Worst Tankbusters at a Local Chain!!!

Oddball~

Brackhead
Nov 18, 2004
875
0
0
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Dallas, TX
Wow, as if Wal-Mart wasn't bad enough. I catch them stocking Oscars, but that's the bad part. He sells it to some kid with a 5 gallon tank! Wow, NEXT time I go, they stock PACUS!!! And then they stock Channel Catfish, and the worst part...........

CLOWN KNIFEFISH. I had to put a stop to this... But I got booted.
 
a co-worker of mine was told that 7 baby bala sharks would fit perfectly w/ a raph. catfish in a 10gal. :eek:

i dont think you could stuff 7 full grown balas and a raph. cat into an empty 10gal if you tried
 
Yesterday was new fish day at the local PetCo. Browsing the tanks, I came across a bag labeled "Blue Channel Catfish". WTF? I remember going after channel cats in the Cal-Sag canal as a kid - and one of them being at least 3 1/2 foot long.

Looked on planetcatfish.com - yep, these are the cats I remembered. Adult size = 66 inches (5 foot, 6 inches).

Why in the world would PetCo stock something like that?
 
ricester61 said:
Yesterday was new fish day at the local PetCo. Browsing the tanks, I came across a bag labeled "Blue Channel Catfish". WTF? I remember going after channel cats in the Cal-Sag canal as a kid - and one of them being at least 3 1/2 foot long.

Looked on planetcatfish.com - yep, these are the cats I remembered. Adult size = 66 inches (5 foot, 6 inches).

Why in the world would PetCo stock something like that?


One word: IGNORANCE
 
Blue and albino channel cats are generally stocked as pond fish and not aquarium fish.

But these stores will sell to anybody.

If you have a big water garden albino channel cats are hardy and popular.

I've always seen ocscars and pacus at Wal-mart.

Every fish store sells those.

Sad but true.
 
Irredescent sharks, they aren't the fastest growing, or the biggest, but every fish store on the face of the planet sells them (Or so it seems) while some stores avoid other tank busters, the irredescent sharks seem to be everywhere.
dave
 
I would rate these "tank busters" as most commonly sold:

irredescent sharks
pacus
tiger oscars
clown knifefishes
senegal bichirs
 
Yes indeed. Why put Tiger Oscars when all oscars grow to the same length?

And in a recent Snickers commercial on TV, a man passes a pet store with a LARGE RED TAILED CATFISH in something not larger than a 75 gallon tank.
 
I have mixed emotions about Oscars being listed at all in the tank buster category. To me a tank buster is a fish that is nearly if not impossible to house properly. Oscars are commonly sold to folks who don't know how or can't house them properly, but it isn't difficult for an informed fishkeeper to buy a large enough tank and give them a good home. Red tailed cats, irredescent shark, tiger shovel nose Pacu's etc. just simply get too big. with these fish were are talking a base line "need" of 300g +, in cases like pacu's and TSN's were are talking about tanks closer to 1000g in reality. not really so for oscars.
Just my thoughts for discussion, nothing more. and I do fully agree there are far more Oscars sold into bad circumstances than any other fish thus far listed. Even the irredescents aren't sold as much as Oscars ( At least not around here) I just never really think of them as a tank buster, or a fish that shouldn't be sold as a rule.
Dave
 
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