The Puffer Forum

I had to go out today to get some bloodworm, and along the way we stopped at an upscale garden centre that also has an aquatic section. I've bought fish from there before, in fact, that's where I got my very first dwarf puffer from -- even though the man that got it out of the tank tried to tell me that they were a brackish fish! (I knew better because I had researched them first).

Well, anyway, I mainly just wanted to see what fish they had in because it had been a couple of months or more since I was last there. In the tropical section they had some very sorry looking Figure 8 puffers. Those poor things didn't resemble mine at all. I've got nice fat ones with beautiful colours. The ones they had were long and thin, not round and fat, and they had bites all over their bodies, and the fins were very tattered. I felt so badly and immediately I thought to myself, "I wish I could buy them all and give them a really good home", but I can't really rescue any more puffers, as I don't have the extra space.

Then we went over to the marine section and that broke my heart even more. They had a Porcupine puffer that definitely wasn't feeling well, you knew it just by looking at him. He wasn't doing much, but basically laying on the substrate. His belly sunken in. It really tore at my heart strings! They also had the cutest little green dogface puffer, and I'm sorry to say that he didn't look the best of health either. I thought it was best that we leave, and so as we were going we just lingered in front of their display tank where they've got a very large dogface puffer. Now I honestly don't know much about the requirements for marine fish, but the tank doesn't look big enough for a puffer his size. There were other fish that seemed to be in confined quarters too, and they were just swimming back and forth, as if to say, "this is too small, I need to get out of here!" Really makes one feel badly.

So we got to the store with the bloodworm, I get it there because it's so many packs for a certain price, which isn't too bad, and with as many puffers as I have, we go through some bloodworm. As the guy was getting the bloodworm for me, I took a walk around the shop to see what fish they had. I have saved many a GSP from that very shop, and so it didn't surprise me when I came to a tank with one very lonely and very unhappy GSP in it. The shop was about to close and so the one employee was going around putting flake food into all the tanks, most of the fish were happy to have the meal ..... but he put flake food in with the puffer and the puffer just sort of looked at it. And I knew why it's belly was so sunken. That puffer won't eat tonight because most of the flake was falling to the substrate, and while I know that puffers will eat off the substrate, flake just isn't something that's suited for them. The part that really makes me angry is that the owner of the shop will quickly put other shops down, as if he's immune to treating his fish badly while they are there. This is the same shop that told me a while back that they had no intentions of keeping brackish water fish in brackish water because it was too much trouble to go to. And they do have a marine section, so it's not like that don't deal with marine fish and adding salt, etc.

I shake my head as I sit here and wonder how these places can condone the way they treat these fish that they are making money off of. Heck, I don't make any money off my fish, in fact, I'm sure I'm losing quite a bit of money with all the tanks I have (making the electric company rich though!), but I still put the care of my puffers first! They did not choose to be imprisoned, so I feel it's up to me to give them the best care I possibly can.

I know this is nothing new that I've written about, and I'm sure many other people have said the very same thing. It's just that I think maybe if people get it drilled into them, then maybe, eventually, things will change. I know that's a long shot, but it's worth a try.

I just know that after seeing those puffers today in those conditions .... it makes me want to do the best for mine all the more. If nothing else, I take satisfaction in knowing that I am trying to make some fish very happy and I hope that many more people will too!

How come you didn't speak up? It may not do any good but at least you'll feel better than if you did nothing & maybe someone someday will listen.

I know, you're right ... the first place was so busy, it would have been hard just to find someone to speak to and they are all just employees that don't give a hoot.
The second store we actually did talk to them about giving the poor puffer flake food and the owner said, "well it's not optimum but they will eat it", and of course I added that I'd never feed mine flake food. I've tried to get my point across to them about puffers before and honestly I think they just think I'm an obsessed American and don't give me much credence. I actually stopped buying from there, but it got to the point today where I needed bloodworm and couldn't get it anywhere else for a better price .... hence we ended up there again. They aren't bad people, but I do not agree with how they keep puffers, but I've been down that road with them before.

First of all, let me say I'm not making excuses, because there are no good ones.

Problem is, in situations like these, people get burned out and stop caring. The amount of work to be done in a pet shop or LFS is overwhelming - it seems like we never get done all the things we need to get done at the one I manage - and while the employee or owner may start out with a lot of love for pets and the best of intentions, the day after day grind starts to wear on people and they start cutting corners and stop caring as much as they should. Also, it doesn't help that LFS/pet store workers only see these animals for at most a few weeks, so they do what's needed to keep the animal alive long enough for it to get sold and become someone else's concern, and as animal care is expensive whether in or out of the pet store, this care tends to slide down toward the minimum over time.

Going along with being burned out is the fact that a lot of LFS/pet store employees rely on outdated information that the owners or managers have passed on to them. When they first started out, they did at least some research, but somewhere along the line stopped keeping up on the latest findings - and as we know, scientists and animal owners/breeders keep finding out things all the time that reverse what was considered the bible truth previously. For example, and I'm ashamed to say it, my bosses are still of the opinion that doing massive water changes will precipitate a cycle because most of the BB is in the water. (I keep wanting to ask them why, then, do we sell live rock, and not live water?) However they're both way, way better than a lot of LFS/pet store owners that I read and hear about, because they do indeed know a lot of stuff, having been in the trade for many years and being personally into reef, fish, large birds, and dogs. But over the years I think they've stopped reading and aren't really keeping up with the latest info as much as they should...which has a good side, in that they know that I *do*, so they're giving me pretty much free rein with what I do at the store and what I tell people.

Education of employees is a problem, too: most LFS/pet store owners do only the minimum in terms of educating their employees, if they do any at all. The employee is generally left to him- or herself to gain knowledge about the animals they carry, and as is quite understandable, the ones that the particular employee is into are the ones that get studied. I'm guilty of this myself: I love puffers (duh!), other fish, birds, cats, and small animals like guinea pigs and bunnies, so I'm the go-to person for these things at our store. I am not into dogs or herps that much and never have been, so if you want anything more than surface level advice on dogs or herps, you have to talk to my boss. Also, the overwhelming majority of this self-education takes place on the employee's own time, so it really takes dedication that few people have. For me, I find it to be one of the great pleasures in life to come home, sit at my computer, get some music going, have a beer or glass of red wine, and study up on critters, but I'm an exception I guess.

I don't know how it is in the U.K and elsewhere, but around here another big problem is that most LFS/pet store employees are high school kids making minimum wage. Half of them weren't so much wanting to work in a pet store as just have a job, so you know the caring and passion is going to be absent - especially when you're not getting paid much.

Sadly, another prime reason for what schismy007 describes is the widespread belief in western culture that animals are second rate creatures, who exist only for humanity's use and benefit. Pets are product, meant to be moved out the door and profited off of, and not as living beings, each with a unique personality, a right to a good life, and deserving of nothing but the best treatment.

Well, again, I'm not making excuses by any means, just hopefully touching on some of the reasons why we all see things like schismy007 wrote above. Sometimes if you know why people are acting a certain way, you can use that knowledge to your advantage as you're talking to them and encouraging them to care more about the living beings that are depending on them.

Sadly I went to a fish store too and the owner said they are in brackish water.

I can understand where you're coming from Mark, but I have more respect for stores that have several different kinds of pets (dogs, cats, fish, rodents, reptiles, etc.), both of the shops I was speaking about are fish exclusively, so you'd think they'd have their stuff a little bit more together!

Pufferpunk wrote:How come you didn't speak up? It may not do any good but at least you'll feel better than if you did nothing & maybe someone someday will listen.

"All this is needed for evil to prevail is for one good person to do nothing."

C'mon, Schismy. I somehow got the courage up to go and speak to a professor who I did not know about the condition of the animals in the Bio lab, even though I know that if I decide to study science I will have to deal with him in the future, in class and possibly independent study. You don't ever have to talk to these people again. What do you have to lose? Here I am, a nineteen-year-old girl, and I somehow did it, and even got permission to start renovating. You're a grown woman, and you're their customer. If little old me can get people to listen, then so can you!

schismy007 wrote:I know, you're right ... the first place was so busy, it would have been hard just to find someone to speak to and they are all just employees that don't give a hoot.
The second store we actually did talk to them about giving the poor puffer flake food and the owner said, "well it's not optimum but they will eat it", and of course I added that I'd never feed mine flake food. I've tried to get my point across to them about puffers before and honestly I think they just think I'm an obsessed American and don't give me much credence. I actually stopped buying from there, but it got to the point today where I needed bloodworm and couldn't get it anywhere else for a better price .... hence we ended up there again. They aren't bad people, but I do not agree with how they keep puffers, but I've been down that road with them before.

I don't see what more I could do -- as I said, the first store was packed wall to wall with people. This is the sort of place where buses drop off loads of people to let them mill around for hours, so I don't think I would have gotten very far talking to anyone there.

The 2nd shop, as I stated in my quote above, I did speak to, in the best way I could. There isn't anything more I could do. I am not going to alienate myself from the shop by getting into a nasty confrontation with them. I've spoke to them in the past on how they house puffers and it hasn't changed, nor will it ever change how they will keep puffers. I spoke to the owner yesterday about feeding flake food to the puffers, and as I stated, he said it wasn't optimum but that they will eat it. What more should I have done? There aren't lots of places to go to here in England like there are in America. I need bloodworm, and this shop sells it at a good price. Should I have gotten irate, and then burned my bridge for bloodworm when my puffers need it? I tried, as nicely and as firmly, as I possibly could to get my point across. I don't see what more I could have done. It wasn't a matter of being afraid, as much as it was me knowing I tried to get my point across and knowing that I'm going to need to buy bloodworm or other items from this shop at some point in the future. Burning ones bridges is not a smart thing.

Schismy, you did your best. Sometimes people are just stubborn. And Mark I also see your point.

I always ask to speak to the owner/manager about this stuff. I got laughed out of one place. Even after I told them I wrote the article in TFH about GSPs, they still said I was wrong.

Pufferpunk wrote:I always ask to speak to the owner/manager about this stuff. I got laughed out of one place. Even after I told them I wrote the article in TFH about GSPs, they still said I was wrong.

That's because those guys see us as fanatics, as nut jobs that darn near belong in some mental care unit, and as a pain in the you-know-what. They don't give a crap about anything but their paycheck, and they're not going to take any of our suggestions because that would require them to actually engage themselves in what they're doing, and, God forbid, have to work a little harder.

It happens in so many areas of life: people who care, having to deal with people who don't care. People who actually know, versus people who only *think* they know and have too big of an ego to allow themselves to be a student for once. Very frustrating and depressing.

Yup.

marksrush wrote:

Pufferpunk wrote:I always ask to speak to the owner/manager about this stuff. I got laughed out of one place. Even after I told them I wrote the article in TFH about GSPs, they still said I was wrong.

That's because those guys see us as fanatics, as nut jobs that darn near belong in some mental care unit, and as a pain in the you-know-what. They don't give a crap about anything but their paycheck, and they're not going to take any of our suggestions because that would require them to actually engage themselves in what they're doing, and, God forbid, have to work a little harder.

It happens in so many areas of life: people who care, having to deal with people who don't care. People who actually know, versus people who only *think* they know and have too big of an ego to allow themselves to be a student for once. Very frustrating and depressing.

You know, you are dead on in your last paragraph. Scary, I run in to this in Nursing all the time.