Do you research fish before you buy them?
Posted by Sarah on February 17, 2009
I normally research my fish before I buy them – sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes there just isn’t enough information available about the fish – there were only a few places with infomration on Badis buxar when we got them.
With some fish there’s so much information available that it can become overwhelming to determine what’s right, and what’s wrong.
In those cases I just pick a couple of people who I think know what they’re talking about, and follow their advice.
Of course individual fish are different – what works for one aquarist might not work for another.
We heard over and over again that if you have discus you have to have RO water, and you have to do large water changes twice a week.
We did that for months, and got no eggs, even though our discus were breeding for their previous owner (he bought 7 discus, and ended up with 3 pairs, and he didn’t have room for all of them, for those of you who think no one in their right mind would sell a breeding pair of discus).
As soon as Jeff got too busy to keep up with the water changes, we had eggs.
Of course I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t do your research.
There have been a few cases where we saw cute fish and bought them with no research.
Most of the time it worked out.
Sometimes it didn’t.
We saw a half black angelfish (marine) in a store with lots of fish health problems, came home, did some research, then ordered one from another store.
I looked at several sites, and they all said half black angelfish were easy to care for, blah blah blah, and did great in aquariums, or we wouldn’t have got one.
When we got the fish home and it started having health problems the first thing Jeff found said that the fish were picky eaters, and it’s hard to keep them alive in the aquariums.
The fish only survived two weeks in our tank – so even though I did my research, I didn’t do enough research.
I can’t remember if the only places that I looked for information sold the fish, or not, but I’ll definitely look for information from places that don’t sell fish from now on.
Do you research your fish before you buy them?
Have you found anything that’s contrary to most fish keeping advice?
Jay said,
I try to find out all I can about a fish before I go to buy one. Most of the time this works out well, that is if you can find two keepers of the fish in question that say the same thing about it! Sometimes that can be a job in it self.
From time to time I will be somewhere like Pet-smart to get some fish food & a few fish that I have researched for months. After looking around awhile I sometimes will spot a fish that I know nothing about, never seen before and just got to have, NOW!!!
I can’t make myself buy it by just reading what it says on the shelf tag. Those tags tell you just enough to get you and the fish in trouble. I know the people that work there must think I’m strange, but I will pull every book they have on the shelf that says anything about that fish and read it. The last time I was at Pet-smart I spent two hours reading about a fish before I spent one dime on it. If I lived close to the store I would just go home and read my own books, but I live an hour away each way.
After stocking several tanks with fish that add up to a lot of $$$$$$ I cannot afford to put anything in my tanks that I have not done my very best job to find out everything I can, so that me and my aquatic friends will have success and a long, great life together.
Sarah said,
Thanks Jay – the problem I had with discus is that I could find so many people said that something worked, and just as many people that said it didn’t.
I think it’s good to read about the fish you want in the store – especially when you live so far away.
A lot of employees don’t know about every single fish in the store – and even if they do some fish can be more aggressive over time, so it’s good to discover that before you get home and realize that you made a mistake.
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