Well 500g is excessive but they can get upwards of 2.5 feet so a lot of water is required along with greta filtration.

Heavy duty filtration, extreme filtration even.

I'm still amazed they they used to clear them for a 30g tank. Madness.

Do they sell Koi there as well? I'm curious what they say the size requirements are for them.

Yeah, we do. Most of the customers who buy them do so for a pond, but every once in a while I'll get one buying them for a tank. I've had to sell one for a 10 gallon, but otherwise, we sell them for 50 gallons plus. I tell customers, they're koi, they'll get two feet long, and when they're that long they're going to make a huge mess in their tank. I sold some to a couple customers yesterday who had a 40 gallon, but when I told them that they were koi and how long they would get, she said to her husband, "Oh cool, we could start them in the tank and then put them in the pond in the spring."

I wouldn't say treat them like koi. I've seen some old koi, may be 40+ yrs in a huge pond, like what you'd go fishing for sunfish in, that were 4ft. Also, Pacus maybe able to reach 3ft. I think thats Black Pacus that do anyway. I'd say treat them like a honking disk that can swim that produces as much waste as a koi.

They honk?

I don't think they honk 1beataway i think that might be a kind of fish.

Yea, just what we don't need. Pacu that make noise. It's bad enough the RTC does it now and again at me.

It's not something I'd ever do but one of the crazier things I've seen was a fairly massive fish pond outside a car rental place in Southern Cali. They had koi and pacu together and were getting along just fine. The guy who tended to the pond said that he had to move out some butterfly koi that the pacu would occasionally pick on, but otherwise, they got along just fine.

I meant by honking as in size. Pacus are huge. Pacus, RTC, Shovelnose, Common plecs, gibbiceps, and ID sharks need to be removed from trade, or atleat only sent to reliable stores.

I think they should be removed too. Do you know Wal-Mart sells them too? Last time I went there, they were in the same tank as the oscars, and the information tag said 10".

If fish have ick, and a person treats the tank and either cures it from the fish that remain or loses all their fish...before they get new fish, do they have to completely dump out all the water and scrub decorations, or should the ick be gone? I'm under the impression, especially if they treated the tank, that the ick isn't going to be waiting in the water and decor to get the new fish.

I have one customer who says that every single time he has a female guppy or platy who looks pregnant, the fish will be round one day and really skinny the next, like it had the babies, but then the body looks way too thin and almost pinched, and then the female dies. Any ideas?

Are veggie foods the best thing to treat swim bladder?

What is a good way to get rid of pesky little quickly-breeding snails? We put comet goldfish in our tanks, but that wouldn't work for a customer with a 10 or 20 gallon maxed out tank. I've heard that "Had-a-Snail" doesn't work well.

Siphon the snails out is the best way to rid them....Also veggies are good to help swim bladder problems...I recommend reading this article regarding ICH.

ICH ARTICLE (CLICK)

I completely disagree with fish being removed from trade. Every single one of the Pacu here all came from fairly responsible fish keepers who were *completely* misinformed about their final size. I'm not sure where the original misinformation came from, but Pacu (and a number of the other fish SBL listed too for that matter) have a problem having a large amount of bad info out there about them.

There are a number of different fish that are called Pacu in South America. Black pacu, are Colossoma macropomum, red bellied pacu are Colossoma brachypomum. I finally did some research on the one here that has yellow on the bottom instead of red and it turns out that one is Piaractus mesopotamicus the Parana river pacu.

Could it be that the original WC Colossoma brachypomum only did get out to a foot? At least 8 species of fish are called pacu in South America. Amphilophus is a complete mess thanks to breeding across the different species, so why couldn't a fish that's primarily used for food have the same problem?

At any rate, whatever the cause of the size problems, the fact remains that a very large chain fish/pet store gave out bad information for quite some time. A lot of information available online is based on that same information. Never mind that with the potential of crossing the species some of them may not grow as large as others. It would at least explain the size discrepancy with my bunch.

Boy that was a lot longer than I meant it to be. Anywho.

Snails: If you really don't like them, snails in a 20 or smaller tank can be treated by hand. squish squish squish. Maybe you could put a leaf of romaine lettuce in there and get a handful that way, but I doubt it will get them all. I would not use any chemicals. That being said, I don't mind the little snails. They're in all the tanks that don't have things that eat them in it.

Ich: I'd have them wait like a week after medication before introducing new fish. If they didn't catch it in time and it killed off all their fish, a water change or two, and maybe only wait like 2 or 3 days? Knock on wood, it's been a pretty long time since I've lost a fish to ich.

Swimbladder: I've only ever seen swimbladder in fancy goldies and parrot fish. No one I know seems to be able to agree on just what causes it. Personally I think the most common cause of swimbladder is impaction. What has sometimes worked, has been to isolate the fish and not feed it for a few days, (2 or 4 depending on the size of the fish) and then follow it up by feeding the fish peas.

Guppy/Platty thing: That's most likely dropsy. Usually a bacterial infection from cruddy water. Gourami, guppies, bettas and goldies are the most prone to if I'm remembering correctly. In my experiences with it when they hit the pine cone looking bloated stage, they're screwed.

Yeah, we squish snails at work too. It's become a game. Sometimes I'll get customers who actually want them and I'll net like 20 for them. Otherwise...we use goldfish. Downside is the goldfish start to get big enough to eat the fish! But a lot of customers -HATE- the snails. Absolutely hate. They wish evil things on us because they bought just one small plant from us and ended up with a tank overflowing in snails.

I have not heard of impaction causing it, though I think that makes sense.

Would dropsy only cause the problems in females though, or were they more vulnerable because they were pregnant? How could this customer treat it?

How many small community fish are safe to add at one time in a 75 gallon tank? 125 gallon?

Interesting, I have a tank of fancy goldies, that I pull out if there are ever any in with the feeder comets. They could care less about the snails in there with them.

Clown loaches are pretty awesome for snail removal.

So are puffers too, but they're good at removing everything in the tank with them a chunk at a time.

Snails = puffer snacks. Nom nom nom. Problem is, once the snails are gone, ya have a puffer that takes neat little semi-circles outta the fins of tankmates, and may decimate any live plants ya have.

Try puttin' a slice of zucchini on the tank floor before ya turn out the lights, then go back in a coupla hours. Remove the zucchini and the snails that have congregated on it. A few nights of this can really put a dent in a snail population. It's also a good way to collect snails for use as puffer snacks, non nom nom. If ya have enough snails, ya may not even hafta wait 'til lights off for it to work, except a lot of small ones will come outta hiding with the lights out.

Of course, ya could always squish 'em.

Guppy/platy thing: Dropsy? Hafta disagree, saint. Never seen a fish with dropsy suddenly go thin overnight. I'd wager a guess that they weren't so bloated the scales were stickin' out either, another common symptom. And the fact it's only females also rules out dropsy. It's stress due to birthing, from one of two factors or both. First, livebearer females impregnated at too early an age can die after birthing due to stress, simply because they aren't mature enough and don't have the strength and stamina to survive. Second, if they are being left in the tank with the males, the males harass them right up until they birth and start harassing them immediately after, wanting to mate again. I've even seen a male platy tryin' to mate while the female was giving birth. This can cause enough stress to kill the female, because she was in poor condition due to lack of rest and poor nutrition to begin with, she has just been through the stress of giving birth, and she hasn't had any recovery time. And it can kill quickly.

You don't have enough information on the set up your customer has to really diagnose the cause. Age is hard to figure with fish, 'cuz generally speaking there is no way to know how old a fish was when ya got it, especially with small fish that mature rapidly and reach adult age in a relatively short period of time, so determining if the female was mated too early is out of the question. I'd guess this to be the least likely of the two, especially if it keeps happening over and over. Once in a while maybe, but not again and again. Next time ask the customer what the ratio of males:females is (should be 1:3 or 4) and if he is isolating the female for a coupla days prior to birthing, when she is ready to birth and for a coupla days after until she has time to regain strength to fend off amorous males, who will keep her from eating or resting. If the tank is heavily stocked and there are no males, it could be that the female is missing out on food due to more active fish getting there first and the active fish are keeping her from getting enough rest.

Swimbladder: Impaction, as saint said, or a bacterial infection. Another treatment that has worked for me is feeding medicated foods. I'm guessin' the antibiotics get where they need to go faster when absorbed by the digestive tract.

Finally, I'd say 10-12 small fish (2" or less) to a cycled 75 and 15-20 to a 125. I started with 9 glowlights in my 55 planted tank, and they're all goin' strong.

WYite

The other thing I've tried to get rid of snails is take a clean 20oz plastic soda bottle and fill it with tank water so it sinks then drop a couple of algae wafers in there. Then you just pull the bottle out when the snails come. It may take a few times to get them all.

I've tried the veggie way of removing them but every time I would pick up the veggies the snails would drop off. The soda bottle prevents that from happening.