Okay To Purchase Fishes From A Tank With Dead Fishes?

I was shopping at the pet store. I was planning to buy couple fishes, but there are few dead fishes inside the tank. Should I avoid buying fishes, or should I take a chance and hopefully the fishes will still live longer in my aquarium tank?

 

That’s hard to say. One may be a fluke but I would be really concerned if multiple. Definitely quarantine the new fish if you do buy any

 

Yeah, IMO it’s fine to get them as long as you quarantine, and if it dies then you can go back and exchange it.

 

I don't buy fush if there's dead fish or sick fish in the tank. Its not worth the time or money to me.

 

Dead fish in a tank tells something about the quality overall of an LFS to me.
I would never buy any fish then (even if they were in another tank).

 

While dead fish in tanks scare people, sometimes those deaths are simply due to stress of pet store tanks. I got some cories from Walmart, I made sure I watched them for at least a week in the stores tank before getting any after seeing a fish die as I walked up to the tanks.

It did happen that one of the albino cories in their tanks did die, and later a few more, after I got a handful out of that tank, not only did my cories, but theirs started doing much better. The issue was the tank was much to small and had far too many fish in it for it to stay at a decent quality. I tested their water and it wasn't where it should be.

I bought my cories in batches, two each time. I tested the water each time as well, and as I lowered the number of fish in their tanks the healthier they became in both my tank and theirs.

This isn't always the case, sometimes they really are diseased and there's something much more than stress killing the fish.

I would recommended either asking them to order some for you specifically, or just watch them and make sure more don't seem to fall ill.
Or simply find a better quality shop if possible.

 

You can do it IMO but quarantine for a couple weeks. Try to see why they died, if its stess whatever but some sort of disease is questionable.

 

All Lfs, even the very best ones have fish deaths. When you think of how many thousands of fish they're dealing with every week unfortunately some losses are inevitable.
Imo it’s how they deal with those deaths that are the issue.
Is the store & their tanks generally clean, do the staff monitor the tanks during the day & are they quick to remove dead or dying fish before they become food for others, do they quarantine new shipments before putting them up for sale?
My advice would be get to know your Lfs, find out what day their shipments come in & don’t buy fish on that day if they don’t quarantine. Try & visit several times at different times of day & if every time you go you see dead fish then don’t buy from there.

 

All Lfs, even the very best ones have fish deaths. When you think of how many thousands of fish they're dealing with every week unfortunately some losses are inevitable.
Imo it’s how they deal with those deaths that are the issue.
Is the store & their tanks generally clean, do the staff monitor the tanks during the day & are they quick to remove dead or dying fish before they become food for others, do they quarantine new shipments before putting them up for sale?
My advice would be get to know your Lfs, find out what day their shipments come in & don’t buy fish on that day if they don’t quarantine. Try & visit several times at different times of day & if every time you go you see dead fish then don’t buy from there.

Agreed. I have 2 local fish stores. One often has a dead fish somewhere but they are quick to remove them. If you ppint out a dead fish they thank you and remove it promptly. If you mention certain fish look umwell they are happy to discuss the fish with you ("they only came in today" or whatever else) and will often take action. They are also happy to medicate certain tanks and stop fish being sold if they seem unwell. I know that they euthanize fish humanely if they are very sick. The other shop has dead fish in every tank. The staff are unhelpful and react badly if you point out a dead fish.
As coradee said, every shop will have to deal with dead fish.

 

All Lfs, even the very best ones have fish deaths. When you think of how many thousands of fish they're dealing with every week unfortunately some losses are inevitable.
Imo it’s how they deal with those deaths that are the issue.
Is the store & their tanks generally clean, do the staff monitor the tanks during the day & are they quick to remove dead or dying fish before they become food for others, do they quarantine new shipments before putting them up for sale?
My advice would be get to know your Lfs, find out what day their shipments come in & don’t buy fish on that day if they don’t quarantine. Try & visit several times at different times of day & if every time you go you see dead fish then don’t buy from there.

Exactly what I meand to say.
If multiple dead fish are in a tank, there is something wrong with the lfs / the staff in my opinion.

Once withnessed the release of bettas in several tanks of an LFS in Germany though I warned them the fish in some of the tanks had Ich. The employee cut open the bags and in they went. No fish from there.

 

Find out when delivery day is before panicking. Even the best LFS can get a bad delivery of fish! And most stores have all their tanks upfront because of the space and requirements needed to house so many, so they aren't able to 'hide' iffy animals from the public.