Why we see so many people come here with dying fish.

[Myraan]

The few plants you buy are not enough to pay the rent. It is great you are putting fish back into the LFS, that is what is needed more people like you. At the end of the day if you have a shop paying $300 a week rent you need to be selling 150 $4 fish per week to pay just the rent. Since the rent is about one-third of the costs, the shop needs to be selling 450 $4 fish each week to survive.

You have also hit upon another reason to do useless testing on our water, provided of course, you buy the test kit at the shop rather than more cheaply at amazon.

 

[Sgooosh]

I get pissed when I go to Petco or Petsmart (who drove out our local independent fish store the workers of which knew me well) give me the 3rd degree when I go to buy fish. "how long has your tank been running?" 14 years "what kind of fish do you have already?" Look, I know what I'm doing just get me the fish I am requesting 19 year old little girl.

i mean it can help fish getting mistreated in new peoples tanks

 

[Circus]

One thing I don't understand is, why don't fish stores keep extra sponge/filter media running on tanks. Then when someone is buying a new tank, they can say "We can sell you this *cycling sponge* to instant cycle your tank for $30." No muss, no fuss, instant cycle.

 

[itiwhetu]

One thing I don't understand is, why don't fish stores keep extra sponge/filter media running on tanks. Then when someone is buying a new tank, they can say "We can sell you this *cycling sponge* to instant cycle your tank for $30." No muss, no fuss, instant cycle.

Because there will be a whole group that will say if I take that media I'm going to take all the fish diseases as well, and we all know that all the LFS's in this world are full of fish diseases.

 

[Circus]

Because there will be a whole group that will say if I take that media I'm going to take all the fish diseases as well, and we all know that all the LFS's in this world are full of fish diseases.

To a degree yes, but I figure better odds with an instant cycle. Or even keeping an isolated tank they just feed ammonia every day. Not sure exactly how it would work, just an idea.

 

[Colin_T]

One thing I don't understand is, why don't fish stores keep extra sponge/filter media running on tanks. Then when someone is buying a new tank, they can say "We can sell you this *cycling sponge* to instant cycle your tank for $30." No muss, no fuss, instant cycle.

We did that at one of the shops I worked at. We had sponges in the overflows of each freshwater tank, and a bunch of spare sponges in the live rock tank (salt water). The live rock tank only had live rock and if people wanted to get the tank cycled faster, they could buy sponges from the rock tank.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

My lfs gives the best advice ever, but at pet barn were i used to get my fish they said that if its a small fish they can go in a small tank? They sold me a 1/2 gallon tank for a betta? They told me 1/2 gallon is huge? Never take advice from pet stores. Only take advice from actual fish stores who know what there doing.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

One thing I don't understand is, why don't fish stores keep extra sponge/filter media running on tanks. Then when someone is buying a new tank, they can say "We can sell you this *cycling sponge* to instant cycle your tank for $30." No muss, no fuss, instant cycle.

Good idea, but you'd end up with tanks full of running filters.

Given the biological throughput of a fish store, I could see it making sense to run a few separate tanks containing only 'matured' filter media.
Sponges can be cut up, but ceramic 'noodles' may be a better bet.
The issue then would be getting the right media for the right filters...and educating Joe and Josephine Public, which most shops seem unable or unwilling to do.

 

[Guest14017]

The Asian owned store I got Shion from gives bad advice on what to keep together. He sold a man a juvenile peacock bass and a bunch of EBA juveniles (like 7) and a few AFRICAN CICHLID species and said they'd all be fine together in a 55 gallon tank. I just asked for the fish I wanted and was sold the fish no questions asked.

 

[coriesinhawaii]

Ah, but that wasn't the point. For a new tank without any pre-existing stock, the new tank IS really a quarantine tank. I was speaking more about introducing another, or additional fish, to an existing tank of otherwise healthy fish where any new fish could introduce disease. And as to quarantine, it can be as simple as a bin or tote to temporarily house new fish with a minimal expense.
There's a good video here from Aquarium Co-op on a temporary Quarantine tank.

How about in the case of starting up a new tank though where you would want to add only a few fish at a time? Each time you add a new round of fish there's the risk of adding in disease. So it would cease to act as a quarantine tank after that first group is added.

 

[AbbeysDad]

How about in the case of starting up a new tank though where you would want to add only a few fish at a time? Each time you add a new round of fish there's the risk of adding in disease. So it would cease to act as a quarantine tank after that first group is added.

A quarantine period is typically 6-8 weeks. If one was to start a new tank and add a fish or two each week for 2-3 weeks, I'd still consider the new tank a quarantine tank. After that, the gamble and risk goes up.
Having written all that, admittedly many hobbyists roll the dice and will add new fish to their existing aquarium and perhaps 80% of the time all is well. A lot depends on the fish and the dealer. Sometimes I think it' can be safer to deal with a Mom and Pop local store than a big chain. It also doesn't hurt to ask questions like 'are these fish quarantined?', 'have they been treated with meds?', 'what's been your customer satisfaction with fish?' ...

 

[coriesinhawaii]

A quarantine period is typically 6-8 weeks. If one was to start a new tank and add a fish or two each week for 2-3 weeks, I'd still consider the new tank a quarantine tank. After that, the gamble and risk goes up.
Having written all that, admittedly many hobbyists roll the dice and will add new fish to their existing aquarium and perhaps 80% of the time all is well. A lot depends on the fish and the dealer. Sometimes I think it' can be safer to deal with a Mom and Pop local store than a big chain. It also doesn't hurt to ask questions like 'are these fish quarantined?', 'have they been treated with meds?', 'what's been your customer satisfaction with fish?' ...

I see your point. In this situation there would be no population of fish in the tank that has finished quarantine to be deemed disease free yet. But it still wouldn’t be a true quarantine process where the fish you are newly acquiring are physically separated from fish you already have to prevent one group from passing something to another. With each addition you would be risking that one of your additions will spread something to the others. In a true quarantine they wouldn’t be given that opportunity.

I realize it’s not very practical to do a true quarantine for each addition of fish when starting up a new tank (or possible without a separate tank) but I think it’s misleading to say that a new tank serves as its own quarantine tank because that ignores the fact that you can spread disease between added fish populations that way (I.e. your actions could lead to fish catching illness from other fish) even if it doesn’t upset an established system you’ve got going.

 

[Mash-]

Unfortunately here in Australia we have the same issues, while at pet barn (major chain store) looking at a red tailed shark, one of the employees said the shark only needed 50 litres of water! I decided to play dumb and asked how long to wait to get a fish after setting my tank up and the employee replied “less than 2 hours” after that I just went to local lfs which is still not great but waaay better .

 

[AbbeysDad]

I realize it’s not very practical to do a true quarantine for each addition of fish when starting up a new tank (or possible without a separate tank) but I think it’s misleading to say that a new tank serves as its own quarantine tank because that ignores the fact that you can spread disease between added fish populations that way (I.e. your actions could lead to fish catching illness from other fish) even if it doesn’t upset an established system you’ve got going.

When you think about it, the same could be said for a true, separate quarantine tank. In reality, new hobbyists starting up a new tank are likely not going to have a separate tank to quarantine fish, so the new tank might as well be the quarantine tank.

 

[coriesinhawaii]

When you think about it, the same could be said for a true, separate quarantine tank. In reality, new hobbyists starting up a new tank are likely not going to have a separate tank to quarantine fish, so the new tank might as well be the quarantine tank. I would wait until the fish in the quarantine tank had been in there long enough to be considered disease free so it the same could not be said for that situation. I don't wait 6-8 weeks though, only 2-3 weeks. i

If you wait until the fish in the separate quarantine tank have graduated and been moved to the main tank to add in a new batch the same could not be said for that situation. But the arguing back and forth here is pointless anyway because it's so impractical to do it that way. My only point is that calling a new tank its own quarantine tank gives people the idea that there is no risk of spreading disease but there is.