Went into my local big-chain pet store (really the only option where I live) to get crickets for our geckos and thought I might get a small school of cory's to round out my community tank. Normally this store has nice, clean tanks free of any dead fish and the staff seems pretty knowledgeable. Today, however, many of the tanks were cloudy and I could see lots of detritus floating around in them. I asked one of the staff about it and she said their filtration system wasn't working right so when the fish stir up the substrate the muck wasn't getting filtered out. A few of the tanks had dead fish in them and there didn't appear to be any water flow in many of them. The spotted Cory's I was interested in seemed healthy, but I had one of those gut feelings and decided not to purchase them today. Did I do the right thing? Would it have been ok to purchase them anyway or is this the sort of thing that might have been adding additional stress on them? I'm just not sure if I overreacted or if things would have been fine had I brought them home. Anyone have any input?
Cloudy Tanks At LFS
- Thread starter Gettin' Tanked
- Start date
You did right. I wont buy fish if they are in unhealthy condidtion. You run the risk of making your current fish sick as well. Just the other day there was a new guy at my lfs. I noticed some fish who had died of a fungal infection. when I pointed it out he said "oh that's just food for the shrimp". They are usually pretty good there so I told the fish dept. head and the problem was corrected. sorry to rant on your post, but to answer your question, wait untill they fix thier tanks before you buy from them.
Well, in my opinion. I would have bought them becuase the longer they are in that type of environment, the more advantages it has of dying. But on the other side, if you would bought them they could of been rescued and be living in your healthy tank.
I would have done exactly what you did - left the fish in the store. Their fish might be just fine, but if their filtration system is broken for a period of time the fish might be exposed to high ammonia or nitrite levels, and that stress/gill damage coupled with shipping might be enough to cause the fish to succumb to a disease or even die after you got them home.