I say this holding up a white flag ok, I need help not hate replies. I know there are literally hate groups and petitions against walmart selling fish. I'm one of the few guys that works at walmart in the pet department that cares. I and my co-worker need any advice that any of you guys have to offer on ick. We basically have 3 walls of tanks. Two warmer water walls(76 -78F) and one cold water (goldfish 70F) wall. The two warmer water walls are connected by a MARS 30gallon system sump. The goldfish wall has it's own 15 gallon sump. We constantly have a problem with ick in the goldfish wall. Yes since we're a supplier we do have an overstocking problem mostly with the small comet fish. To clear it up as a supplier of fish generally the tanks will be over stocked it's not like a home tank.
If we ever have a problem with ick in the warmer water tanks it's isolated and is EASY to remedy but the cold water tanks are SO much harder to cure. I did some research and found that ick reproduces after it falls off the fish. It then falls to the rocks or any ornaments or plants in the tanks and reproduces. I've removed all the plants and removed and bleached all the rocks in the cold water tanks and set them aside. I've turned the thermostat on the refridgerant up as high as I can to 80 degrees(this only cools the water it doesn't heat it) and the temp remains at a constant 70 degrees. The next step is to put a seperate heater in the sump to begin heating the water but I hesitate to do that. We've added extra salt because ick doesn't thrive well in salt but that hasn't helped it. If it were up to me I wouldn't stock anymore fish at all in the cold water wall and flush it out completely along with the sump and try again.
on another note.... when you have your own tank at home that you can work on and tank care of with limited fish it's easy. But when you're a supplier it's extremely difficult. We literally have to srub down all the walls on every tank atleast once every 1.5 weeks. You don't have to do that at home. We have to remove and CLEAN not just vaccum the rocks every 2 to 3 weeks, you don't have to do that at home. Granted the city I live in has about 5 superwalmarts that all sell fish and my store has literally probably the cleanest tanks because we TRY to take care of them unlike most people think. And when you're a supplier carrying LOTS of fish, fish will die it's a given. The difference between Walmart and Petsmart is that Petsmart is specifically a pet store, they pay someone to stand at that podium they have and do nothing but take care of the fish all day. We have to take care of fish, stock shelves, pull freight, help other departments all while we're making less than 8 bucks an hour. When you supply fish you come in at 1pm get all the dead fish out and by 4pm 10 more dead fish are already floating around the tank or being eating by it's neighboring fish, that's typical. Since we're not standing there doing nothing but that all day you will see dead fish in our tanks. Sorry.
If we ever have a problem with ick in the warmer water tanks it's isolated and is EASY to remedy but the cold water tanks are SO much harder to cure. I did some research and found that ick reproduces after it falls off the fish. It then falls to the rocks or any ornaments or plants in the tanks and reproduces. I've removed all the plants and removed and bleached all the rocks in the cold water tanks and set them aside. I've turned the thermostat on the refridgerant up as high as I can to 80 degrees(this only cools the water it doesn't heat it) and the temp remains at a constant 70 degrees. The next step is to put a seperate heater in the sump to begin heating the water but I hesitate to do that. We've added extra salt because ick doesn't thrive well in salt but that hasn't helped it. If it were up to me I wouldn't stock anymore fish at all in the cold water wall and flush it out completely along with the sump and try again.
on another note.... when you have your own tank at home that you can work on and tank care of with limited fish it's easy. But when you're a supplier it's extremely difficult. We literally have to srub down all the walls on every tank atleast once every 1.5 weeks. You don't have to do that at home. We have to remove and CLEAN not just vaccum the rocks every 2 to 3 weeks, you don't have to do that at home. Granted the city I live in has about 5 superwalmarts that all sell fish and my store has literally probably the cleanest tanks because we TRY to take care of them unlike most people think. And when you're a supplier carrying LOTS of fish, fish will die it's a given. The difference between Walmart and Petsmart is that Petsmart is specifically a pet store, they pay someone to stand at that podium they have and do nothing but take care of the fish all day. We have to take care of fish, stock shelves, pull freight, help other departments all while we're making less than 8 bucks an hour. When you supply fish you come in at 1pm get all the dead fish out and by 4pm 10 more dead fish are already floating around the tank or being eating by it's neighboring fish, that's typical. Since we're not standing there doing nothing but that all day you will see dead fish in our tanks. Sorry.
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