Honeythorn
Sugar coating and nicely nicely? I don't think so
Not so long back a friends sister lost her two goldfish due to the usual mis-selling and misinformation fandango. She'd been sold a 10 gallon tank and 2 goldfish to go in it, and naturally they didn't last more than a couple of weeks due to her not being told any of the right info.
Now this got me thinking - Would it be worth drafting up some sort of letter/plea to discreetly leave in fish stores, suggesting they reduce the sale of common goldfish for tanks, which clearly do not thrive in small tanks due to their size and mess, and request that they consider offering customers gold barbs as an alternative?
They have a reasonably similar shape and colour to goldfish, stay small and are active fish that can easily live in a group of 5 or so, which would work fine in a 10 gal starter tank. Since many people buy goldfish to amuse children, having 5 gold barbs doing well in a filtered heated 10 gal is surely better than a sucession of repeatedly dying goldfish that they have to keep replacing ? Less hassle/money, less death ( hopefully) and less upset for children .
I would propose in such a letter that they could still make a profit ( being a shop and all ) by selling the customer a heater for the barbs, and of course a small internal filter if the tank does not have one, and that they explain to the customer that basic tropicals such as these are equally as easy to care for as goldfish, need weekly water changes the same, but they just simply require warmer water.
Also, they would easily recoup the price they would have got for a goldfish by selling the barbs at what seems to be a typical price ( at least where I am ) of £1.25 each . A group of 5 would make the store £5.25 and most small goldfish cost less than that each so they'd be making a profit.
I have noticed a lot of people seem to think tropical fish are in some way really hard to keep by dint of being tropical, when all they really need is a heater .This is something that needs to be changed.
What do you guys think? Should stores sell less goldfish for tanks and label them as the pond fish they are ( commons anyway ) and persuade customers to go with Gold barbs? I say yes.
Now this got me thinking - Would it be worth drafting up some sort of letter/plea to discreetly leave in fish stores, suggesting they reduce the sale of common goldfish for tanks, which clearly do not thrive in small tanks due to their size and mess, and request that they consider offering customers gold barbs as an alternative?
They have a reasonably similar shape and colour to goldfish, stay small and are active fish that can easily live in a group of 5 or so, which would work fine in a 10 gal starter tank. Since many people buy goldfish to amuse children, having 5 gold barbs doing well in a filtered heated 10 gal is surely better than a sucession of repeatedly dying goldfish that they have to keep replacing ? Less hassle/money, less death ( hopefully) and less upset for children .
I would propose in such a letter that they could still make a profit ( being a shop and all ) by selling the customer a heater for the barbs, and of course a small internal filter if the tank does not have one, and that they explain to the customer that basic tropicals such as these are equally as easy to care for as goldfish, need weekly water changes the same, but they just simply require warmer water.
Also, they would easily recoup the price they would have got for a goldfish by selling the barbs at what seems to be a typical price ( at least where I am ) of £1.25 each . A group of 5 would make the store £5.25 and most small goldfish cost less than that each so they'd be making a profit.
I have noticed a lot of people seem to think tropical fish are in some way really hard to keep by dint of being tropical, when all they really need is a heater .This is something that needs to be changed.
What do you guys think? Should stores sell less goldfish for tanks and label them as the pond fish they are ( commons anyway ) and persuade customers to go with Gold barbs? I say yes.
