Got a message from a member on my local forum up here where I moderate on, as from time to time they message me because I have puffers. Anyhoo this is what happened to him at an LFS here. These guys are supposed to have a pretty good rep too. He was told that a porc would do just fine in a 33g
Here is the message I sent to the store owner
Every now and then I get messages about puffers from members because of some of the knowledge I have of them. Someone sent me a pm with this in it today, the puffer in question is a porcupine puffer.
Quote:
so i was at *** and they have them for 49.99 and they said u can keep them in a 33gallon tank along with a clownfish and anemone
but when i went to the puffer forum it said they should be kept in a 120 gallon and no corals cuz it will nip at them?
If this is the sorta information that is being handed out at your store that is not right. They require at the minimum 120g. All puffers are extremely messy and require alot of room. If your already aware that a porcupine has absolutely no business in a 33g then maybe the staff needs to be better educated. Either way no one should be telling someone a porc would be alright in a 33g.
Cheers
Aaron
ps - not trying to be a phallus, just trying to make sure people are rightly informed when it comes to puffers which happen to be my favorite fish.
One other comment that I would like to make also is when you bring in fahaka puffers they really should be in seperate tanks, they tend to hate each other. My fahaka puffer was purchased from a member here who got it from one of your stores. My fahaka is missing most of his top fin from being in a tank full of fahaka's. I know logistically it's hard to keep them all in seperate tanks but some fish just don't belong in the same tank together.
If anyone is interested i will put his reply here when and if I get it.
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
The local store here treats their puffers quite poorly. A lot of the fish really but the puffers get it worst. Not only do they get packed in they mix all the species too.
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another. We consider those, when the cerebral structure/intellectual faculties most developed, as highest. A bee doubtless would when the instincts were.
Charles Darwin
Expecting the staff of any LFS to actually know the requirements the fish they carry and sell is unrealistic. They are not trained or paid anywhere nearly for that, nor realistically can they take the time to explain to the customers - those few who care.
Anyone getting any pet has the responsibility to learn the needs of the animal they want to keep before they buy it. The Web makes that far easier than it used to be.
My Puffers: Puffers I have kept: T lineatus T miurus A modestus T biocellatus C valentini C coranata C papuan C lorteti DPs suvattii burrfish T niphobles
My LFS had a large porc that is dying of IPs. They asked me what was wrong with it & I told them how to easily treat. A month later, it's skinnier than ever. I asked if they treated the fish & they said they didn't have the time.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
i recently helped a petco employee (who seemed like she cared) understand the diet and needs of a puffer. they had a really bad dogface puffer i made a thread about with pictures. i think the thread is called "dogface at petco" if your interested in seeing the pictures. i was getting my maroon clowns two weeks ago and some crickets. as she was getting me the crickets i mentioned my puffer and my accident with him. and she mentioned they never have any luck with puffers and i asked what they feed. i told her the correct foods, up to her to relay the information or take action, and mentioned that it had ich/crypt really bad. she said "thats just from being in a new tank, it seemed ok to me". mind you this puffer was getting bullied by a yellow tang and curled into a ball in front of a piece of decor
as RTR said, it is ultimately up to the person interested in the pet to learn and find correct info. but people often expect the LFS to know/give the correct information. as new keepers you trust the info pet stores give. but to me that can only go so far. when you give out false information for a sale or simply dont know but try to know is when i feel the associate/the store is responsible. i never made up information when i worked at a pet store. i asked someone i worked with if they knew. if they did they helped them, if not i ask someone else. if no one could help i would suggest looking it up or i could research when i got home if it was something i was interested in as well and they could call/come back and talk to me. i even offered printing out care sheets or whatever information the customer was looking for so they can take them home and look it over.
I am lucky as there are two LFS where I live. Neither of them are chain stores.
Today I stopped at the one closest to work to find some Prime, as I have crashed my cycle in my puffer tank while trying to increase the SG in the tank. I am doing 2 x a day water changes to combat the ammonia build up. I will be needing more Prime soon and was willing to pay more buying in town than to order it online, and I know the other LFS that I normally shop in doesn't carry Prime but AqMel (or something like that).
Anyway, when I walked into the double doored entry way the smell was overwhelming. Dogs/cats/birds/reptiles/fish/rabbits .... all rolled into one nauseating stench. I wanted Prime so I entered the second set of doors and just about puked. I saw the shelving with the fish products on it and headed directly there... not planning on spending much time in this building. The clerk working asked if she could help me with anything and I said I was looking for Prime and she said that water conditioners were on some shelving toward the back of the fish section. So I headed back in that direction. As I walked through the rows of tanks I could not help but look at the fish inside them. Oh what a site to see what should have been healthy looking fish all looking skinny and ALL fish either infested with ICH or what I think would be Velvet... or worse. Then I see a tank marked "Leopard Puffer" so I stopped to look to see what it really was. I couldn't see a single thing in the empty looking tank. About that time the owner walked up behind me and asked if she could help me. I told her i was looking for Prime and had just stopped to see a Leopard Puffer, but apparently she didn't have any in stock. She assured me there was a fish in the tank... then said "Oh, look his shell had tipped over", reached in the tank with her bare hands and lifted a large scallop type of shell and sure enough underneath it was the smallest GSP with a head 3X the size of his body. He was almost completely black with a very faint glow on top of his head. I told her he was a tiny baby and she said "yes... he is small but we have had him here for 4 months". I was shocked.
She then asked why I needed Prime... "we never use anything in our water here". I told her I had crashed my cycle and wanted the Prime to help with neutralizing the ammonia while it re-establishes itself. She asked how I knew there was a "problem" with my water and I told her that I had a positive reading when I tested my water. She said and I quote: "We never test for any of that stuff. There is nothing you can do to change the water we have here anyway. We just put the fish in and if they are strong fish they live and if they aren't they die. That is how I know that if you buy fish here they will live for a very long time."
I was shocked and as I turned to get the heck out of that store, I see across the area a huge SW set up with some gorgeous fish...... who where either at the very top of the water or sitting at the bottom of the tank on the stringy/dirty looking sand. There was a black and white striped tang, a yellow tang, and 5 clown fish from what I could see. None of them looked healthy and the water was murky with brown algae.
I may not like the way that WalMart and some other stores keep their fish in less than ideal water, or that their employees don't know much about what they are selling.... but I will gladly go to those stores over the one I was in tonight where the owner doesn't care enough to even test the water! The owner should at least know enough about what she is selling to make an effort to keep tanks clean and water healthy! and NOT tell customers that testing water is pointless because there is nothing you are going to do to make it good anyway. God help the creatures that are in this womans care!! They all deserve better homes than they have in that store, but sadly I don't think there is a human on the face of the earth that can stomach walking into that store and walk out with a pet.
Seen it time and time again around here. Most of the lfs' around from past to present has had their issues of not knowing crap about fish but still run a business selling exotic fishes. It will never change but everyonce in awhile there will pop up a better lfs that starts out with everything in the shop looking healthy and a very knowlegdable staff until time, then end up being like the rest. It's sad to see this.
Chris,
He who knows best knows how little he knows - Thomas Jefferson
Maybe I use the term incorrectly, but to me a store cannot be a LFS (short for Local Fish Store) and also be a chain. A chain store is not local, they are part of a chain.
I was just clarifying LFS... as some people use the term differently. LFS vs Chain store. As some places I have read people say the LFS as local (not in a neighboring town) regardless if it is a chain or not.
I use local as local to me. Even chains can be locally and independently owned.
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another. We consider those, when the cerebral structure/intellectual faculties most developed, as highest. A bee doubtless would when the instincts were.
Charles Darwin
My bf wanted to get my puffers as a surprise because I kept talking about them non-stop after seeing them in a pet store, and following their advice he bought me an 8G tank with 4 GSPS INSIDE, uncycled!!!!!!!! The LFS even recommended full FW for them. I was horrified, and immediately returned all of them despite the sweetness of the gesture, including the tank. He was embarrassed when I told him why I had to, and he instead got me a 15G, which I cycled with Dr. Tim's and added 1 GSP from the original batch - my little King Koopa.
The local store here treats their puffers quite poorly. A lot of the fish really but the puffers get it worst. Not only do they get packed in they mix all the species too.
