fish store water.
Out of curiosity I tested the last bag of aquarium water we got from Petsmart, and it tested fairly well except for the nitrates, which were slightly elevated:
Petsmart sample water:
ammonia = 0
nitrites = 0
pH = 7.4
nitrates = between 80 and 160 ppm
We purchased 11 fish (4 zebra, 4 glofish, and 3 guppies), and have had 3 die so far. Petsmart has a 14 day warranty on fish, and after the 2nd returned fish they require a sample of your tank water. We lost 1 guppy after 7 days, swapped it for a second guppy, and that guppy died after 24 hours. We swapped that one for a glofish danio. We then lost one original zebra danio after 10 days. They tested my tank water after the 2nd return and said it looked great. I did not see any obvious signs of illness on the fish that died. They looked normal.
I'm not going to replace the last fish we lost because I don't really like what I see when I look at the Petsmart tanks. The tanks are not terribly clean, and many of their tanks have dead fish floating around the filter intakes. We only selected fish from tanks that had zero dead fish in them. I'm just going to see how our remaining fish do over the next month as the tank settles in.
I really don't feel like we did anything wrong with our tank, unless stocking the new tank to about 70% capacity was a bad move. I fishless cycled for 2 months, and daily tests of water have shown zero ammonia/nitrites, steady 6.8 pH, and nitrates moving from 20 ppm up to 40 ppm before I did a 25% water change to bring it back down to 20 ppm after 7 days. (we lost our first fish about 12 hours after I did the water change) To acclimate the fish from the store I floated the bags in the tank for 45 minutes, then scooped 1/2 cup of tank water into the bag every 15 minutes for a total of 3 scoops. Then the fish were netted from the bag into the tank, discarding the fish store water.
Out of curiosity I tested the last bag of aquarium water we got from Petsmart, and it tested fairly well except for the nitrates, which were slightly elevated:
Petsmart sample water:
ammonia = 0
nitrites = 0
pH = 7.4
nitrates = between 80 and 160 ppm
