Tatoo tinfoil barbs?

It's so frustrating for me, I live in MA but there are really no good LFS's around me. Every store (small private run or "chain") have dyed or dipped fish (nevermind the dead fish in the tanks, eep). When I'm there all I ever hear is some incredibly clueless person saying "Ohhh those are soooo cute!!! OH my god let's get the hot pink one and maybe the emerald city green one! They only grow to about 10 feet, that will be PERFECT for my 5 gallon!"

Bleh. Just when I think the store is semi decent, I see something that completely throws me off.

Oh and on topic...I have not yet seen these tattooed fish in my local shops.
 
I see dyed fish all the time at wal-mart and other such unscrupulous places, but at least not at my LFS (thank god!). i've seen tattoed fish online, but not in stores yet. either way, it's bad. real bad.
 
WrittenLyric said:
"Ohhh those are soooo cute!!! OH my god let's get the hot pink one and maybe the emerald city green one! They only grow to about 10 feet, that will be PERFECT for my 5 gallon!"
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yeah, those coloured fish don't usually live long (or happy lives) because either they have infections or stress from the procedure, or the dyes are toxic.
Not like those folks with the 10 foot fish in 5 gal would care anyhow! they probably think all fishes never live more than a few months. Plplth! <-that was supposed to be a raspberry.
 
plah831 said:
yeah, those coloured fish don't usually live long (or happy lives) because either they have infections or stress from the procedure, or the dyes are toxic.
Not like those folks with the 10 foot fish in 5 gal would care anyhow! they probably think all fishes never live more than a few months. Plplth! <-that was supposed to be a raspberry.
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yeah, I once actually heard someone say that goldfish don't make good pets because they die too fast! :duh:
 
Unfortunately I was suckered into buying some painted glass fish when I first got my tank. My kids loved them so I bought one of each five colors that they had at the LFS. Anyways, I brought them home and from the combined stress of being dyed and then the travel home, I had ICH within a couple of days. These 'painted' fish are extremely weak due to the procedure and it is true, if no one buys them, no one will want to dye them because they cannot sell them.

I found out later that the owner of the LFS where I bought those glass fish actually did the dying in the store and I have since refused to even buy supplies or food there. I did actually go back after getting really mad from having to tell my kids why each of their fish died and tell the owner the problems I learned about after I bought the fish. I figured this would be the only way that guy would know he lost a customer!

So, the point of all this is that the whole dying, painting, and tattooing of fish is really inhumaine and can also wreck a tank with an outbreak of ICH or other disease that preys on weak fish. Also, I found out that fish like the glass fish that do not have scales are incredibly hard to treat for ICH
 
The 'tattooed' barbs (usually albino silvers) are indeed actually tattooed by the same sort of process used on people. This has also been done with albino giant gouramis. I first saw specimens of these a couple of years ago...they first came out in simple, single-colour patterns, then simple multi-colour patterns, then complex multi-colour patterns, and most recently (as of about 10 months ago) with slogans such as "I Love You" (well, a heart symbol for 'love' and U for 'you') and zodiac symbols.
 
Tommy Gun said:
So, the point of all this is that the whole dying, painting, and tattooing of fish is really inhumaine and can also wreck a tank with an outbreak of ICH or other disease that preys on weak fish. Also, I found out that fish like the glass fish that do not have scales are incredibly hard to treat for ICH
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Just throwing this out there: THe salt/heat treatment is VERY sucessful for treating ich in most if not all freshwater fish. Read the article here:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39759

Sorry about your painted fish disaster.... But good for you for telling your LFS off!!! Hopefully they will rethink their methods. Its ridiculous what people think they can do to animals just to make some money. (Labradoodle, anyone? How bout a cockapoo or a schnoodle? Sheesh...)
 
Thanks for letting me know about tatooed fish.

This store is in Asheville, NC
 
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