Returning/rehoming fish UK

I'm new to this and have seen a lot of US/AUS aquarium owners talking about taking their fish back to their local store when needed for various reasons and different ways of rehoming fish when necessary. Including trading fry at local pet stores and selling fry etc. just wondering if anyone can give me a bit more of an idea on this sort of thing in the UK because I can picture my local pet store telling me to go away in not so polite a manner if I tried to return a fish. I actually recently complained to Pets At Home about the way our fish were sold to us (after doing own research was appalled at size of tank & number/types of fish sold to us and advice, or lack of, that went with it) and was met with nothing but pure rudeness and disregard. I can assure you this would happen in most of the pet shops/aquarist shops nearby too. I've seen fish for sale on eBay and gumtree but not sure if it's advisable to buy/sell that way either. I ask mainly because I have 3 female platy fish and so at some point in the future if I get the urge to add a male and experience them breeding I may need to sell/trade some fry so as to not over crowd my tank or have major inbreeding going on? Any advice on these things in the UK South East London area would be great, thanks

 

Hi!

Most Maidenhead aquatics (But not all) will take fry but they won't give you anything for them I'm afraid...I have 3 female platys that are on their 2nd batch of fry as they were pregnant from the LFS when I got them so I've been growing them in a separate fry tank and taking down Maidenhead when large enough.

 

You could also try a fish sales/swap facebook group in your local area.

 

I'm not 100% sure where Maidenhead is but I'll look into that, thanks. I can't find out much about rehoming fry locally on Google. Facebook could be a good option, thank you. Need a nice big house with a fish room full of lovely tanks that would house all the fish I want and their babies and a pond.. And an aviary.. And maybe space for a goat or two....




Sorry, did you mean most Maidenhead aquatics as in a chain of stores called Maidenhead aquatics in different locations or most aquatic stores in Maidenhead? I just realised I could have misunderstood

 

Maidenhead Aquatics are a chain, have a look on their website for local stores.

 

Looks like there's a few in Platymums area too!

Sorry, did you mean most Maidenhead aquatics as in a chain of stores called Maidenhead aquatics in different locations or most aquatic stores in Maidenhead? I just realised I could have misunderstood

My apologies...I should have stated it was a national aquatic chain as it could have looked like I meant Maidenhead in Berkshire! Lol ;D

 

We have loads of Molly fry and we can either give them to the local fish shop, or to Dobbies (not sure if there's one near you or if they are even a big chain!) but we don't get credit or anything. Simply give them up to the fish shop to sell.

 

Haha thanks for clearing that up. I realised what you meant straight after. What a donut! I have serious baby brain at the moment! Well that's good to know anyway, I have no problem giving them away to a LFS as long as they get rehoused and I don't get problems with my tank! I'd just like to have at least one lot (however many months it lasts) of fry just to experience it. It would be really cool. I guess I'd have to rehouse the male platy shortly after too or else it would go on forever! I may have to rehouse my own partner soon for same reasons lol

 

You might end up having some babies even if you don't get a male, that depends on if they were ever in a tank with a male. We bought all females and had babies for awhile. We kept a few females and gave all the males away ... and once we had all we wanted we gave all the babies away.

 

Yeah I know, I thought I might have had one or two already pregnant but after over a month there's no signs of any due to have fry. I might have picked the only three not pregnant! Will soon see. I know they can have "batches" of fry for months. Can they skip a month? If my platys don't have fry without me getting a male I'm not sure if I'll breed them or get some guppies instead to breed? They're so beautiful.. But I don't think I'd want to get rid of any then