steveangela1

SO, as per my post asking what the heck to do about the ich because out of having a small aquarium on and off for years I have NEVER had to deal w/ ich I called the fish store to day to give them a peice of my mind.... and .
The lady got crabby w/ me and said "our tanks are CLEAN and we don't have "ich infested tanks" well like I told her that was really funny because one of my tanks that I put her new fish in was a BRAND NEW TANK w/ BRAND NEW H20 and TESTED!. Then the issues about the receipts came up, and I finally found my reciept, she then went on to say if I didn't have any dead fish why was I calling her... wth?? HELLO I have had to treat all of my tanks for ich but my small fry tank which nothing got added from her store in. I also let her know all about that. Well then I went on about the platy that I had no Idea about the whole fish tatoo process, and I gave her a peice of my mind about that too.... (btw 2008 tatooed on platy died today of ICH) I am taking the ICH w/ me to her on the dead fish... I have also lost all of the guppies that I bought from her, and one of my prized first grown up fry that I raised out of my first batch of babies.... that was getting ready to have some fry of her own.. I once again gave her a peice of mind about that too...
none of this was ranting and raving, cussing or anything like this, it was Hey I am upset, I was done wrong, my fish are sick, I have had to treat my fish for something they never had before I bought fish from her (well my guppies because thats all I had before I went to her).

She said there wasn't anything she could do... I went on to let her know that word of mouth means a lot, and her w/ a brand new store in a small town needs word of mouth for business... and I work in a public place, so does my hubby... and a lot of my friends want to start tanks and don't like to drive to the nearest shop which is 1 hour away to buy fish, so if she wanted me to recomend her store, she needed to make this right with me..

Friday she gets a new shipment of fish, I get the first pick of guppies, to replace what I lost, plus my tatooed platy I lost I am just getting a plant to replace him.... I don't want to ever see another tatooed fish as long as I live its just WRONG!

Is this how you all would have handled this? After I get this new batch and quarintene them this time I am only buying from a private breeder that my mother knows... which is also a vet....

susitna-flower

Well, that is one way to handle it.

I have had outbreaks of ick before, and I just raised my temp, and usually don't loose any fish, they get over it, and the tank is fine. Mine came in on 10 cardinal tetras, and two did die, but the rest are still going strong, for the past year.....

JMatt1983

just be glad it was ich as it is an extremely easy disease to tret, no meds needed, just raise the temp to 80-82 degrees, its a cold water disease, so she could be right, there is nothing wrong with her tanks, maybe just ask her to check the temp on her tanks.

i would've handled it a little differently, confrontation with a store owner is not neccesarily a good thing, after all, this is a person that you wanted to do business with and she obviously wanted your business.

as for the tatooed fis, thats fault on both ends, yours for buying it, and hers for promoting it. the only way to stop stores from selling tatooed and dyed/painted fish is for us he consmer to stop buying them, if there is no demand for it, it doesn;t make much business sense to keep producing it

COBettaCouple

Yea, that's about what I'd have done. If people want to get sick or mistreated fish, they can go to the big chain stores and pay less so she's crazy to think she'll stay in business long treating customers like the big chain stores do. She'd have lost my business just for carrying tattooed fish but then to show petco-like contempt for customers would have been too much and I'd be sure to warn people about her store.

jsalemi

What's not been mentioned so far is that the parasites that cause ich are present in some small amount in all fresh water. Ich is an opportunistic disease -- the parasites normally don't bother healthy fish, but do take advantage of stressed, weak or ill fish. So technically she's right in saying that her tanks are 'clean', but that doesn't mean they don't have the ich parasite in them, or that the fish themselves weren't weak or diseased when she got them.

It's more likely the fish were very stressed somewhere along the line, which caused the ich outbreak, or that they had a mostly dormant residual disease (which could go back as far as the breeder). The fact that you lost other fish in addition to the ones you just bought leads me to suspect the later -- that the fish were already diseased, and the ich outbreak was just an external manifestation of something already going wrong.

That said, if she wants to stay in business she should have some type of clearly stated warranty, that she will replace fish that die within x days.

steveangela1

The ick was only on her fish and her fish died within hours of bringing them to my home, the guppies that died. The platys well they were put into a brand new tank w/ brand new water and the whole 9 yards.

jsalemi

Ah, stress then. Her water parameters may be very different from yours (though if you both have the same water source, that's not too likely), or they were handled roughly when she caught and bagged them, or they were just weak to begin with (not uncommon with 'mass-produced' guppies) and the stress of catching, bagging, and transporting did them in.

rileyrk190

I just recently had a similar problem, however the fish were perfectly healthy in the store. It may have just been the stress from being transferred to your tank. Within hours my perfectly healthy fish, with absolutely no signs of ill health, broke out in ich. Within a day it traveled to my colored skirt tetra ( they get ich if you give them a dirty look. lol. must be inherent to their species). Anyway, i've discovered the least little thing you do to your tank can cause an ich outbreak, however in saying that some species appear to be more resilient to the parasite. My albino cory cats have been through many ich infestations and have never come down with it once. It is also very hard to prove the source of the Ich because it spreads so quickly. I too had an encounter with my lfs a few years ago. Now that i gained more experience, looking back, i realize that i overstocked my tank, and it wasn't totally cycled ( that doesnt seem to be your problem, just saying ).

steveangela1

I wished that was the case, I actually went back for my "refund" and got store credit for my lost fish... well I ended up w/ getting some oddball stuff because I wouldn't get any fish out of the big tanks from her.. I got a dwarf puffer, a peacock eel, and a fiddler crab....
Anyways... when I caught her not looking I noticed she did have the tanks w/ quarintine wrote on them where I had bought from the day I got the ich, when I looked at them the fish were eat up w/ ich... so yes it had to come from there. There is no way around taht one... now if I thought for a min that I could have been the cause of I hadn't got it from her tank I would have never went back to her for a refund or store credit.

rileyrk190

Wow thats good that you got store credit! You got her to see the light.. lol. I always wanted to get a puffer! Are they as aggressive as people say they are? I didnt want to risk it. I might try them in a tank of their own though. Too bad the odd ones never seem to get a long..I would have a cool tank otherwise..lol

Nessie!!!

A spotted Puffer is a brackish water fish, if that's the kind of fish you got. Good Luck on your tank!

Drea

Don't puffers also need some snails in their tank?

COBettaCouple

Puffers like snails in their tank - for eating.

steveangela1

Oh yea, they do love snails, they love love love them... btw yes they are aggresive!

COBettaCouple

They are, but they're such cute little guys that I wonder how many unsuspecting customers have taken a few home to community tanks.