Lfs Telling Porkies?

[AdAndrews]

lol, why do they say it tho, when i started off with my baby biorb(15l) the bloke at forty fathoms in kidderminster told me that i could keep 3to4 small goldfish with 4 wcmm, i believed him, i was new to the hobby and thought he would know, do they say it so things go wrong so that u have to keep spending money at their shop??

 

[Reesy1989]

At my lfs I'm pretty lucky. They are very knowledgeable. I have asked them a question or two in the past and they have given their honest opinion and they tend to suggest the cheap options.

Such as lights. The other day I wanted to know what would be the best light for my new planted tank there was one there for £19.99 and one for £8.95 and he said they both do the same job and from his personnal experience there is nothing between them so I bought the £8.95. Was a happy chap that they didn't try and take advantage of me

 

[grasshopper_green]

on the subject of getting the temperature right, I read somewhere that if you're adding some water to a larger volume of water, then it would take some substantially different temperatures in the added water in order to change the overall tank temperature.
Anyone able to do such calculations?

 

[Honeythorn]

Oh and by the way, if you don't bend one knee when filling your tank it increases your snail population

I KNEW I was doing something wrong!!! Mine have gone mad and bred all over my 12 gallon Anyone got a hungry dwarf puffer ?

 

[Honeythorn]

lol, why do they say it tho, when i started off with my baby biorb(15l) the bloke at forty fathoms in kidderminster told me that i could keep 3to4 small goldfish with 4 wcmm, i believed him, i was new to the hobby and thought he would know, do they say it so things go wrong so that u have to keep spending money at their shop??

I suspect that may be the case sometimes, but I think it's often a case of old and outdated information still being used . The old " a fish will only grow to the size of the tank " myth that kills so many goldfish every day, or " old water is best ". That sort of thing. If it isn't older shopkeepers giving out such outdated info and practices, then it tends to be younger people who are working in the stores to earn a bit of extra cash who either don't know a thing about fish, or are going by the previously mentioned outdated advice. ( this often occurs in chain stores )

Obviosuly not all of them are like that. But we all have at least 1-2 bad stores where we live who give out such advice to newbies.

At the end of the day if a couple come in with a kid who wants a goldfish ( and who will invariably get bored of it in a few weeks ), they are unlikely to buy one if you tell them how big goldfish grow, how long they live, what size tank they need and how much care needs to be taken to keep them healthy and large. Not to mention how you have to cycle the tank for a month before you even add a fish to it. Little Brandon/Lucy/whatever wants their fishy and they want it now in a pretty little bowl or one like a spaceship. If it dies in a few weeks ( due to ammonia poisoning for example ) , oh well we'll get an identical one they only cost a couple of quid.

And it happens often enough for the shopkeper to make money from the fish. The people keep on losing fish due to lack of research and/or bad advice, and the guy running the shop gets to make money selling them cheap fish at a few quid each every time.

It's a business and it needs to make money. Unfortunately many fish have to suffer for the financial gain. Sad but true.

 

[OldMan47]

Honeythorn, we have seen some of those same quality statements made in this thread about ich. I believe it is why Doresy posted his sarcastic statement about snails. Next thing we will be talking spontaneous generation of illness or bad vapors like they might have 300 years ago.

 

[andywg]

Whitespot outbreaks can occur from adding water to the aquarium that is too cold (ie; tank = 28 deg + 40% change with 10 deg water, for example).

No they don't. They occur from the parasite being added to the aquarium. I do 40% changes with the cold tap throughout winter and I never have whitespot break out in my tanks because the parasite is not there.

If you have chloramine in your water make sure the dechlorinator also removes this as some don't.

The chemical in most dechlorinators is sodium thiosulphate. This will break the chloramine bond but will not bind to the remaining ammonia (though this will be dealt with by the filter). Those that claim to deal with chloramine have a different chemical which breaks the bond and deals with the ammonia.

Of course one could then look to the scientific evidence that our filter bacteria can break the bond themselves and use the ammonia part as food.

 

[Smurf]

the bloke at forty fathoms in kidderminster told me that i could keep 3to4 small goldfish with 4 wcmm, i believed him, i was new to the hobby and thought he would know

There used to be a really good place in Stourport-on-Severn; tucked down a side street... can't remember what it was called but you go down steps to a tiny basement. They did freshwater cold & tropicals & marines. I'm going back about 10 years - it might not be there now of course!

Daisy