Going to Your Local Fish Store? 8 Rules for Picking Out New Saltwater Fish! - Ep. 33

I'm at the point of just hating LFS's. Screw them, it should be standard for a store to have a 48h+ return policy for dead or diseased livestock, with a water sample, and dated video showing the tank before adding the fish. So few do this, and its completely consumer unfriendly. On top of the return policy for dead livestock, all lfs's should be quarantining all livestock for 3-4 months with meds before going up for sale. If I go buy a friggen kitten 99% of the time it has had its damn shots. These two things, the lack of consumer friendly return policies, and the lack of care for customers/livestock with the lack of quarantining makes me hope BRS, LiveAquaria, Amazon, etc. Drive these shitty places out of business. Hell petco/petsmart with their almost guaranty of a fish having disease and you needing to buy meds with each fish, is more consumer friendly. At least they have a 2+ week guaranty with water sample 99% of the time. This bullcrap can only happen because of our lack of consumer protection here in America. We deserve better, and we need laws forcing quarantine of incoming livestock at all stops before we get our livestock.

I look for health of fish in the tank live or dead. However that all depends on if there is a dead fish in the tank when I come in. However when I worked at my friends shop before we would open the shop we would remove all dead fish from the tanks. All the tanks were on seperate filtration. If we recognized the tank had sick fish we would treat the tank and mark the tank not for sell. Not gonna lie the shop was a hole in the wall store. I kept the tanks clean and did water changes and I was and I still have passion for a what I do. I usually buy fish that have been in the tank for at least two weeks or more and I would ask them to feed the fish so I could see how they act.

Stores that QT sell at a premium, locally, I've noticed they sell for about double that of a store that doesn't. If you have your own QT tank and aren't in a rush to put it in your display, a store that doesn't QT, but is overall reputable is a viable option too.

Good luck finding a LFS in the UK that does half of that! Great video as always 🙂👍

My six line wrasse sleeps in a mucus sack weirdest thing I've seen

i live near both WWC locations in florida. so i’m pretty sure i’m okay, but not 100% certain

When i go to my LFS there are more dead fish then alive 😂 you can probably find parasites there that havent even been discovered by scientists lol

Great video for all beginners. Well done!

I'm lucky enough to live within 1 hour drive of TSM aquatics, which fully qt all of their fish before selling them

Great synopsis !

Getting a "inhabitant" for your tank is a lot like getting a roommate:

1. Observe the place offering the potential roommate : Is it a prison, mental hospital, ... or graveyard? Are the current roommates willing to pay you to take them? .....

2. Observe his current domicile: Are there bars ... to keep them IN? Does their current apartment share a water supply with a nuclear reactor? Are there warning placards outside their current apartment reading, "Radiation," "Toxic Waste Inside," "Danger Rabid Animal" ... "Enter At Own Risk?" Is her bed hovering over the floor and spinning to the Santana song "Black Magic Woman?" ....

3. Health/ Quarantine Procedures : Does your potential roommate expect that your room will be part of his quarantine space when he gets Ebola, the Plague, Cholera, Smallpox, ... etc.? Does this potential roommate think quarantine time is measured with a stop watch? ...

4. Behavior: Does this potential roommate sleep in a coffin and call Transylvania "Home?" Do they blink with a second set of eye lids? ...

5. Injury/Disease : Does this potential roommate have the university Infectious Disease Department on speed dial? Do they have gills ... any gills? Are limbs fall off as you interview, and do they spontaneously regrow? ...

6. Food - When you discuss the kitchen, do they ask your opinion on pica, cannibalism, and insects as a food group? Do they tell you they are on the Vampire Diet? ....

7. Grace Period : Have a "Grace Period" in the roommate contract just in case the Agent Mulder, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, Reporter Carl Kolchak , or the pair Detective Matthew Sikes, and George Francisco show up at your front door.

8. Pick "Civilized" human "In Person" : Big Foot, Yetis, Romulus and Remus, ... etc make poor roommates. Go for "captive breed." Those raised in civilization by June Cleaver do best, and nothing goes well on the internet. The picture never matches the selection and some do not even photograph, i.e. vampires.

Happy Pre-Halloween,
Jim

I’ve been to a LFS that cuts the bags open and dumps the fish in their tanks also dead fish in the tanks. My first time there I bought 2 fish and they died that same night, never again

pick the most sick fish and get a good price and heal it up, its the most rewarding feelingever, remember to quarantine

Wait! Was that a Bengali intro? 😮

What i've noticed, is that LFS that have a wide variety of fish species are usually not the best places. They don't care about health, supplier reputation, or not as strict with where there fish come, with the goal of just drawing more customers in.

the golden rule; the most important thingto do about picking a fish… DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THIS FISH YOU ARE EYEING AT. ain’t that right teach?!

I buy from only two places..... TSM Aquatics or Marine Collectors

I have learned soo much about aquatics. I never even knew there was so much.

some great advice Matthew. This is a hobby of patience so don't rush the QT process. I think we have all been guilty of this at some point or another.

Just buy from TSM

I see this video after my first clownfish ever die of Brooklynella within days of bringing them home. Funny part is the owner of the store explained to me that its not practical for him to quarentine fish from a business perspective and also said the quarentining is a just a fad. He also claimed that UV sterilizers kill all parasites in his tanks so his fish are totally safe to add without quarentining. Well, lesson learned for me. I wont be going there again. I hate to think that this guy is selling brook infected fish to unsuspecting people.

What are some good reputable online fish stores?

When I bought my kole tang I almost pulled the trigger on a blue tang at 2 different stores. Why didn’t I? The longest one store had the blue tang was 4 days, the other store had it for 2 days. They both had a speck or 2 of ich on them and didn’t look calm. So I decided to not get one, the kole tang was in the same store as the blue tang that had arrive 2 days prior. They told me the kole tang was there for 2 weeks, he looked fat and full to me. I didn’t see a speck of anything on him, I asked if he eats flakes and they said “of course” (they tend to feed flakes a lot) and they went and fed him in front of me. I took him right then and there, the moment the fish went into my display he ate flakes just fine. It’s been about a week now and he’s looking a lot less stressed, he’s coming out more even while I’m in front of the tank. Also stayed fat and eats really good, pecks at the back wall all day

Kudos to any fish store that quarantines for three weeks. I work at an LFS with a good reputation and we don’t have the space or patience for that. We do quarantine fish from our tanks with problems, but that’s it. Salt tanks have copper to prevent ich too.

When I buy a fish I make sure it's eating and it looks healthy and its eyes are clear I quarantine my own fish I don't depend on nobody for that I have a quarantine tank setup 24/7 ready to go all people in the saltwater hobby should have a quarantine tank you can keep an eye on them for a week or two and when all is good you can just let the fish in the main tank as always works for me then If i need to medicate I can treat the fish in the quarantine tank very few fish stores quarantine their fish they may leave their fish in some copper solution for prevention I found one store that totally quarantines their fish that was many years ago and they charged a little more but it was worth the price like I said I rather do it myself buying a fish and not quarantining it is playing Russian roulette 🐠🐠

Coarl fever is a fish and coarl store by me in Louisiana and he dont let you take or pay for a fish till it make it 14 day in copper QUARANTINE.

For living in a semi large city (aka Las Vegas baby!! :D) LFS choices are unfortunately limited to big box stores and tiny minimally stocked drastically OVERPRICED stores. 😖 I'll be shopping online forever 😫

I live in the hillbilly Part of my country, so no saltwater lfs. Online buying fish seems rather scary to me, imagine blasting 200 Cash on a marine betta that dies after a week.

Shout out to @Water Colors Aquarium Gallery  in Grand Rapids, MI for being exactly the type of store Matthew describes above. Y'all rock!

M.

trapical fish in las vegas really ! they are hella rude and the lady the cashier is racist heard alot of stories about that lady

LoL I’m over $6,000 in on my tank and I only have 2 clownfish lol but let me tell you my tank is epic

The start there was great lmao you probly spent X amount of money and 1000 hours setting up the tank just setti.g up the tank .... if I didn't love fish so much I would say F me ahahahahah

You guys located in Vegas ? That was a store from Vegas. Cool

No way I buy from Blue Reef all the time!!

Bhalo achi! ❤ Apni kemon achen?

Thanks you for what you are doing I appreciate you

How did I just find this video

sadly the LFS doesnt have the variety. I end up having to order blindly there, and paying a premium instead of just getting them online from a reputable source (which I admit is also blind).

That feel when you have one single LFS within a 2 hour drive radius and said LFS has a grand total of 2 saltwater tanks....

Gonna be PetCo or online for me. Not my prefferred methods, but work with what I got, I guess.

No stores in nj quarantine i can tell you that.

I did something similar, I walked into Petco, picked out 2 damsels that looked aight, bought em on the spot

I've been to that store. Are u base out of Vegas?

Yeah I have an LFS that does all of this.. they just charge $400 for a yellow tang.

Went into a new fish store last week never again . Dead fish in every single tank multiple dead fish

Waste of time video,, better off just telling us where we can buy quarantined fish online ,,