FishProfiles.com Message Forums

When I worked at a pet store, we didn't have facilities for quarantine tanks, but corporate would kill us if we didn't go around regularly and "pull deads". Maybe half a pound worth of dead fish each day. Unless one of the koi died which makes a big difference (a huge number of feeders die compared to the trops as well). Of course, the supplier we got our fish from (corporate also made us get our fish from them) wasn't so great either.

><>

my LFS has over 450 tanks.

I can imagin what their die-off is.

I too live in Cincinnati and there are a LOT of fish stores!! I work outside of the "cincy" area but still considered cincy (the who south-west corner of ohio is cincinnati ).

Anyway, our freshwater deaths (excluding bad shipments) is usually low. About 3 to 5 deaths per 60 to 80 tank section (Sections in the store is by continent, SA/CA, Africa, Asia/Aus) and we have over 200 tanks (possibly over 250) and that totals about 10 to 15 deaths in freshwater a day.

You have to remember, in a store that have thousands of fish, 20 fish is not a lot.

We have QT tanks, but we only have 72 20 gallon tanks, 18 are SW, rest are fresh, but can be EASILY switched. But we only use the QT when needed. The QT tanks are cleaned EXTREMLY well after treatment, thus no bacteria (we do daily water changes), thus when we get fish, it is better to put them in the sale tanks rather than in QT

Cincinnati, OH. I am 30 mins from Dayton, and 30 mins from Northern KY. I am including in those stores, the chain stores of which there are 3 from one chain, 4 from one chain, and 5 from another chain. But the best part is, I did not include the dozen wholesalers in the same area. As this is usually where I get my fish from. Actually through the wholesalers. I just place my order with theirs, only have to pay my shipping.

Ahhh life is good!

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

Of the over 40 lfs within 30 mins of me

Good lord man, where do you live!?

Seriously Cory, those discus get pampered more then I do .

I agree with marc. It's just not logical to set up a separate "quarantine" tank in an LFS. IMO, that's what the store is for anyways. You quarantine the fish, weed out the dead and sickly, relieve them from the stress of shipping whilst awaiting transfer to a new home, and wean them onto prepared foods.

Only a very small few, maybe 1% of lfs have QT tanks. And most of these that do, only have a few. Of the over 40 lfs within 30 mins of me, only one has QTs and it is for SW only. It is just not logical to keep them from a buisness stand point. This is where warranties come in. As all the lfs in my area warranty their fish, and usually very well, like a week. Except the one that has the QT SW tanks, his FW is a week warranty, but the SW is 24 hours, because he QTs them himself for a month. As for corals, I know of nobody that QTs them. As many of your SPS are too temperamental and can take a month or two or more, to come back into color after shipping and acclimating.

As lfs get shipments in from once per week, to 3-4 times per week. And to truely QT a fish, it is recommended for about a month. So, to QT all your fish coming in, you would have to have a facility that had 4-15 times as many QT tanks, as you do on your showroom. Wasted space, as if your facility was this large, you could use this space and these tanks to increase your available stock. This is the reason for fish warranties. If a fish dies, they replace it, and claim the loss on their taxes. After all, they are a buisness, so they have to setup the best way for making money and staying in buisness.

As for a dead fish in a tank at the lfs. Well that is why I have QT at home. If I see something I am likeing, I will get it, even if there is a single dead fish in there. After all the warranty will cover it if it dies. Now multiple deaths in a tank, no I won't purchase them until I have seen them treated and living and eating well in a week or two.

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

Yeah, in the nearly six months that I've been working in the store, I don't think we've ever lost a discus. But then again, we do have a seperate tank for them with high temps and low pH and stuff.

Female guppies always seem to die the most, and on a few occasions we've lost entire shipments of these fish. It's not the tank, because this happens no matter which tank we put them in. They are just crappy fish.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I am almost singly handedly running the trop FW section of our store (we get a LOT of stuff for being a primarily reptile based facility), and I would say that almost all of our deaths occur shortly after shipping or as a direct result of the process. "Bad batches" are often disasterous and can spread ich like mad accross the entire tank---before dying on you. Henceforth, we never seem to get in wild caught cardinals/headstanders anymore (previously tank raised specimens are the way to go). I've noticed that livebearers, for some odd reason, seem to die out fastest for us. In the variatus (when we get them)/ platy tank, it's not uncommon to see a corpse floating around their oh, I'd wager every other day. Yet the tank is clean and clear and was rinsed and bleached twice (after the damn platies got ich). Our disucs/catfish tank and our eel display tank seems to attract the leat amount of deaths, go figure.

Umm...it really isn't a constant number. I work at my LFS and it's different everyweek. Sometimes we just get in bad shipments, one fish w/ ich can contaminate a lot of tanks if we don't catch it quickly. Someone goes around daily checking the tanks with a container for the ones that didn't make it...and believe me that takes awhile. We have over 150 tanks.

Couldn't agree more...

I I am usually the one to do the "death run" (as we like to call it) in freshwater, and varies from day to day, week to week. Most of the deaths occur the couple of days after we get the shipments, as they are sometimes packaged poorly or are just crappy fish. The normal amount for the freshwater section (80-90 tanks) is around three to five.

But I absolutely hate it when we forget one (usually some stupid guppy or something that got lodged in a plant), and the customer freaks out and says our store is crappy. Come on, it's just one fish and we are very busy when the store opens. I hate jerks like that, and when they go and complain to you right to your face, it just makes the whole day crappy.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I was at my LFS just as they opened and I saw a guy with a container walking around scooping out the dead fish.Just wondering how many the average store loses per day or week?

In the LFS where I work there are 120 tanks, plus the eight feeder tanks. We have O2 generators, UV sterilizers, and the works, but we still lose fome fish nearly every day. It all depends on the shipment. While Ich can't spread between tanks in our store, it can still arrive in a shipment. I'd say on average I pull ten fish a day, not including a couple of feeders (and considering we have a thousand or so 3" comets, a couple a day isn't too bad".

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

it all depends. i work in atlanta, ga. we get our fish from ft lauderdale, fl. they usually get shipped out around 8am or so and arrive at our store somewhere around 1 or 2pm. we have gotten them as late as 6 or 7pm. this last shipment we lost an entire bag of 150 neons. however, most of our losses are feeder goldfish and guppies. we dont really have many dead ones in our display tanks. unless we get in a bad batch.

.mitch.

A reputable fish store will have QT tanks and will QT their fish/corals before putting them out for sale.

Obviously they will lose a fish from time to time, but I know my LFS rarely loses one out of their display tank.

To be honest, I would walk away from a store that had sick/dying/dead fish in their displays.

I know when I worked at a local fish store everyone came in an hour early, to clean cages and so on, but one of the jobs was getting all the dead fish. On good days there were only a handful, on most days there were perhaps 20 (out of, in the store, maybe 750 fish plus thousands of feeders) but on the day after a shipment the bag was invariably filled to the top. Once a feeder shipment came in that was just a horrific mess, something went wrong, and basically every fish was dead by the next day. Nothing the store did wrong, and I can't really blame the shipper since once one bad bag out of dozens every week is a fluke. Stuff just happens.
There was very little acclimation, though - just temperature, and every so often (like the time they sent Chocolate Gouramies, and about half the saltwater fish) a bit more than that.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

Umm...it really isn't a constant number. I work at my [link=LFS]http://www.magicislepets.com/pages/fish.html" style="COLOR: #FF99FF[/link] and it's different everyweek. Sometimes we just get in bad shipments, one fish w/ ich can contaminate a lot of tanks if we don't catch it quickly. Someone goes around daily checking the tanks with a container for the ones that didn't make it...and believe me that takes awhile. We have over 150 tanks.

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

Not sure the actual amount, but most LFS claim 20-35% losses during tax season. The ones you don't see, are those that come in dead, that happen during the shipping. This is why many lfs like to purchase fish from repitable local breeders, as their loss is much lower if any.

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

quite common, there is no definitely number but every shop will have dead fish everyday

I don't think its really all that unsual. I'd imagine that they throw out a few every day.

Last time I was in the LFS they threw a Bamboo shark in the garbage can.