In my overly caffeinated pacu rant, I totally missed the only the females part of the initial problem. If it is only the females that it's happening too, then I'm going to agree with Wyite on it being birthing stress.

I did not know clown loaches would. We use the comet goldfish. It seems to me though that they need to be at least 3-4 inches long before they show interest.

I didn't realize puffers were so aggressive. We don't sell them.

I enjoyed the sound effects, Wyite. Nom nom nom.

I think birthing stress makes sense. If I remember correctly, he does not separate the females. Those poor females. The males just assume the females will be all ready as soon as they pop out the babies. Males are so selfish.

Thanks for the numbers Wyite. That's about what I usually sell for those size tanks. I assume adding larger fish would decrease how many you can add.

And I love the pop bottle idea.

NEW QUESTIONS

There are some fish that we drip acclimate when we receive them in the store: pictus catfish, silver-tip sharks, bala sharks, angelfish, rasboras, and neon tetras. I was told they are more sensitive when being added to a tank, and to tell customers that in order to have a gradual change they should put a small pin hole in the bag and let it float 30-45 minutes. I sometimes mention that they can slowly add small amounts of their tank water into the fish's water. Is this good to suggest?

I told a customer that certain fish will snack on live plants, such as the mollies. My coworker states that, "Actually, all of them will, but some won't do it enough to worry about." Who's right?

Incandescent or fluoroscent light bulbs? Why?


On a personal note...I'm an idiot and now one of my bettas in a bowl died. I had been treating her for weeks...I'm not sure what she had, but she looked so skinny and horrible, and her eyes were white and her fins were clamped. I had gotten her to looking normal and her fins were not as clamped, she just still looked skinny. When she was all better, I was going to move her into the 10 gallon.

On Saturday afternoon I turned off the heat because it was warmer, and I completely forgot about it and spent the weekend with a family member. It snowed last night. I came home today, and it was below 60 in my apartment. Fortunately, all my other fish and my snake and frogs are ok. But she was dead.

That was the biggest issue with me, allowing our water into the tank, because I had always heard not to do that. I know we use air tubing to drip acclimate the fish we get in, but we do end up using the water they came in. I will now suggest otherwise! But is it definitely a good idea to do something extra for those fish I mentioned?

I'm so glad my coworker was wrong! BTW, my Anubias (spelling?) looks fantastic in my tank. It grows fast.

That is really good info on bulbs. Thanks!

What an interesting thread....lots of good questions and answers!

The drip acclimation is definitely a good idea for those fish....actually it would help ALL the fish. It is a process I picked up when I worked in a saltwater-only LFS, and I have used it on my own fish ever since.

It's been awhile! I hate having a broken laptop.

I've been putting the info I've received here to good use. Just in the past week, I've had two customers tell me, "I've had tanks before, and no one has ever given me this information before. They just give me the fish when I buy the tank." They thanked me and they, along with a few other customers, said to me, "I'll make sure to look for you when it's time to buy my fish."

That being said, I'm awaiting an answer from my manager as to whether I'm getting a promotion. She's suppose to talk to the store manager today, but she was also suppose to talk to him last Thursday. I won't be in management, but I would be right under, and get to boss my coworkers in my department. So wish me luck.

And one of my customers loved the idea about the pop bottle to catch snails.

So...more questions. On our bottles of Ph Up and Ph Down, it states that even a 0.2 difference in Ph can stress fish out. If our tanks are at 7.2 or 7.4, and a customer's 55 gallon is 7.8, that's not going to kill them, right? What is the best way for customers to handle Ph difference if they keep their tanks at the high normal or the low normal because certain fish do better at different Ph levels? Is drip acclimating going to work, or should they really not worry if their Ph is less than 1.0 different than ours?

A customer came to me yesterday and I wasn't sure what to tell her about her fish. My manager told her it sounded bacterial and fungal, and the customer ended up an all-in-one tablet (how well do these works, btw? Obviously it would be best to buy a medicine specifically for a disease, but could a tablet that treats parasites, fungus, and bacteria really be a good deal?). According to the customer, the fish had popeye, a red spot on the side and stomach, fins were clamped, and there was something wrong with the gills near the fins.

Is fungus contagious? I have been given conflicting answers. Another customer told me that her fish died and a "black worm" came out of its mouth and "made its stomach blow up." Any idea?

Lots of customers lately have been asking tons of questions about the blood parrot fish. How aggressive are they? It seems most ask about mixing them with goldfish, but I think the shape and color are confusing customers.

It depends on the type, but for the most part Parrots aren't bad for cichlids. Unless they're breeding, I find them to be on par with Severums as far as aggression goes. That being said I would not not not (did I mention not?) put them in with goldfish. They'd pick 'em to bits.

I'm not sure how specific your store gets with them, but when the fish farm brought them in now and again, there were plain parrots, and they had ones called king kong parrots. If you couldn't guess by the name the king kong ones got significantly larger than the regular variety, and am assuming would be meaner just based on the combination of fish to get them that large. Regulars are supposed to be more Convict based and the king kong's Midas based.

As for the black worm, there are many parasites that fish can get, and it's quite possible that it had one. Most of the worms I've seen in fish are usually from ones kept outside.

Fungus is usually a secondary infection from some other cause. Healthy fish normally wouldn't be bothered by it, but if there's one fish bad off in a tank that it's fungusy odds are good the other fish in with it aren't doing all that well either.

As for the meds, really just depends on what's in it. I'm sure there are tabs that have a decent mix of meds for fungus, bacterial and parasites but it's definitely better to try and get meds specific for the problem.

I had a very bad experiece with using chemicals with messing with the ph one time, so I tend not to use them for the most part. While I'm sure Wyite could name a half dozen fish that a .2 shift in ph will cause trouble for (Discus maybe?) I honestly don't know any. I'm assuming you guys are using the same local water as most of the customers that shop at the store, so unless someone has a water softener I'd think they'd be ok.

Good luck on the promotion.

Yeah, I always tell them they can't be mixed. I think people just assume they are goldfish because they of the color and shape. In the store I work at, they're at least 20 tanks away. It's weird. We sell Blood Parrot Cichlids and Blood Red Parrot Cichlids. We usually get the blood reds in at about double the size.

It's strange I've had so many disease questions lately. So with fungus, they could isolate just the sick ones in an isolation tank, and chances are the others will be fine?

The Ph thing was mostly because of an issue with a coworker. A customer with a 55 gallon lost 3 guppies, 2 females and 1 male. As I was talking to the customer, I found out my coworker had tested her water, told her the Ph definitely killed her guppies, sold her a Ph neutralizer...When we test water, we write the numbers down, so I looked, and her Ph was 7.8. I retested, and I thought it was more 7.6. In the store, ours is always 7.2 or 7.4. The customer said that for one of the guppies, it looked like the tail and back half was kind of chewed off. I told her it could be other fish, but with the fish she had and the size of tank, I didn't think it likely. Actually, I noticed that we had a few female guppies from our last shipment that looked kind of what she described, and I told her it doesn't happen very often, but sometimes we do get a bag in with a few sick. It's possible she got some guppies from the same bag and it was something that wasn't noticeable when she got them but it got worse. But I also told her I could be wrong about that, and that I really didn't feel the Ph did it. She asked me if I were her, if I would have bought the Ph neutralizer, and I told her no, so she returned it. She's going to give her tank a week or two to see if any others turn out sick before she puts more fish in, and she stated she was glad she ran into me before leaving.
The coworker didn't take it very well when I said that a 7.8 Ph wasn't a big enough difference to cause big problems. But my manager was there when I talked to the customer and told me to relay the information to her so she wouldn't say the same thing to other customers.

And thanks.

Oh also...my manager told me when we use our testing strips, to use the one that measures nitrates, nitrites, ph, hardness, alkalinity, and chlorine before using the ammonia test strip, because the ammonia one releases chemicals and it could cause the other strip to be inaccurate. True?

I'd check the directions that came with the strips. The only test strips I have are pool ones and I only use them for checking chlorine.

My test kit for other more specific things is all test tubes and droppers.

I dont think it releases anything...if it did wouldn't it be harmful to the fish. Not to mention it would be in such small amounts I am sure the ammonia test strips would not manipulate the others.