Should lfs quarantine fish

[Emarley]

Hello fellow reefers,

Not posted in a while so hello to all the R2R community.
Back to the question, I've been going into my lfs for a few years now, get on well with the owner, spent a lot of money in this shop over the years.
Ordered a fish last Tuesday, a snowflake eel, got a phone call Wednesday afternoon saying fish is coming into store in the morning so need to come collect it straight away, no quarantine from the store, just leaving the fish how they received it for me to collect.
This rang alarm bells with me, I at least expect my lfs to quarantine said fish, check overall health, check its feeding etc.
I made my excuses of why I couldn't pick up said fish that day to get abuse down the phone.
I know my views on this shop from now on, what are yours?
Should shops quarantine fish?

Emarley

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

They might sell hundreds of fish per week, imagine all the QT tanks they would need, the extra staff, extra supplies?

It’s an extra service they might provide if they choose to and charge for it, but it’s not reasonable that every LFS can have the resources to do that, especially the mom and pop shops.

 

[Emarley]

They might sell hundreds of fish per week, imagine all the QT tanks they would need, the extra staff, extra supplies?

It’s an extra service they might provide if they choose to and charge for it, but it’s not reasonable that every LFS can have the resources to do that, especially the mom and pop shops.

Probably didn't word it correctly in my opening post, this is a marine only shop, they have only maybe 20 fish for sale at any one time, plus they are charging me double the price I could get it from larger shops, I go there to support local small business, I won't be doing again

 

[Spare time]

Most customers don't care (or are ignorant) and are impatient

 

[jabberwock]

Hello fellow reefers,

Not posted in a while so hello to all the R2R community.
Back to the question, I've been going into my lfs for a few years now, get on well with the owner, spent a lot of money in this shop over the years.
Ordered a fish last Tuesday, a snowflake eel, got a phone call Wednesday afternoon saying fish is coming into store in the morning so need to come collect it straight away, no quarantine from the store, just leaving the fish how they received it for me to collect.
This rang alarm bells with me, I at least expect my lfs to quarantine said fish, check overall health, check its feeding etc.
I made my excuses of why I couldn't pick up said fish that day to get abuse down the phone.
I know my views on this shop from now on, what are yours?
Should shops quarantine fish?

Emarley

Nope

 

[Lowell Lemon]

It depends on the livestock supplier _our lfs shop uses. TMC is one of the big fish wholesale outfits in Britain. Since medications are not allowed in several countries without a veterinarian prescription the local shops may not be able to treat anyway. So the wholesale company may have been holding the fish for weeks and your shop just drove down and picked it up or it was avery short flight to their door.

Without knowing how the supply chain works in your location you might be jumping to some rather large conclusions. Maybe give them the benefit of the doubt and investigate how their supply chain works first TMC had a very good reputation in the past for livestock and their holding systems.

Just food for thought.

 

[Bj’s Reef]

I don’t think they should be responsible for quarantining the fish. We should all have our own simple setups at home. Which gives you more control on what medication foods etc that are used. You also learn a lot when you do it yourself.

 

[coelacanth]

Probably didn't word it correctly in my opening post, this is a marine only shop, they have only maybe 20 fish for sale at any one time, plus they are charging me double the price I could get it from larger shops, I go there to support local small business, I won't be doing again

I work at a fish store and we have qt systems, but honestly we just trust our wholesalers. We trust some more than others but we typically don't get bad fish and when we do we don't even put them out. We also dip all of our fish in methylene blue and prazipro before putting them out for sale. Also snowflake eels are typically hardy. I know this doesn't mean they do the same things we do or trust/have as good as wholesalers as we have, but for small stores qt all fish can be hard especially when they can only put out 20 or so fish.

 

[dakoop]

No, they should not be responsible for qt

 

[BristleWormHater]

Just do it yourself. It is better in every way to to it yourself, you can observe, and medicate, and make sure it's done right.

 

[Tamberav]

Hello fellow reefers,

Not posted in a while so hello to all the R2R community.
Back to the question, I've been going into my lfs for a few years now, get on well with the owner, spent a lot of money in this shop over the years.
Ordered a fish last Tuesday, a snowflake eel, got a phone call Wednesday afternoon saying fish is coming into store in the morning so need to come collect it straight away, no quarantine from the store, just leaving the fish how they received it for me to collect.
This rang alarm bells with me, I at least expect my lfs to quarantine said fish, check overall health, check its feeding etc.
I made my excuses of why I couldn't pick up said fish that day to get abuse down the phone.
I know my views on this shop from now on, what are yours?
Should shops quarantine fish?

Emarley

There are two in Milwaukee that quarantine fish and do a good job of it. The whole 30 days in therapeutic copper and all.

Whether your lfs should hold the fish for you depends on their policy for special orders and the agreement you made.

Quarantined fish cost about double usually.

 

[vividwrasse]

I think OP may have used incorrect terminology. I do not think OP wants the store to do a proper quarantine protocol. I think what they are asking is “should the LFS receive and monitor the fish for a period of time.” Personally, I think it is reasonable to expect a LFS to receive and acclimate a fish. I would not buy a fish from a LFS that expected me to immediately receive any livestock still in the wholesaler’s packaging.

 

[VintageReefer]

I think OP may have used incorrect terminology. I do not think OP wants the store to do a proper quarantine protocol. I think what they are asking is “should the LFS receive and monitor the fish for a period of time.” Personally, I think it is reasonable to expect a LFS to receive and acclimate a fish. I would not buy a fish from a LFS that expected me to immediately receive any livestock still in the wholesaler’s packaging.

I agree completely. I fell for this at my lfs.

Wanted a Tomini tang, they ordered, I waited weeks, then they called and said one was acquired and arriving in the morning. They wanted me to pickup straight from the bag it was coming in. Right off the plane, to a car; to the store, to me. They said it would be too stressful to acclimate to their tank and then to my tank in one day, and if I didn’t follow their protocol I wouldn’t get the7 day guarantee. I told them I wanted to se it in a tank and they said if they put it in a tank it’s fair game to sell to someone else. Even though I ordered it…

I accepted their terms and couldn’t see the fish clearly in the double bag when I went to pick it up. Got home and immediately noticed marks on it in acclimation bucket. Sent pics to the owner, a marine biologist, he said it was “marks from netting” and would heal up.

Well 1day later the tang is acting very strange and pacing left and right at the surface, and by that night, dead

They should at least accept delivery, and ensure the animal is healthy and acceptable for sale.

I’ll never do this again. When they ordered the replacement they agreed to keep in their system for a week to ensure health and I was able to view in person before buying. No issues with that one

 

[danreef55]

As a former wholesaler and hobbyist I will give you an opinion for whatever it is worth. If this was a direct import it would be totally unacceptable practice. If the fish was special order for me AND it was sourced within the USA. I would prefer to inspect the fish and bag contents as soon as it arrived at the retailer. You can tell a great deal based upon the observations of the fish, it's behavior and the clarity of the water. If everything appears fine, I will take the fish and quarantine it myself provided there was a guarantee. There is no reason to risk the fish going into yet another potentially infectious environment. when back at home I would measure the PH of the water in the bag which is another good indication of how long it has been in transit. The lower the PH the more time it was in the bag. A quick check of salinity to assure there isnt a large variation. If salinity is within an acceptable range I would NOT drip acclimate. I drop the PH in the quarantine tank to match the bag. The PH is lowered using CO2 and a PH probe. The larger the variation in PH the longer it takes to acclimate. Bear in mind you are removing the fish from a somewhat toxic environment and putting it into an optimal one. The PH is then slowly increased by reducing the amount of CO2 being applied.

P.S. I forgot the temperature if there is a large disparity OPEN the bag before floating it in the quarantine tank.

We brought in many thousands of fish as direct importers, and this is a fail-safe method IF you administer the CO2 correctly. Practice this method BEFORE doing it with a fish. It does take a bit of tweaking the flow.

Take what you like and leave the rest.
Be well and happy reefing.

 

[Duane family]

The answer is yes and no.
I used to own an marine fish only, livestock and supplies store and what I found is that quarantining all livestock is a bad business practice. You will loose money this way guaranteed, however I do believe that quarantining livestock is the responsible thing to do.

What I decided at the end of the day was to only dip the regular low value fish before holding tank but any fish which was above the value of say a purple tang would get a full quarantine treatment. This way I served both the regular fish trade market as well as the higher end buyers who knew that when they bought an achilles tang from me it was healthy and fat and disease free. As a deviation from this rule I would always quarantine all powder blue tangs, goldrim tangs and moorish idols, grey belly regals despite their cost and market price being low.

As an edit: I should add that the fish were marketed as not quarantined or quarantined so that the customer knew what they were receiving. And we would naturally charge a little more than market value for the quarantined examples.

 

[vividwrasse]

As a former wholesaler and hobbyist I will give you an opinion for whatever it is worth. If this was a direct import it would be totally unacceptable practice. If the fish was special order for me AND it was sourced within the USA. I would prefer to inspect the fish and bag contents as soon as it arrived at the retailer. You can tell a great deal based upon the observations of the fish, it's behavior and the clarity of the water. If everything appears fine, I will take the fish and quarantine it myself provided there was a guarantee. There is no reason to risk the fish going into yet another potentially infectious environment.

This is a fair point about potentially exposing the specimen to additional disease in the LFS system, and I would agree with you that if there were a guarantee (and the fish came from a domestic wholesaler) the more prudent thing may be to just take the fish directly home. However, at least all of the LFS around me, do not offer any sort of guarantee once livestock leaves their premise.

 

[MnFish1]

Hello fellow reefers,

Not posted in a while so hello to all the R2R community.
Back to the question, I've been going into my lfs for a few years now, get on well with the owner, spent a lot of money in this shop over the years.
Ordered a fish last Tuesday, a snowflake eel, got a phone call Wednesday afternoon saying fish is coming into store in the morning so need to come collect it straight away, no quarantine from the store, just leaving the fish how they received it for me to collect.
This rang alarm bells with me, I at least expect my lfs to quarantine said fish, check overall health, check its feeding etc.
I made my excuses of why I couldn't pick up said fish that day to get abuse down the phone.
I know my views on this shop from now on, what are yours?
Should shops quarantine fish?

Emarley

Many stores will keep fish for owners if the customer pays for the fish. If the fish dies before being picked up, the money is normally refunded. Since you have a long-standing relationship with the owner, and you 'ordered the fish', IMHO, it's unreasonable for you to expect them to QT the fish. It is fairly standard, if a customer orders a specific fish, when it comes in, the LFS transfers it directly to the customer. Usually, this SHOULD result in a much cheaper fish for the customer. IMHO, the shop is behaving 'normally'. You may be expecting too much?