The Puffer Forum

That freakin store was lying to me about having dwarf puffers because the girl must have been on drugs, she said they had them but they only had GSPs and figure 8s. So we went to another store and I bought SAPS

Same story over and over again. Most LFSs knows nothing about puffers.

But I've finally managed to find one where they know a lot
But it took half a year of looking around before I found it (and it's of course a shop specialized on fish). Actually I've found two more that knows some (and one of them only sell fish and things related to aquariums), but when you think of how many shops I've been in...

The two local shops knows absolutely nothing. One of them isn't selling puffers (probably because I've told them much about puffers, and then they don't want to sell them after that ), and the other one sadly enough now has GSPs, and sell them as freshwater puffers. And they don't want to get any corrections about that either! It's not the first time they treat the fish wrongly, and all the wrong information they give to people! The manager managed to tell me that all fish is bred in a PH above 7, so all fish should be kept in those conditions! I've stopped spending money in that shop! What's really, really sad, is that the owners now will start a new shop as big as the biggest pet shop in Norway. I hate the thought about all the fish that will get bad treatment, that will be sold with wrong information and all the other absolutely wrong information that will be given to people new in the hobby.

Even the nice store I stopped at yesterday, although the tanks looked pretty good, he had a nice selection and didn't see dead fish everywhere (plus, found a place to get crayfish for Chief!) was totally blind sided by puffers. He had 2 large GSP in there, in FW, and when he showed them to me (as we of course were having a discussion on puffs) I commented to him that they need brackish to full marine as they get older, at that size were probably ready for marine, and he was surprised.....had never heard that. I then informed him that with the black belly on each that was most likely an indicator of stress. I am hoping he learns a little more about puffers as he was excited to inform me that he can get me any puffer I want if it is sold in the trade. If people aren't puffer lovers, they don't try to know.....they just run with whatever the supplier tells them.
Same with most species....if they aren't loach lovers ( another fish I love ), they just don't know not to sell clown loaches to people with 10 gal tanks, or that the skunks (which I am seeing more frequently around here ) can be pretty boisterous and wreak havoc on a peaceful community.

kimmers318 wrote:.....they just run with whatever the supplier tells them..

Yes they do. And the suppliers doesn't know either. The LFS that doesn't sell puffers, they showed me the list of fishes they got from the supplier. Guess what? GSPs are sold as FW fishes from the suppliers (it actually said FW specifically). It was at this point I told him a bit about puffers, and that GSPs need BW and up to marine as they grow up. He had planned to order GSPs, but skipped it after I told him this He is a nice guy, and listens to what I have to say, which is quite opposite of the other LFS (which actually tried to sell newts as cichlids! BTW newts are illegal to keep and sell in Norway).

Same with most species....if they aren't loach lovers ( another fish I love ), they just don't know not to sell clown loaches to people with 10 gal tanks, or that the skunks (which I am seeing more frequently around here ) can be pretty boisterous and wreak havoc on a peaceful community.

Isn't this very common? I haven't seen one single LSF without common plecos and gibbiceps - and few people actually have the room for one. Believe it, or not. When I bought my first pleco, I put him in a 3-4 G tank (many, many years ago, and I am still ashamed about it). Or selling goldfishes to put in small bowls. Goldfishes grow huge!
And, as you say, selling mean fishes to put into a community. When I think of it, many, many of the fishes sold in a normal LFS in Norway isn't suitable for the common tank/bowl keeper: fishes that needs plenty of space or fishes that grows pretty mean. As I for 10 years got all my information about keeping fish from the LFSs, I've gone through almost every possible mistake there is to do. Buying plecos for small tank, keeping tiger barbs in the 16 G community tank (ouch!), keeping angelfish in the same 16 G community tank (ouch! ouch!), and so on. I think the only mean fish I haven't had, is Chinese algae eater (which they sell a lot of in the two LFSs here). And every time I think I've heard it all from them, they surprise me with another totally stupid thing. Someone told me recently that they were told by the LFS that all fish was in fact brackish That's why you needed to put salt in the water...
Sometimes I find it hard not to intervene when I hear the shop selling fish on the wrong conditions. Or giving wrong information. It's especially hard to listen/watch when it is fish that I love very much, like puffers, suckermouth catfishes or corydoras. The first puffer I bought, I bought in that awful LFS that has puffers again. It was in a tank with neon tetras, Siamese algae eaters and a Siamese fighting fish. It already had killed a Siamese algae eater bigger than her (that puffer is Bolla in my signature ). I had not planned to buy a puffer, as I had read about them, and found out that it would be too much work, and that I probably would manage to kill it pretty soon. Well, I couldn't let her stay in that shop, so I just had to take her home. And to my surprise, I still haven't killed her

BTW, the owner of that new good shop I've found said to me: "I hope you have discovered that there's no goldfish and no fish bowls in this shop " He doesn't want to sell it!

Oops! I got a bit carried away here. Sometimes I just have to let the steam out when it comes to the LFSs. After finding out that almost every advice I got from pet shops during the first 10 years with fishes in my house was wrong, I've been a bit angry with them. I wonder how many fishes has died under my care, because of them! If they don't know, and are honest about it, it's no problem. Then you know you must find information elsewhere. But if the insist they are right, it's worse. I wonder how many people has given up on this hobby because of bad advices given from the shops.

Oops! I was about to get carried away again

Oh it is certainly ok to vent......esp. here about LFS! The place I got my "red eyes" are pretty good, but no one is great. After much comparison of pics to the puffers I picked out the 3 I wanted. I asked the worker to please bag them separately, and that I would need to be up on the step stool to point out the ones I wanted. Oh, by the way, you DO realize that you shouldn't take puffers out of the water correct? If you take it out, and it puffs, it will be going back into your tank and I won't take it. He very nicely asked if I would like to net my own which I was thrilled to do. Shortly after another lady came by and began berating the girl who was assigned to watch and assist me, she explained that she was told by so and so etc. and I gently explained to her that I was being allowed to net my own because they shouldn't be taken out of the water, and I had 3 specific that I wanted. She snipped at me that "we have been doing this for 26 years and know what we are doing!" It took every ounce of patience I had to not snip right back.....well obviously not if you don't know jack about puffers.....I am sure the other 20 or so "red belly puffers" as they labeled them won't last long with each other in that little tank, esp. since there were several very large, probably full grown males with the itty bitties.
It happens, there is nothing we can do except try to educate others, which they usually don't appreciate, and learn as much as we can for our own benefit.

kimmers318 wrote: She snipped at me that "we have been doing this for 26 years and know what we are doing!"

That sounds exactly like the manager of "my" LFS
"We've always had those puffers in freshwater, even the big specimens. They are freshwater fishes!" End of that discussion. I was very tempted to snap back to her: "How the **** can you know that, when you don't even know that fishes needs different kinds of PH either?" I was so angry after that, that I didn't want to start the discussion on the illegal newts they had... And I was so close to reporting the illegal newts to the authorities after that! And I haven't been there since, not even to pick snails for my puffers!

At the place I got my SAPs, in the tank beside them in freshwater it looked like a fugu and I thought that maybe it was some type of freshwater puffer that I didn't know about. But just to see I looked in the marine section of the pufferpedia and saw a fugu pufferfish that looked alot like the one at the store, but I am not 100% sure that it is the one in the pufferpedia.