Unreal Story from Forgien LFS

[ccampbell57]

So I am in Reston, VA visiting a client and decided to "review" the quality LFS' around the DC area. In doing so, I found one that said they were the "Premier" marine store. Well, walking in there, it reminded me of many other LFS. They have great display tanks and a nice 150g SPS tank with Solaris LEDs. They had a pretty good selection of fish and corals. The tanks were a little dirtier than expected for a "premier" fish store, but whatever as long as the fish were healthy and the coral was nice.
Well as I walked through there, I noticed a lot of tangs with HLLE and other fish with missing tails and shredded fins. THey were deemed healthy and had 25% off tags on the tank. I asked the people working there why they would sell sick fish and they said that it was just an issue with stress that they would be ok. I agreed and moved on. I liked the fact that they did have QT tanks for the sick fish. One noticable fish was a goos sized powder blue tang that had ich, but was swimming and eating fine.
Well, I went back today when they got their new shipment of new fish, and noticed a HUGE bag floating in the tank with the sick ich ridden PBT. It was a beautiful Male Blonde Naso (about 6-7"). I got worried and asked the guy working there if they were going to put the Blonde Naso in with the PBT due to the ich being present and he said "yup, ich is not a contagious parasite. As long as the fish's ammune system is ok and is not stressed, the ich will not effect it and it should be healthy. Plus we lower the salinity to fight it." I said, "you hypo? what Salinity to you lower it to?"
He said ".17"...I started to laugh. I wanted to buy the naso right there and bring it home to Colorado because it will just be another story of someone buying the fish and killing it due to the ich and not treating it in their own QT at home.
Anyway, this is just another reason why you should ALWAYS QT your fish when you bring them home, even though the LFS does a "QT" procedure.

 

[t316]

Unfortunately, this is starting to become the norm in a lot of lfs around the country. Very sad.

 

[lion_crazz]

Absolutely. Never trust a LFS' quarantine procedure because there is no way a local fish store coud possibly quarantine all new inhabitants.

 

[fats71]

My LFS in saint louis has a seperate building they QT everything in. I was lucky enough to be able to go to it as I livve so ffar away and the guys at the store are awsome to me. I was told by bob fenner that their is a handful of stores across the worls that actually seperatly QT the fish and watch them prior to putting into the sale markket and my LFS is one of the best at it he said which made me feel so much better about buying there.
Planet reef in saint louis is a great store to shop at. They have sent me to saltwaterfish.com to buy my fiji and sand as thhey are cheaper than thhey can do it for so they also tell me when something is not neededd. I went in with a thousand dollars to spend and they ended up sending me home with 800 of it which to me says a lot.

 

[bun1]

Maybe we should all get out of the hobby. That'll stop those bad lfs's. Bad bad lfs's

 

[kjr_trig]

Yeah Chris, I guess that is worse than the issue I had on Wednesday with my Not-So-Local Fish Store huh? Although not by much.
They did a fairly good job of making amends BTW

 

[gbell5]

I live in Hampton Roads, Va and there are a few LFS here. I will say most of them are exactly what you are describing. Its sad to see the conditions the fish and corals go through. Fortunately there is 1 LFS that sells nothing but marine products. The owner is very knowledgeable and is very prudent when it comes to QT. I still believe in always QT my fish no matter who I get them from.
Just my 2 cents......

 

[flricordia]

It is a shame that most are like that and probably not going to get much better with rising inflation and the need to sell at the fastest time possible in order to make ends meet. Quality in everything is going to degrade while prices increase. Fortunatly there are a few LRS that are aware of the fact that theya re only going to make it by providing only the best as the majority of their cash flow is going to come by the die-hard reef-keepers that aren't going to put up with that kind of thing. There are a couple local places that I will not buy anything from just because of that fact. I don't even step foot in one place anymore. Don't care if their prices are the lowest in town, sick and ill cared for livestock won't go into my tanks.