How Many Dead Fish Is Enough..

[waterdrop]

No, its ok, wasn't directing that at you, was just giving background. I thought your comment made sense. It wouldn't be something most people would do, to ask questions in that much detail.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rabbut]

I partially agree that in most cases all the questions on UV aren't needed, but possible for different reasons... A lot of stores run single tank systems, i.e. each tank is a separate system. In this scenario, UV is impracticable, and locking-down an individual tank is really easy to do, so you wouldn't usually run UV on that type of set-up

However;

If the shop has all the tanks tied together and the shop assistants don't know the answers to questions about their system, it's probably safe to assume they aren't implementing UV correctly at that store, unless the employee passes you on to someone whom does know the systems being ran and start to give you answers to the questions. Quite often, you don't need to do the mental maths, as if they are doing it properly, they'll be open about their set-up. If they are fudging it to look good, the numbers would be that far of what's needed that it would be obvious that they either don't run UV as they claim, or aren't implementing it correctly Also, if they aren't doing it properly, they'll tend to shut-up and become defensive past the answer of yes to the question "do you run UV on your systems?".

I should point out though, that I only advocate UV in a shop system, not at home

All the best
Rabbut

 

[GuppyGoddess]

that is a lot of good advice, although i dont see most people going in and interrogating their lfs employees about their practices and equipment. i would think most of them would have no idea what you're talking about anyways - they usually can't answer basic questions about the fish and what to do when you bring them home

and i mean that with all do respect. there's lots of newbie questions and discussions that get left alone, and i for one appreciate you coming in and taking the time to explain, but i cant help but feel that a lot of going that far is unlikely. i for one would be way too uncomfortable asking so many things about stuff i dont yet understand. i think a basic list of things to look for without bugging lfs employees would suffice for the majority of situations - but then again what do i know i'm just a newb

It is nice to know the background to what we should ask, but I agree with Justfrozen that it would be a joke for us to interrogate LFS employees. I'd have to write all the questions down on a piece of paper, which would demonstrate that I have no idea what *I'm* talking about, either.

The shop by me that has has signs saying "fish won't be for sale until they feel better," had about 7-10 of their tanks that way. When the fish appear to feel better, they sell them. I cannot recall the percentage of tanks with those signs, but there were enough that I was disturbed. And, like all fish stores, they had dead bettas. At least, though, they kept those fish in glass containers holding 2-3X the amount of water then that the microscopic plastic cups hold. . .but then they also add substrate subtracting water space and making it impossible to tell how much debris was at the bottom of the little "mini-bowls."

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

When I was at a Dobbies Garden Centre recently just wondering around the fish department there was 2 dead fish and a dead crab oh and a dead fly floating around or two in one tank (there was 3 live fish and 3 or 4 live crabs as well) - one of the sales assistants went to look at one of the fish and said "he's doing ok" - she just ignored the clearly dead fish.

Fair enough fish die but what do they have about removing them. One had obvioulsy been dead a long time as it looked rotted to the tank base...it was disgusting.