Ugh...LFS! really?!

[jdpiii3]

Greetings fish lovers.

So this afternoon I had some time to kill so I figured I'd go visit one of the live fish stores in the area, I've heard through other hobbyist friends in the area that this particular store receives a very large shipment every Friday.

So I'm at the store and sure enough boxes and boxes of aquatic life and bags and bags and bags floating in the holding tanks. I think to myself this can't be the acclamation process... Can it?

Well sure enough, I'm in the store for about 20 minutes wandering around and too much of my surprise they just start cutting open bags and pouring them in the holding tanks!

I've been in the hobby for a long time I've never seen this practice. This can't be how it's done? I know the store I normally buy at has a strict quarantine process for all aquatic life and will not sell anything that he doesn't feel is ready for consumer purchase. I've actually watched him take fish out of the for sale tanks and put them right back in quarantine if he didn't like the way it looked.

So what are your thoughts am I being too critical? I've always thought drip acclamation to match salinity, pH, temperature and never ever pour them in.

Sound off.

 

[dstockwell]

Sounds just like the only one in our town

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Greetings fish lovers.

So this afternoon I had some time to kill so I figured I'd go visit one of the live fish stores in the area, I've heard through other hobbyist friends in the area that this particular store receives a very large shipment every Friday.

So I'm at the store and sure enough boxes and boxes of aquatic life and bags and bags and bags floating in the holding tanks. I think to myself this can't be the acclamation process... Can it?

Well sure enough, I'm in the store for about 20 minutes wandering around and too much of my surprise they just start cutting open bags and pouring them in the holding tanks!

I've been in the hobby for a long time I've never seen this practice. This can't be how it's done? I know the store I normally buy at has a strict quarantine process for all aquatic life and will not sell anything that he doesn't feel is ready for consumer purchase. I've actually watched him take fish out of the for sale tanks and put them right back in quarantine if he didn't like the way it looked.

So what are your thoughts am I being too critical? I've always thought drip acclamation to match salinity, pH, temperature and never ever pour them in.

Sound off.

Depends on how the fish were shipped. For me, especially with fish that have been in shipping for a while, I would prefer this, as it helps prevent ammonia burns. I'm assuming this store does not pre-QT fish. All the stores in my area do not, but will medicate their holding systems if they see signs of disease. A few run copper prophylactically all the time, and do prazi once weekly.

 

[jabberwock]

I was surprised at how fast fish move out of my LFSs. Sounds like standard practice to me. They are in the business of moving fish, not hanging on to them through quarantine.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Greetings fish lovers.

So this afternoon I had some time to kill so I figured I'd go visit one of the live fish stores in the area, I've heard through other hobbyist friends in the area that this particular store receives a very large shipment every Friday.

So I'm at the store and sure enough boxes and boxes of aquatic life and bags and bags and bags floating in the holding tanks. I think to myself this can't be the acclamation process... Can it?

Well sure enough, I'm in the store for about 20 minutes wandering around and too much of my surprise they just start cutting open bags and pouring them in the holding tanks!

I've been in the hobby for a long time I've never seen this practice. This can't be how it's done? I know the store I normally buy at has a strict quarantine process for all aquatic life and will not sell anything that he doesn't feel is ready for consumer purchase. I've actually watched him take fish out of the for sale tanks and put them right back in quarantine if he didn't like the way it looked.

So what are your thoughts am I being too critical? I've always thought drip acclamation to match salinity, pH, temperature and never ever pour them in.

Sound off.

I'm sorry to tell you, but this is the norm as I know it. Most LFS are in the business of quantity, over quality of fish. That's a spectrum. If they keep their water at 1.019, you know why and it's not too save on salt.

Some just reach in with a hand and scoop the fish out and into the acrylic cube or tank, others just cut the bag and dump.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Depends on how the fish were shipped. For me, especially with fish that have been in shipping for a while, I would prefer this, as it helps prevent ammonia burns. I'm assuming this store does not pre-QT fish. All the stores in my area do not, but will medicate their holding systems if they see signs of disease. A few run copper prophylactically all the time, and do prazi once weekly.

I hope they don't do Prazi weekly. It will become completely ineffective.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I hope they don't do Prazi weekly. It will become completely ineffective.

Yeah, something I've talked about with them before. But when fish from some suppliers seem to regularly come in with flukes, what else do you do? I chatted with the owner for a bit about it, who said freshwater baths didn't seem to cut it for some of the flukes, especially Neobenedenia spp., and they were losing a large percentage of fish, especially tangs, angels, butterflies, and wrasses. Now they lose almost none. Basically they treat their fish only systems with prazi every time they get a new shipment.

 

[Mr Fishface]

When we only had one in town, this was their practice too. My issue with them was the amount of sick and dead fish in the tanks all the time they never did anything about. Now, however, I'm happy that we have two more small lfs that do a great job and have a strong passion for fish. Safe to say I have never set foot in the first store since any other shop opened up.

 

[bushdoc]

There are 4 LFS in my area. None quarantines or treats fish with medication. Two out of 4 have their holding tanks interconnected, so if one fish gets infected, most of them do soon. One store sells coral only and another have few holding tanks with different filtration system. Their fish are bit expensive, so they hang out there for a bit and if I need new fish, I get it from that store as I know they were there for few weeks, usually. That’s why I quarantine and treat all new fish as the risk is too high.

 

[Cthulukelele]

Drip acclimation in a setting like that especially if theyre long shipments and the lfs runs low salinity is often not the correct call. It's entirely possible your lfs is bad, but what you witnessed is absolutely not a definitive reason to believe that.

 

[Tamberav]

Greetings fish lovers.

So this afternoon I had some time to kill so I figured I'd go visit one of the live fish stores in the area, I've heard through other hobbyist friends in the area that this particular store receives a very large shipment every Friday.

So I'm at the store and sure enough boxes and boxes of aquatic life and bags and bags and bags floating in the holding tanks. I think to myself this can't be the acclamation process... Can it?

Well sure enough, I'm in the store for about 20 minutes wandering around and too much of my surprise they just start cutting open bags and pouring them in the holding tanks!

I've been in the hobby for a long time I've never seen this practice. This can't be how it's done? I know the store I normally buy at has a strict quarantine process for all aquatic life and will not sell anything that he doesn't feel is ready for consumer purchase. I've actually watched him take fish out of the for sale tanks and put them right back in quarantine if he didn't like the way it looked.

So what are your thoughts am I being too critical? I've always thought drip acclamation to match salinity, pH, temperature and never ever pour them in.

Sound off.

That is what the LFS does here too. Most places I have seen do this.

Also I then dump them in my QT tank, I never drip anything.

Personally I feel dripping does more damage the good unless the salinity is a fair amount off. They are just sitting in a tiny bag stressed and unhappy with potential ammonia. Not a happy place to be.

The LFS just had all those fish shipped, do you want them sitting in bags of ammonia? I don’t. You open the bag or start dripping and pH rises which makes any ammonia in the bag more toxic..

Screw dripping. Get the fish in water that is matched in 30 min.

These guys did discuss it a bit. Starts at 31 min.



Tbh if you been in the hobby a long time.. I am surprised that you are surprised by this… there many people on this forum who don’t drip, it’s fairly common not to. It is a topic that is discussed over and over.

 

[Cthulukelele]

People also talk about qt systems for new shipments all the time. I agree that there should be premium pre-quarantined options available. Oftentimes even retailers who aren't selling sick looking fish and are moving them back to qt tanks that are still plumbed into the main system and are mostly selling an image rather than a truly disease free/healthy option.

Very very very very few of the regularly available options for fish even from lfs have dedicated and truly effective qt protocols and even LESS competently prophylactically medicated fish qts--a fraction of a percent of sellers would be my guess. Beyond that, you're buying a security blanket--someone selling the illusion of safety. The truth is we don't WANT massive wholesalers bulk prophylactically treating with every possible medication combination. That'd lead to an exponential growth in their use and thus medication-resistant disease.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

The LFS I go to gets theres from a single supplier and they go straight into the displays.

The suppliers salinity evidently must match the 35ppt the store keeps them at. That may be what mlst stores do, match what is expected of incoming stock.

 

[RoseQuatics]

I used to have a juvenile Achilles tang that grew to be 6 inches. When I first added him to my tank I just temperature acclimated him and dropped him in. I think drip acclimating causes a lot of unnecessary stress as opposed to just getting them in the system. The biggest shock to a fish would be salinity change. If the salinity is the same then temperature acclimation will be fine. I say used to because he outgrew my 120 so I re-home him to a buddy with a 300. He did great while he was with me.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Local fish stores, in my are do the same thing, in fact I can purchase them in the bag for almost half price before they go into the local fish stores sale tanks. My local fish store will also order chromis for me and keep them in the bag, because they don't like to have chromis in their system.

This is very common practice with 100's of fish at a time, they also lose fish often, not that this is or isn't related to that method of acclimation.

Corals are treated the same way when recieved, usually floated in tank water and released when time is available. I've brought my local fish store coral in a bag and with almost no hesitation they chuck it in the tank.

This doesn't mean us hobbiest need to do things like the lfs, we go above and beyond all the time with the animals we purchase from these places, which is good.

 

[a.t.t.r]

If they qt the fish then you can expect to pay extra.
we always used to do exactly what this store did. Our fish only systems had trace copper and uv and lots of o2. We had very little loss and our customers had very little loss as well.
Ofcourse we bought from local wholesalers so the bulk of initial shipping loss happened on their side. If the fish spends more then a couple hours in a bag temp only acclimation is the way to go (or dump into a holding tank with same salt level and adjust from there). Never acclimate in the bag

 

[Jared Bryant]

I float them and then dump in the qt.

 

[ScubaFish802]

Floating and then dropping in is also what Biota recommends for acclimation as well.. ever since following their guide I have done this with all my fish, float for temp then drop directly into QT tank. In my opinion for some fish it can be a much faster less traumatic experience - https://shop.thebiotagroup.com/pages/acclimation-guide
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(this is obviously assuming you are not contaminating your display as that is a whole nother convo)

 

[Reeflix]

my LFS gets their shipment in on tuesday night, drip acclimate them, and QT fish that are ich velvet prone

 

[Reeflix]

i mean doesnt sound like the LFS did something that is crazy, i can imagine that some LFS do this