Should i take a punt

[Country joe]

I'm interested in have some ember tetras for my new tank, unfortunately my aquarium shop does not stock them, and can't order a small amount, I did do a trip to my nearest Maidenhead aquatics store, they did have them, but I was not ready for them, they were looking okay, but very small. And it's a 66 miles return journey, my local Pets At Home also has them , again very small, I have never purchased off them before, should I take a punt with them, I could buy on line but the delivery cost is really high, and I only want 8.
What do you think?

 

[AJ356]

Is it the drive that concerns you?

 

[Country joe]

Would prefer not do it, but PAH have not a great reputation, but looking at the fish from both companies you would think they are the same batch.
What I have noticed that's concerning they always seem to have acouple of tanks with the fronts covered with a notice saying not for sale under medication.

 

[GaryE]

If it isn't a central filtration system, it's a good thing they medicate. You could order online, and you would probably get the same embers from the same farm shipment. If a chain store has disease in it, I am wary, because their quarantine isn't always tight with new staff, etc. They don't pay people to learn.

Ember tetras only grow to 2cm, 0.8 inch. How small were they?

 

[MattW]

Every time anyone buys fish at my LFS they ask what distance it is to home. They have customers from London coming up often and use larger bags or even individual bags depending on the fish size = to the distance. Perhaps you could ask Maidenhead for a larger bag or even splitting the group of tetras into 2 bags? Always call them before you go to save you a trip if they don’t have any left.

 

[Country joe]

If it isn't a central filtration system, it's a good thing they medicate. You could order online, and you would probably get the same embers from the same farm shipment. If a chain store has disease in it, I am wary, because their quarantine isn't always tight with new staff, etc. They don't pay people to learn.

Ember tetras only grow to 2cm, 0.8 inch. How small were they?

Half an inch

 

[Essjay]

I wouldn't trust Pets at Home not to use a central filtration system - it's the method most stores use. Maybe all the tanks don't run on just one system, probably each bank of tanks on its own system separate from the others - but that still means a number of tanks sharing filtration.

 

[Lcc86]

Who are you looking at buying from online? Some places have really good reputations so even though shipping is expensive it can be worthwhile.

I don't trust PAH as far as I can throw them for any animal, would rather try my luck at somewhere like a Maidenhead Aquatics or online.

 

[Essjay]

Unfortunately CountryJoe lives on the west side of Scotland so Cumbria is the nearest part of England. Had it been the east side, there are a couple of good shops in County Durham but those are too far.

 

[GaryE]

@Country joe - you should relocate to Canada. Around here, a 66 mile round trip is going to a local store!

The place I think of as my local place for buying fish is near the airport where I pick up shipped boxes, and that's an 8 hour round trip.

 

[AJ356]

33 miles each way is not a big distance unless he is cycling or walking

 

[AJ356]

And there are some maidenhead aquatics that don't look much better than a pets at home sometimes. It's a tricky choice because whoever you choose to get them from, if something goes wrong, you'll forever second guess yourself. The joys of fish keeping. You get anxiety as well as a nice hobby!

 

[Naughts]

and I only want 8.

I consider this shoal too small. 10 is a recommended minimum shoal size and smaller species like embers need higher numbers for their wellbeing.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Ember tetras only grow to 2cm, 0.8 inch.

I would ship fish like this overnight with 10 or more in one bag. They would do fine. Tiny fish do not make much ammonia.

I once receive a shipment of 99 zebra plecos at 1.75 to 2.25 inches in a single huge bag. I have to admit there were 3 DOAs, but the rest were fine. There were a few inches of water in the bag and the other 90%+ was air. The fish had been purged as there was almost no poop in the bag. I am in New York and the fish were shipped to me from California. They were shipped airport to airport which meant about 15 hours from being bagged on the west coast to being unbagged on the east coast. There was also a bag of 15 tank raised L173 and that bag had one DOA.

The above fish actually originated in Germany from where the were sent to California. Soon after they were rebagged and sent to me. So I was surprised that there were only 4 losses out of 114 fish. Unless one is dealing with an outfit that has a bagging machine, you will never receive that many fish individually bagged.

A number of years later I did an import deal from Indonesia with an associate. We ordered 350 fish- 324 were zebra plecos 26 were P. comptas. They arrived individually bagged. Think about how long it would take you to unbag 350 fish one fish at a time. My partner in Chicago received the fish and had to unbag them.

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[Colin_T]

A number of years later I did an import deal from Indonesia with an associate. We ordered 350 fish- 324 were zebra plecos 26 were P. comptas. They arrived individually bagged. Think about how long it would take you to unbag 350 fish one fish at a time. My partner in Chicago received the fish and had to unbag them.

We used to get marine fish bagged individually. Hundreds of little plastic bags, double or triple bagged, many with a piece of newspaper between the bags piled into foam eskies. We would all be sitting around these eskies with a pr of scissors and 2 buckets. One bucket to hold the water from the bag. The other bucket had clean seawater in for the fish. It took us hours and one night we were still at the shop doing this after midnight and we started at 5pm.

We have had big freshwater shipments that took hours to unpack too. One shipment arrived at lunchtime and 3 workers started unpacking then. Two of those workers left at closing time (6pm) and then the 3 staff in the shop went to help unpack. Most of the staff left at 8pm. One of the bosses left at midnight. The remaining boss and I were there until 4am getting the last fish unpacked. Those were all freshwater fish and there were 100s in each bag and heaps of bags. If they were packed individually, I would have quit my job.