Ooooh...don't touch that fish, it's diseased/inbred/etc.!

[itiwhetu]

True, but you have to keep in context of what and who these sites speak too and warn: beginners.
They get recommended and sold bunch of "hardy beginner' fish.
Those "hardy beginner" fish are probably one of the hardest ones for beginner to keep alive these days. Because they are heavily inbreed and carrying 5 deadly diseases each.
They aren't treated at all at shop or anywhere because they are cheap and as shop: if you lose 6 out of 8 you still make 100% profit margin on selling 2 of them. That's how business works.
Plus you are going to sell bunch of medications to customer trying to stop the great die off. That's called product upselling.
Then you are going to sell replacement fish to those same customers. So as a business: it is not really in your interest to treat those fish and sell them healthy. If anything that would be bad business model.
As a beginner: You can't really tell sick fish unless it's far gone. And you definitely can't tell bunch of parasites and deadly diseases on fish that looks healthy.
And that's what the sites OP is talking about warn beginners about.
Hardy beginner fish are definitely not hardy beginner fish anymore.
The $20-30 dollar ram or angel is 10x hardier then platy from my LFSs. Because they are mostly in good shape and treated in shops for monetary reasons.

Having said that: experienced fish keeper would probably be able to cure and save most of the platies from the shop that aren't too far gone already.

The reason I never made any money selling fish is that I would never upsell and the tanks I set up were for the fish not the fish keepers. Like this tank below

7 Year old Tank

I thought I would share this with you. This is Nancy's Tank I set it up for her 7 years ago. It is 250 Liters. It has two internal filters. A bank of four Florescent light tubes that run 10 hours per day. The fish are all between 5 and 7 years old. This tank has never had: Any Chemicals...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Colin_T]

They aren't treated at all at shop or anywhere because they are cheap and as shop: if you lose 6 out of 8 you still make 100% profit margin on selling 2 of them. That's how business works.

That's not totally correct. In Australia most shops I have spoken to will treat fish as soon as they see a disease on them. It doesn't matter what the fish is, we do try to save them. Most shops also have books/ diaries for treating the tanks. Each tank is checked in the morning and afternoon after we close. Any dead fish are removed and their deaths are recorded in the book, while tanks with sick fish are recorded in the book and treated. The treatment regime is written on the tank and in the book and a "Not For Sale" sticker is put on the tank so nobody buys any sick fish. If customers ask why they aren't for sale, we tell them about the disease and show them how to identify it.

Most shops here put a 200% mark up on smaller cheaper fish to help cover the cost of losing them or bigger fish. It also lets the shop sell the fish in groups at cheaper prices.
eg: neon tetras cost about 80 cents each including freight. We sell them for $2.50 each or 10 for $20.00. If the fish come in good and don't have neon disease, then we make money on them. However, if they come in with neon disease, we can lose the entire tank of them and this might include 100-500 fish.

Some other fish like Apistogramma species only get a 100% mark up on them because they cost more. They might cost $10.00 each so we sell them for $25.00ea or $40.00pr. We try to encourage people to keep fish in pairs or groups, depending on the species requirements.

The % mark up is to try and cover the cost of fish that die, water, food, medication and heating. We also have to pay for plastic bags, rubber bands and oxygen if the fish are being sent long distances. And finally we have to pay wages to the staff who might spend half an hour or more with a customer.

 

[itiwhetu]

That's not totally correct. In Australia most shops I have spoken to will treat fish as soon as they see a disease on them. It doesn't matter what the fish is, we do try to save them. Most shops also have books/ diaries for treating the tanks. Each tank is checked in the morning and afternoon after we close. Any dead fish are removed and their deaths are recorded in the book, while tanks with sick fish are recorded in the book and treated. The treatment regime is written on the tank and in the book and a "Not For Sale" sticker is put on the tank so nobody buys any sick fish. If customers ask why they aren't for sale, we tell them about the disease and show them how to identify it.

Most shops here put a 200% mark up on smaller cheaper fish to help cover the cost of losing them or bigger fish. It also lets the shop sell the fish in groups at cheaper prices.
eg: neon tetras cost about 80 cents each including freight. We sell them for $2.50 each or 10 for $20.00. If the fish come in good and don't have neon disease, then we make money on them. However, if they come in with neon disease, we can lose the entire tank of them and this might include 100-500 fish.

Some other fish like Apistogramma species only get a 100% mark up on them because they cost more. They might cost $10.00 each so we sell them for $25.00ea or $40.00pr. We try to encourage people to keep fish in pairs or groups, depending on the species requirements.

The % mark up is to try and cover the cost of fish that die, water, food, medication and heating. We also have to pay for plastic bags, rubber bands and oxygen if the fish are being sent long distances. And finally we have to pay wages to the staff who might spend half an hour or more with a customer.

Or the staff may spend an hour with a hobbyist who buys nothing. Just there to fill in their boring day. Those people used to piss me off.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Unless you're in the UK and dealing with, or example, Maidenhead Aquatics.
A period of serious quarantine and automatic treatment for protozoan parasites and worming...and UV treatment...and a week's guarantee for returns of sickly fish...and free water testing and actual skilled advice.
I'm getting tired of people suggesting that all businesses are somply profit-orientated, at cost to the fish. Some businesses know that, in order to keep their customers, they have to sell good fish. They know that if they don't, social media will come a-knocking at their door with criticism a-plenty, whether or not it's justified. There are way too many self-entitled idiots out there, all too ready to blame the retailer for their own crass stupidity.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

...Just there to fill in their boring day.

Really? Perhaps some staff actually enjoy passing on their enthusiasm for the hobby and know what they're talking about. Some staff are aquarists themselves and seek out the opportunity to educate the ignorant. Trust me, dealing face to face with people makes a job far more worthwhile than simply sitting in an office and dealing with paperwork. Volvo used to call it 'job enrichment', before it became a standard 'thing'.

 

[Spyro]

That's not totally correct. In Australia most shops I have spoken to will treat fish as soon as they see a disease on them. It doesn't matter what the fish is, we do try to save them. Most shops also have books/ diaries for treating the tanks. Each tank is checked in the morning and afternoon after we close. Any dead fish are removed and their deaths are recorded in the book, while tanks with sick fish are recorded in the book and treated. The treatment regime is written on the tank and in the book and a "Not For Sale" sticker is put on the tank so nobody buys any sick fish. If customers ask why they aren't for sale, we tell them about the disease and show them how to identify it.

Most shops here put a 200% mark up on smaller cheaper fish to help cover the cost of losing them or bigger fish. It also lets the shop sell the fish in groups at cheaper prices.
eg: neon tetras cost about 80 cents each including freight. We sell them for $2.50 each or 10 for $20.00. If the fish come in good and don't have neon disease, then we make money on them. However, if they come in with neon disease, we can lose the entire tank of them and this might include 100-500 fish.

Some other fish like Apistogramma species only get a 100% mark up on them because they cost more. They might cost $10.00 each so we sell them for $25.00ea or $40.00pr. We try to encourage people to keep fish in pairs or groups, depending on the species requirements.

The % mark up is to try and cover the cost of fish that die, water, food, medication and heating. We also have to pay for plastic bags, rubber bands and oxygen if the fish are being sent long distances. And finally we have to pay wages to the staff who might spend half an hour or more with a customer.

Not in the shops around me. I believe you though.
Yes, I do see not for sale signs, quarantined, etc. But not on guppy or Platy tanks.
According to shop owner I knew from younger days then meet in shop again when I got into fish keeping: they get platy, guppy for 50c-80c depending on order size. They sell them for $4-$6 depending on quantity.
They get them with range of diseases and it just isn't economical to treat them. They require bunch of medications and long hospital/quarantine time. Which costs shop food, electricity, staff care, cleaning tanks, etc.
The good looking platies/guppies get sold in day or 2 and bland ones (which is 50% or more per order) nobody wants or buys for months. So they just don't treat them and dispose of bland looking ones or sell them as feeder fish. (the ones that don't die from disease).
Something like apistogramma and those $30-40 dollar fish doesn't sell well. They might have them in shop for weeks before selling. But Guppies, platies they sell tonnes of.
And chain shops are even worse according to him. They only keep fish because they need full range of products. But generally lose money on them and take pretty poor care of all fish (unless they have staff member that wants and knows how to take care of them). They only medicate fish when they have outbreak they can't ignore.
Most of the treatment consists of chucking some salt in the tank otherwise.
I live in large city where pet shops are always full of parents buying children pet fish. Not many hobbyist.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Spent some time in the Carlisle Maidenhead Aquatics store, talking fish.
The only thing that disturbed me was the absence of female Rams and Gouramis and this is due to a lack of demand!
Seems Joe and Josephine public don't want them, because they're not pretty enough.
Seeing the look of Shock! Horror! on my fizzogg, I was reassured that if I wanted such beasties, then they'd be included in any order and, as long as I'd be prepared to wait a fortnight, plus a quarantine period, I could have some ladies in a tank.
I asked about the various diseases discussed in here and the Dwarf Gourami disease appears to be more prevalent amongst American and Antipodean concerns, with little feedback about its prevalence here in Blighty.

 

[Colin_T]

Or the staff may spend an hour with a hobbyist who buys nothing. Just there to fill in their boring day. Those people used to piss me off.

I used to love talking to guys from fish club when they came in to have a look around. It gave me a chance to catch up with them between meetings. Mind you, I also spent hours talking to customers and helping them set up tanks or work out what was wrong with their tanks. My bosses were always coming over and asking if I needed anything or if they could help. My response was "no, I'm right". It paid off too because I had customers that would come back every week and bring their friends and family to buy fish and tanks.

Healthy fish, honesty, and good customer service goes a long way to keeping happy customers that keep coming back.

 

[SarahPar]

Cardinals are basically the same as neon tetras when it comes to risk of neon tetra disease.
They aren't immune.
Most of the times I see either at aquarium stores or petshops a certain % of the population has neon tetra disease. Doesn't matter if they are neons or cardinals. The parasite is specific to tetras in general not just neon tetras.

Endlers in my experience are actually worse than guppies health wise. In general the larger the fish the stronger it is. There has been a nasty wasting disease going around in Australia for years that seems to of originated in endlers but also infects guppies and other fish. It seems to be coccidia, I suspect Goussia Carpeli.
I have investigating what it is and treating it for 2 whole years.

 

[DoubleDutch]

There is not one Iridovirus but there are hundreds / thousands.
Most fish have "their own" but there is not one as devestating as the DG one.
As stated earlier there should be an importban from certain countries. But hey, dead = replacement = profit

 

[Avel1896]

Fish only really get sick if they get stressed. So pick the right fish for your water parameters, pick the correct tank mates.

Amen

 

[Colin_T]

There is not one Iridovirus but there are hundreds / thousands.
Most fish have "their own" but there is not one as devestating as the DG one.
As stated earlier there should be an import ban from certain countries. But hey, dead = replacement = profit

If they banned fish from Indonesia where most aquarium fish come from, there wouldn't be many fish left for sale in pet shops. 90% of the common aquarium fishes we see in shops come from Indonesia, which is where the gourami Iridovirus comes from.

 

[itiwhetu]

I used to love talking to guys from fish club when they came in to have a look around. It gave me a chance to catch up with them between meetings. Mind you, I also spent hours talking to customers and helping them set up tanks or work out what was wrong with their tanks. My bosses were always coming over and asking if I needed anything or if they could help. My response was "no, I'm right". It paid off too because I had customers that would come back every week and bring their friends and family to buy fish and tanks.

Healthy fish, honesty, and good customer service goes a long way to keeping happy customers that keep coming back.

Do you really think your boss wanted to pay you to catch up on fish club news. There is one thing giving out helpful advice and making sure that the customer is happy, it is another thing having people coming in wasting your time. Like discussing on the threads on a Fish Forum site. These people are the ones that then complain about your shop on the Forum site because your tanks aren't clean enough.

 

[Colin_T]

Do you really think your boss wanted to pay you to catch up on fish club news.

I did plenty of free overtime so they can't really complain. I got all my jobs done and had spare time so chatting to customers while planting plants or stocking shelves wasn't an issue. But if it got busy, the guys from fish club or my friends and family would say bye and leave me to it or they would help out.

 

[DoubleDutch]

If they banned fish from Indonesia where most aquarium fish come from, there wouldn't be many fish left for sale in pet shops. 90% of the common aquarium fishes we see in shops come from Indonesia, which is where the gourami Iridovirus comes from.

I did plenty of free overtime so they can't really complain. I got all my jobs done and had spare time so chatting to customers while planting plants or stocking shelves wasn't an issue. But if it got busy, the guys from fish club or my friends and family would say bye and leave me to it or they would help out.

I thought Malaysia and Singapore mainly