Thanks a lot Animates Botany :(

[mcrudd]

A while back I bought some Mollies from animates Botany and after putting them in quarantine for two weeks I was happy to let them into my main tank. They were in there for a week and then died. They were extremely thin and looked like they died of starvation. I was very upset about it and went to Animates Botany to find out if they might know what could have possibly caused this, as I have tested my water and it was all good. When I got there the first thing I noticed was the Molly tank being under quarantine. I was told they were all ill and were being treated from the day before. I was shocked and scared at the same time, cause now I knew whatever killed the Mollies has been exposed to my main tank. I asked for advice and were told to treat the whole tank with Furan 2, I was also told that it would deffinetly sort the problem immidiately. I did that but still my fish died. I lost 5 Zebra Danio's, several guppy fry and 4 Cherrie barbs. I was very concerened cause I had my chocolate zebras in there and my fish I loved most, my priced beautiful bristlenose boy.

The fish kept on dying and I got upset cause I completed the course of furan2 and was expecting them to get better. Then I saw my big boy sick, his little tummy was concaved he looked horrible, I rushed into Botany and they said just treat with Milafix and Primafix both together. They said I would have to up the oxygen so It meant that I had to buy airstones and pumps for my main tank, which I did.

I felt very uneasy about the advice and gave Hollywoods a ring, they immidiately told me it sounds like worms or internal bacteria and that I would need special medicine for it. I drove to them and got it. I treated my main tank and also the quarantine one who had my big bristlenose boy in it. He looked like death itself, I never thought he would make it, but I managed to get a nice rounded tummy on him again and placed him back into the main tank. Everything went well, until this morning I found him dead.

I guess the illness just took too much out of him and he was just too weak. That is why I am writing you all, I kept quiet till then, but Now I am beyond upset. I can't believe that it happened, me being a newbie and not knowing much would expect a petshop person to be able to give me the right information and be able to know that they are selling sick fish.

You know, thinking about it now, everytime I went there, there was either sick fish or dead fish in a tank I was viewing, should have seen the warning lights there allready :evil:

[Stella]

Sorry for your losses

Unfortunately is is often VERY hard to tell what is causing a disease in a fish - a single set of symptoms may be caused by a bactera, a fungus or a parasite, and each require separate treatment. Like with any form of medicine, a diagnosis is a best-guess, based on received information and prior experience/education.

Pet shops don't sell pre-quarantined animals (as far as I am aware), they may have just hopped off a distribution chain and barely stopped moving since they were caught in the wild, hence horribly stressed, so you did the right thing by quarantining them (I hear this so rarely! Well done )

What bothers me is your new fish were in quarantine for two weeks, a week later they died in your main tank (three weeks) and looked like they died from starvation. Surely this means they were thin before you put them in the main tank - a sign they should never have come out of quarantine in the first place.

They do seem to be recommending an awful lot of different things for you to buy - a pump and airstone for additional oxygen should be unnecessary on an otherwise filtered tank, unless it was excessively overstocked.

[DennisP]

Pet shops don't sell pre-quarantined animals (as far as I am aware), they may have just hopped off a distribution chain and barely stopped moving since they were caught in the wild, hence horribly stressed, so you did the right thing by quarantining them (I hear this so rarely! Well done )

Pet shop told me MAF quarantines for 6 weeks.

[Skip™]

Sorry for you loss. It's even worse when it includes your favourites.

Although, I often go to botany, because HFF is a bit out of my way, and have never had any problems with their fish dying.

[Scottie841]

What did the look like before you took them out of your quarantine? Were they thin/sick looking before you put them in your main tank?

Also a pet shop is there to sell you stuff. They are not qualified to diagnose what is wrong with your fish. The will often offer suggestions as to what they think it might be and how they personally would treat the fish if it was in their tank. If you want a more accurate answer you need to take them to a trained specialist.

By the sounds of it HFF have also sold you something that has not worked so you should change the subject to;

Thanks a lot Animates Botany & HFF

[diver21]

Pet shop told me MAF quarantines for 6 weeks.

thats correct for fresh water fish, well the importer quarantines them for 6 weeks and maf regularly visits.

salt water fish is for less time, IIRC its only 3 weeks

[smidey]

it is our job to manage our stock & the chances of getting sick fish are high no matter where we get them from, i doubt they knowingly sold you sick fish so unfortunately it's just as much your responsibility.

[mcrudd]

Wow a lot of replies. In short the fish were healthy looking when I put them in the quarantine tank, they were young mollies, so I did not expect them to be super fat like some guppies are. One thing I must say is too Scottie. Hollywoods did all good. They gave me the right medicine. All my other fish is still alive, even two little cherriebarbs that were also so skinny they could not swim in the filter current. Its just that my bristlenose boy was too far gone and I think it weakened him too much. I am forever thankful for Hollywoods and would recommend them to everyone who wants to buy fish

[Scottie841]

The best advice you can be given it do do as much research as you can. If possible go and see some in someones tank so you know what healthy fish look like. Then if they are not up to a good standard I would not buy them.

A short time ago we got a fish from a tank at Animates down here. The tank was green and had a sign on it but we asked to buy them at our risk because the ones we wanted looked really good and I knew as soon as the sign came off someone would buy them. The are still happy and healthy in our tank

[mcrudd]

Thanks for the advice Scottie. I will do more research next time. Like I said, I am very new on this and relied on their knowledge and not my own experience. But a person learns everyday

[repto]

mollies suck,they always look sweet in the shops and more often than not come out of brackish water.they can live in fresh for a while but more often than not will get the `shimmies`and get skinny as in no time.Interestingly if you put them back from fresh water to salty water the `shimmies`will stop straight away.

[ryanjury]

Gutted It is really hard to place blame on the stores though, especially if the fish did look healthy to begin with and continued to do so throughout your 2 week quarantine..

I have heard alot of mollies are kept in hard water with salt throughout the quarantine/wholesale period so when moved into different conditions do tend to suffer. Generally most of the mollies I have seen in stores are quite sad looking things most have clamped up tails and are really skinny so I am unsure what is going on there it is very hard to tell.

Also regarding the poor advice with meds diagnosing fish is very difficult at the best of times the staff probably have little knowledge and didn't actually get to view the fish.. Even if they had suspected worms the drugs to treat them are prescription only (HFF are lucky they have somehow got them and they are able to dispense them) so they cannot really give you anything to help.

Now you can see why some people run quarantine/treatment tanks (treating for worms and other things even if the fish show no signs) before introducing anything into their tanks, but you do have to ask how far do you go?

[Nymox]

Whoops :oops:

[BikBok]

really sorry to hear about your BN boy :-(

Just out of curiosity , what medicine did HFF give you?

Furan2 is a systematic antibiotic so should have dealt with any internal bacteria.. or was it parasite treatment that you got in the end?

I have bought worm infested guppies from animates before (callamanus worms) so treat all new fish for worms now (especially live bearers) as a matter of course, no matter where I get them from.

My very first guppy was dropped by animates staff .. yes dropped and flapping around on the ground and they still sold it to me!! then sold me another fish and told me it was a female when it was actually a male. I was new so trusted them when they told me that the dropped fish would be ok.. it wasn't but they did replace it when it bloated up and died and swapped the male for a female when i took it back to question them on the gonopodium!

[PuffaDragonNZ]

Most pet shop staff are kids fresh out of school, they don't have the knowledge it takes years to it and when you do get a person that can help and have all the experience and answers, they can't pay them enough min wage what a joke I know my knowledge is worth more than that. So why would you want to stay, also I would never buy a fish from a tank that has sick fish always (eye ball ) them have a good look, also make sure they are displaying normal behavior as well,

The best thing you can do is do your own research don't rely on someone else oh well thats my 2 cents lol.

[paul_r]

i stay away from animates whenever possible, i understand there are some very knowledgable staff but most of the ones ive dealt with were busy chatting txting and were not very knowledgable at all about the fish they were selling, one girl the only thing she had going for her was she liked to show off her gstring when getting fish from the lower tanks, couldnt catch a fish to save herself and ditzy as anything

Have had too many bad experiences with animates, there almost laways seems to be at least one qurantine tank, ive seen a huge pacu in a turtle tank with water barely deep enough for it to swim in with turtles in the tank which had scratched it, numerous dead fish etc

Palmy animates has been good the few times ive visited it but the other ones have been shocking

[diver21]

lol bet you tried to get a few fish from the bottom tank. ive found lincon road to be a good animates to go to, aslong as you get the right person

[Barrie]

they can't pay them enough min wage what a joke I know my knowledge is worth more than that.

Im dont mean to give you a hard time but it comes back to the same old thing.

Double or tripple the price and you can afford to pay more

another angle is that who in this world think they are being paid what they are worth?

"know my knowledge is worth" at least $500 per hour and when I get that it will be worth $1000 per hour

The thing about these types of thread is that they generalise too much and do harm to a lot of possibly good staff that worth there. For all I know, the person that knows about the dogs their may well be the top person in Auck on them.

There seems to be no doupt that the retailers that specialise are normally far better because they have all got great knowledge in what is a small field but thats not what Animates is there for ?

I deal from HHF for 99% of my needs as they look after me with specialised knowledge. I dont care what things costs as I can either afford to buy it or I cant but if I need something for the cat of the cage birds, I go to Animates as they have the selection I need.

To be honest, after 2 weeks in quarinteen, I dont feel Animates can be held accountable. Their recomendations, on the other hand, may not have been as you would have hoped and maybe they should have suggested that you eith bring in the fish so they could see them or to take them to a vet (or third party).

This is where HHF have an advantage as being specialised, they have far greater knowledge in there field

[smidey]

if they get more experienced people they will need to pay them more, then there will be threads about how much everything costs at the LFS. do your own research so you already have some idea of what you want/need or prepare to accept that persons opinion, good or bad.

[mcrudd]

I thought of them being responsible because it took three weeks before my mollies died and did the same by them. I went into their store the same day my Mollies died and then their tank was under quarantine and treatment from the day before. So they only started treating the tank the same time I lost my fish. If someone had bought fish from that tank after me until the day before my fish died, they would have had the same fate as well. Just my opinion though

[BikBok]

there's more than a coincidence in timing.

[phoenix44]

Did you explore the possibility that they got new fish in (as most if not all stores do every week) and that one of the new arrivals may be the reason for the sickness?

Either ways, I'd suggest talking to the manager of that store; and perhaps something in writing if you feel very strongly about it. Might be more 'fruitful'.

[gagaforfish]

I don't go to Animates any more, When I went the guy there gave me really bad advice on what fish to get. He said two golden algae eaters would be fine in my wee tank and that they weren't big or aggressive fish.. He may not be a fish expert, but if he is handing out advice, it may as well be accurate...

I now go to the animal shack pet shop in Pukekohe, they have a real good fish room. -not that I'm all that experienced!!

[Jennifer]

Keep in mind, Animates is a pet shop, not a veterinary hospital. You wouldn't expect Animates to give advice about your dog with a tumour, would you? The other thing is that fish are notoriously difficult, if not impossible to properly diagnose. I would guess that upwards of 99% of all fish in this country are just treated based on subjective findings rather than any diagnostic tests that can confirm what disease they have. Yes, it is great that some people have lots of experience and can use anecdotal evidence to support reasonable treatment regimes, but give those poor pet shops a break. All they have in shop are a collection of odd chemicals and potions that are sold as miracle cures and there is no guarantee they will even come close to addressing the real problem.

[livingart]

a good post Jennifer a pet shop is not a veterinary hospital, but as they are selling live animals shouldn't there be some responsibilty on their part to provide a easonable standard of advice on the livestock they sell?