Sad LFS tanks

Hi

As an avid fishkeeper for almost 30 years now, I have seen a lot of shops come and go.

One thing I have noticed of late is how bad the conditions of certain LFS tanks are. The tanks are dirty (which is not acceptable) there are often dead specimens in the tanks and in some fish that are in trouble.

I went to visit a place I have not been in a number of years today. I was quite upset with the state of their tanks. I think it is sad when retailers are clearly in it for the money and there is absolutely no love for the hobby.

I just had to vent. I have not named and shamed the store in question as I brought this to the attention of the management and will first wait and see if there is any change.

M

 

I also visited a LFS today that I haven't been to in a year or so, I was so shocked. Dead fish, unhealthy fish and tanks so dirty you can hardly see any fish.

 

I believe every LPS should systematically sterilize their tanks a few times a year ideally more given the high volume of fishy traffic from a 101 different sources. Sadly this is seldom the case making it imperative for all us fish keepers to quarantine first..

 

Is there really money to be made in a LFS? The ones near me are so bad that I have no idea how they make money..

 

The fish and other animals are a draw-card. The shops make their money selling food, meds and other dry stuff. Most store operators work on the idea that the fish won't be there for long, but that they need fish turn-over to draw people to come have look and buy other stuff.

If you think a shop is dirty and disgusting, complain to the manager and then go shop elsewhere.

 

Hi Guys,

I look forward to the day on which pet shop owners will have to show that they have the necessary qualification to be able to keep and maintain livestock, doesn't matter if it is fish or any other living organism. In Germany, and please forgive me if I make this comparison, but that is where I have consistently seen the best pet shops in the world, you cannot just simply open a pet shop and start selling livestock, you have to have some form of qualification. It is a government controlled process and you have to stay registered as a livestock dealer. I mean how can this work, you have some Tom, Dick and Harry who all of a sudden starts keeping animals, is this fair on the animals? I do not think so.

I actually wonder how far the legislation has got in Gauteng in this regard. According to correspondence that I had a while back with Sean (Slagter in this forum) Gauteng was going to implement legislation regulating pet sales, perhaps he can tell us more about what happened to this process.

However, I do not approve of the murder that is going on in, let's face it, just about most pet shops in South Africa, not to even speak of the rip off of selling sick fishes to the unknowing customer.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

name and shame and to warn others, then they might also improve

 

That works two ways.
The Germans are well educated people with an inherent respect for nature. Not any of our LFS's in SA would make it in Germany even IF they were allowed to trade there without a permit.

 

The classic excuse is: "But that is how I received the fishes, and now I can't do anything about it any more".

Bottom line is the LFS owner just needs to tell his supplier that he will not buy fish from him again if this happens again, and it will force the wholesalers to get their house in order. OK, sometimes they get supplied with sick fishes from wherever they import, but that does not mean they have to tolerate that either.

The other thing is that why don't the LFS owners support the local fish breeders more? I know there are a couple of breeders in SA, and most (not all) breed excellent quality fishes, so why not buy from them instead of importing? As a petshop owner you have much better control of the fishes that you get if you buy from a local breeder. The local breeder wants does not want to loose his market, so he cannot afford mistakes, the big wholesaler, just says "well tough luck, there are many more (suckers) that will buy from me".

The general rule in the South African tropical fish trade is that the wholesaler puts a 100% markup on fishes, and the retailer does this again, so the landed price of fishes is actually a 1/4 of the price asked from you, the consumer. Why is this so high? Well the argument is that the wholesaler and the retailer have losses, and this is a risky business. Well, if you know what you are doing, then the risk is reduced, so if LFS owners were forced to be better qualified they would be able to treat their fishes better and would make less losses and therefore the price could drop.

The other sickening argument that I hear regularly is that LFS owners tell hobbyist breeders that they do want to pay them the prices that they ask for because they can land the fishes at 1/4 of the price. Well, the same argument applies. If you buy from a local supplier the fishes MUST be more healthy because they have not been exposed to all the transport stress and diseases that are spread in the wholesaler's tanks. So the LFS owner should actually be quite happy to pay more, because he KNOWS that he will have less losses.

So yes, we do have a major problem with the trade at all levels here, and it needs to come right. It is one of my pet hates (please excuse the pun, Trevor ) if I get sold fishes by local suppliers that want to claim to sell top quality fishes, and then they are actually selling sick fishes and they are simply asking the public to accept this.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

To me it seems like South Africa receives the lowest quality fish known to mankind.

e.g.) Hunchback emperor tetras @R45.00
One-handed blue crayfish @R400.00

 

i actually get really sad when i see these stores with unhealthy fish, i pretty much wont ever buy from them or visit the shop again!
yes the pet biz is just another biz and a heartless one at that
if you ever see a lps with poor conditions , just say to them, they dont know what they are doing and you wont visit again

 

Yeah agree with this entirely and have also had similar experiences recently with some LPSs that don't try and support local breeders ! They rather import fish from abroad at '1/4 of the price' than locally bred fish and which they then can mark up by a staggering 300 to 400% , so they end up retailing at the same price as if they were buying locally! It's clearly all about making as much bucks as possible to the detriment of anything else, as they evidently care little about the quality of the fish which arrive looking incredibly thin, small, stressed and urgently need to be quarantined by the hobbyists unlike most locally bred fish..

Naturally I then tend to use and support the shops which support the local breeders with all the 101 other things you need for the hobby..

 

In the UK we also had bad shops.. but people named and shame, and more importantly, supported and named the good shops.

Also, we sold fish to eachothers, and bought plants from eachother, so the shops did not need to just compete between themselves, but also with the hobbyists.

Let's say I had a scape that used 50 ember tetras.. After the scape I would sell the fish and taken the scape down, sell all plants, etc.. or sell what I did not reuse..

To futher my point, we also had evenings of pizza and scaping at a shop, so that the public could say to the shop owner what we wanted to buy.
After a certain time the shop doors would be closed, and just the members of that group would be there, with the workers, the owners, and we would chat and explain our motivations, so that the owner could buy accordingly.

All of that can happen here. But people needs to start speaking up.

 

Hi Trevor and Luis,

You make some very valid points here.

Firstly, why don't we start a thread about which petshops DO buy and sell fishes bred by local breeders. By making this information public, I don't mean that we then all swamp them with our fishes, but that this serves as an advertisement for the persons reading this on APSA. They can then go there and buy these fishes, get healthier fishes, support the petshops and also thereby support local breeders.

Then Luis, your idea that we buy fishes and plants from each other, or just simply exchange them, is also an excellent idea. We have discussed holding an aquarium expo next year, but perhaps we should first plan a get together, at which we bring along fishes and plants, which we can then exchange or sell. If each one brings along his plants in separate plastic bags that are inflated and labelled with names and prices, then this could really become an interesting market. I am sure that we can organize a venue somewhere in Cape Town where we can meet.

Your idea of meeting in a pet shop is good, but are we going to find a LFS owner that is going to want to accommodate us after hours? I am not so sure.

I am going to investigate if we can find a venue in CT which will not be ridiculously expensive. However, I first want to finish the conference that I am organizing before I even think of this. My conference ends on 17 January and then we can see how we can perhaps organize this.

As you say, we need to speak up!

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks.. In London we had a monthly meeting, a few hours, fish and plants exchanged, issues discussed, it was good.

The LFS owner realised that if they catered to the market, at least once a month, showed the latest products, scapes, new plants, people would actually come to the shop at least once a week to buy plants and fish.

I have done many times transactions at the shop, bought or sold plants, to forum members or to the shop itself.

We need to meet up and start the ball rolling.