How Do Fish Shops Filter All The Tanks?

[aaronnorth]

do they have a seperate filter or 1 big one, and how do they feed them, is it automatic because it would be time consuming feeding all them.

 

[Matty P]

Most have one big filtration system and would generally feed by hand.

 

[oddball_lover]

Well, like anything, it depends on the shop!

I've seen shops with one big central filtration, and i've seen others which have a sump per 'bay' of tanks.

I would assume that they would feed by hand, because the type of food and amount would of course have to alter with which fish were in the tank and how many.

 

[5teady_2012]

My LFS has all undergravel filters in thier tanks, they are waterchanged every week and gravel cleaned (hoovered) once every 3 weeks so the owner told me

 

[smmetz]

some have a very large air pump, and use internal air driven filters in each tank - so that there is no chance of disease spreading from tank to tank. Others use what was mentioned above, 1 sump for every 1-4 stacks of tank. Chain places usually use 1 master system, so all tanks are effectively connected - worst for containing a disease outbreak.

feeding, I imagine hand feeding is done also.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

most of the time it is 1 sump per wall of tanks and they feed by hand. sumps and pumps arent cheap, so you will rarely find 1 sump per like 4 tanks or something like that.

 

[luque]

my lfs feeds by hand, helped once

but was wondering the same on filtering.

 

[DarkEntity]

Sponge Filters are the best way imo as each tank is a seperately filtered environment....single filter systems are bad, one tank gets a disease, they all get it

 

[5teady_2012]

Pets at home, near me is a nightmare, i refuse to get anything from there...

Went in one day and all the tanks run off the same water system, out of about 40+ tanks at least 8 was contaminated..

One had whitespot, one with saddleback, other with fungus etc... i was shocked, the women serving told me when i approched her about this, the tanks are treated every week and well looked after, i just laughed.. She then went on to tell me that if i bought some fish, she would assure they would be ok, once again i laughed in a sarcastic manner.

I said, why has the tanks not got labels on saying tanks under treatment and not for sale at this time, she not answer.

I also said, every tank should have the label on as a matter of fact because there is a high chance of them all been contaminated cos of the all in 1 water system, again no answer..

She then said, look whats your problem, if you buy the fish you get a 7 day garauntee, if it dies just bring it back...

I then said, yeah but when my tanks get contaminated as well, will you compensate for all the treatment i need, all the fish that die and what ever other problems it causes, she replied with ermmmm no..

I laughed and said this place is a joke...

What got to me while i was having this (may i add, i was speaken loud) conversation with her, she was selling fish to customers who seemed to have no responce or pay attention to what i was saying.. I just hope all thier tanks was ok after buying fish from there...

I hate places who run tanks on water system, just lazy i think lol.

Sorry about the rant.

 

[Mikaila31]

All the better stores around me have UGF along with lots of plants in there tank. I only buy fish from these stores, I feel it is safer that way. All most all of the UGF are powered by airstones, which is cheap (important for private stores). Larger tanks with expensive inhabitants are run individually, Like discus, freashwater rays, and arowanas.

 

[rabbut]

The LFS in which I work, use a seporate UGF system to filter each individual tank of out 140 tank system. This prevents disease spread, and the filters are easy to maintain, and cheap to run and build, consisting of a plate and powerhead (or two) for each system. We gravel wash every 4 weeks. Waterchages in shops are an on-going process, as water removed when a sale is made, will easily remove 30% in a week from all tanks. More in tanks that contain popular fish.

All tanks are fed by hane, twice a day. Despite 140 tanks, this only takes arround 15mins.

All the best
Rabbut

 

[TribeOfShroom]

My LFS have all of their tanks run on seperate heaters, filters etc. For the main reason of: if one tank has an infection, it'll be contained to that one tank (not necessary always true due to air bourne disease etc, but for the most part true)

and they hand feed them. Different foods for different species proper job

 

[Saedcantas]

I worked in one shop in Manchester and managed one for a time here in Jersey.

In both the tanks were commercially bought 6-8 tank systems on individual sumps below. While this isnt perfect its the standard most shops have the time, space and money to invest in and obviously much better at containing problems to one system rather than the P@H universal whitespot coming up system
In both shops we did a weekly algae clean and gravel siphon changing out a good percetage of water and depending on the stocking levels of individual systems sometimes a midweek water change also.
Dead fish and plant bits and pieces were removed three times daily. You simply cant skimp on this!

Hand feeding the fish and taking the time to observe them is essential It is worth the time of at least one member of staff to make such regular health checks on the fish and to ensure all are eating well and of a varied diet.

It was always good business sense to me to spend the majority of the time observing and servicing the live animals, it's them that bring the customers in and that are the first thing everyone sees. Even one dead fish is enough to ruin your relationship with a customer if perhaps they have a mildly naive idea of how many fish out of 20,000 might unavoidably die!

Lotte*

 

[andywg]

If you employ a decent UV on a centralised system then it is very effective at preventing the spread of amny nasties. Combined with an Ozoniser a central filtration system has a number of advantages, though it can also lead to problems wiith isolating off certain tanks, not to mention how much cheaper air pump powered filtration is to run on a number of large tanks.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

just having a decent quarantine set up can help with the spread of diseases too. While obviously diseases will crop up in the tanks from time to time for other reasons, the most likely time is when fish have just been shipped in. If they're properly quarantines in a seperate system you drastically reduce the liklihood of getting diseases in your main tanks.