BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Fish Supporting Private Breeder -vs- the Mass Retailer

For the most part Live Aquaria is a fairly good place to order fish but they're not perfect. I recently set up a 30 gallon tropical tank for my sister and ordered about $100 worth of freshwater fish from them. Of the 30 or so fish 1 guppy arrived dead with shredded fins and another guppy also had shredded fins but was still alive. One Angel had a clamped left pectoral fin that healed after a couple days in the quarantine tank. one topsail platy had a shredded dorsal fin. The rest of the guppies, platies, Gouramis, and shrimp were in prestine condition. None of the fish from Live Aquaria died after being put into the tank.

Just this weekend we added more fish to the tank but purchased them from Petco, Petsmart, and Walmart.

Currently the tank contains:

2 cherry barbs
2 gold barbs
1 tiger barb
1 green tiger barb
1 albino tiger barb
3 white clouds
4 zebra danios
1 black lyretail molly
1 platinum lyretail molly
2 topsail platy
2 mickymouse platy
1 tuxedo platy
1 sunburst platy
1 hifin lyretail swordtail
2 honey dwarf gourami
2 dwarf/powder blue gourami
1 marble veil Angel
1 CT betta
16 guppies
3 ghost shrimp
1 cherry fire shrimp
1 Amano shrimp
1 red eye tetra (corrected)

We tried to order a smokey leopard veil angel but they ran out of stock at LA and since they have a minimum order of $30 we'll never get that angel. <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Fish that died within 2 days of being put into the tank:

2 black phantom tetras
1 cherry barb
1 platy

The two black phantom tetras were actually among 3 test fish that were put into the tank 1 hour after setting it up. They were only $1 each and died within 2 hours. The 3rd fish (red eye tetra) survived till this day. <img src="/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> The platy and cherry barb were introduced a couple weeks ago and died overnight. Don't really know why they died as the other cherry barbs and platies are perfectly fine.

None of the fish have gotten sick so far. In fact all fish that had fin damage have completely regrown their fins. Also none of the fish are attacking the other fish or shrimp. They are attacking some of the live plants though. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

As you can see I suport the mass retail breeder. The private breeder is where you woukld want to go if you're looking for really exotic variations of Bettas.

I am also tempted to rescue fish from Department stores like Walmart. I saw a couple of melachromis auratus there once. A very beautiful fish but by 2" it would kill everything in a community tank. I thought of all those kids putting the pretty fish in their tanks and waking up a couple of weeks later to see it eating a tankmate.

I resist the temptation however, because although I could provide it with an appropriate home Walmart is out to make money. If we buy fish there, they will get more fish. If enough people stop buying them, they will stop selling them.

Petstore(Petsmart, Petco, etc) however are better at least they usually have some staff that attempt to educate buyers and they care for thier livestock better.

I do agree that Petco and Petsmart are better than Walmart. When I was at Walmart, I saw one tank with fish that had ich. That tank housed a bunch of other fish that didn't have external signs of ich, but in a few days those other fish will likely get infected too. It's always a good idea to quarantine all new fish even if they don't have any signs of disease. Even fish purchased at Petco and Petsmart will sometimes develop ich when you get it home into your tank that's why quarantine tanks are a must.