Following the recent remarks and comments made on this forum I wish to make the following points, some of which may not relate to us, or to the comments made on this site.
*At Hollywood Fish Farm, all of our staff both full and part-time have attained or are in the process of attaining a certificate in Animal Companion Services (aquatic) from Mahurangi Technical Institute.
*Hollywood Fish Farm staff try and ensure that all livestock has the best possible start with the new owner, we ask questions. We DO NOT and WILL NOT sell baby Red Eared turtles without the necessary things in life to ensure good health; a good filter, the UV lighting etc. We do know of stores selling baby turtles with no equipment except a tank.
*When new people enter the hobby we always give advice on fish compatibility, potential size of fish, pH requirements etc.
*Many years ago we decided not to sell "goldfish bowls" or similar, unlike some stores that just focus on money in the till - at any cost!!.
*All of our tanks are individually filtered to minimise the risk of problems with livestock, which means a more costly and time consuming way of running over 140 fish tanks!!
*We are aquatic specialists and do not sell pet products. All of you out there might or might not be aware that the aquatic part of the pet industry is the least profitable by far and the most costly to operate.
*It would have been very easy to have gone down the same path as other shops have, but no, you have to be passionate and dedicated to work in this part of the industry - or mad!!!, I might be the latter after reading the comments on this forum. If anybody thinks this is a get rich business they are very much mistaken - would they like to try it?!.
I am a hobbyist at heart, you have to be , as with all of our staff. No, the wages are not fantastic neither are the returns, but we all enjoy working in this environment, and yes it does hurt when you do your best and then get put down in the public arena.
*I carried out an excersise the other day and went through all of our fish purchases for the past 12 months, this amounted to over 48,000 fish!!!, this is just for one of our stores, that takes a lot of looking after. Yes we do have our problems, but so does everybody else - don't they? or is everybody else out there perfect!!
*We do not knowingly sell sick or diseased fish, we keep a book recording treatments and progress day by day, all of our staff are aware of which tanks not to sell fish from. No we do not put "fish under treatment" or "fish not for sale" on our tanks, but we will do so in future, to keep everybody happy
*Clown Loaches
Some time ago I received a phone call from one of our suppliers asking if we could take some clown loaches that had some problems with their eyes etc, or they would be destroyed. These problems had occured in transit to our importers. All of you might or might not be aware that the exporters pack about 100 clown loaches in a 10 litre bag, this is when problems can occur. Some of the loaches we received were skinny, and we have treated for intestinal worms and we are trying very hard to fatten them up. I wish to point out that at no time has anyone sold the thin loaches from the tanks, yes they were mixed up with loaches that had damaged eyes - we had no choice, we received 250 - a lot more than we were told. Again I would like to make it clear that the eye problems were due to damage - not to pop-eye ETC. Perhaps in heinsight we should have said no, considering the time, the money spent on medication and food etc. to save these fish from death - you try your best and then get criticised for doing so.
*Zebra Danios
Hollywood Fish Farm supplies Auckland University (Molecular medical department and the biomedical sciences department) with live stock and drygoods etc. Both these departments have breeding programs in place. About 6 weeks ago we received a call from one of the departments asking if we would like to by some Zebra Danios that they had bred, we said yes and were sent 200 - sight unseen. Yes a few were skinny but not many, we started to feed them up immediately. I would suggest that the comments made about the skinny Zebra Danios would have been made just after we received them.
*All of our staff!! are aware of how large clown loaches can get!! The comment made about somebody in a shop selling 6 clown loaches for a 2ft tank - was the person who supposeadly saw this happen there at the start of the sale? do they know if the customer had more than one tank? does the person know if the customer had already been told that they would need a bigger tank later?
*Electric Yellows
The colour of certain fish can differ. If you breed and raise some species of fish without lighting above the tank, the colour pigment sometimes does not develop, this can also happen with white clouds. Goldfish kept outside with exposure to the suns UV will always be reder than a fish kept in a fish tank, just because a fish is pale in colour does not nevessarily mean that the fish is sick or out of condition.
*Feeding
Depending on what type of fish they are, most fish get fed once a day, all discus, loaches, eels, Milawis - oops I mean Malawis and marines all get fed twice per day - and also of course any thin fish that arrive into the shop get fed 3 times per day. Just for the record we only get 24hrs guarantee from our fish suppliers. When we do receive unhealthy fish, i.e thin etc. do we send them back?! NO some come from more than 900 Kilometers away, yes we do have quarantine tanks, but only a limited amount, so we bite the bullet and start feeding or treating straight away or sometimes both, fattening up a thin fish can take a few days or weeks - not overnight
*Please note: the poor health of some fish when they arrive into the shop its not always down to the importers, the courier drivers don't give a dam about livestock or delivering on time - sometimes we get livestock 2 days late!!
*Comments about convicts with guppies
I cannont speak for other stores but all of our staff know not to sell these fish together - as well as all other non compatible fish species!!
*General health of fish over the last 6 months
Yes we have noticed more problems than usual and have spoken to all of our suppliers. Nearly all of the imported fish come from Singapore but most of them are bred in Malaysia, because of much lower costs. When Malaysia gets a lot of acid rain it affects the general health of the fish which are bred outside in large ponds.
*We as a fish specialist are very proud of our good reputation and we always strive to do the best we can, yes sometimes we might overlook a dead fish in one of the tanks, yes we might have a bad run with newly arrived fish which have to be treated or pumped with food (please remember how many fish we receive per week!!). All the staff do their up most to keep the tanks clean and the fish healthy as well as everything else. We get on average 20 phone calls per day from people with fish problems as well as people in the shop with water samples to test. We give good advice, and are customer focused, which all amounts to having a good place for the hobbyist to shop.
*Fish Forum Site
It is so easy to criticise shops when sometimes not all the facts are clear, then you always get people jumping on the band wagon. It's not easy to please everybody, but we do try very hard and after all we are only human!!
To those of you out there who seem to be so particular please except my apologise for any spelling or grammer mistakes, were not all perfect
Once again apologies for the delay in responding, I was busy with the end of year tax returns
No further discussion will be entered into from myself on the points I have raised
David
Hollywood Fish Farm
