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Save these fish.

16K views 55 replies 29 participants last post by  dvanbramer88 
#1 ·
It broke my heart as soon as I walked in.




After buying some shoes at the local shoe store, I walked next-door to the local petco. (I never buy my stuff at petco, but I just wanted to check out the fish stuff they got there.) I walked into the store and I headed towards the fish section.

I started looking at the filters, heaters, and other cool little gadgets. After that, I made my way to the aquariums where they sold their fish.

When I got there, my heart sank. Almost every tank there was diseased. I saw everything from velvet, to NTD; from glo-fish having bend spines due to mal-nutrition, to fin and tail rot. I saw silver dollars with no fins and tails what-so-ever; I saw platies missing fins entirely; a dead, diseased, and decomposing fish in every-other tank; gourami's with no antennas.

It broke my heart to see so many fish in such a bad place. Fish were misplaced, and some were labeled wrong.




Now, I would like to explain something that happened to me about two years ago...

Two years ago, I was still relativly new to the aquarium hobby. I quickly learned to love it. I only had a 30 gallon tank at the time. (now, its a lot more *n1) I recently lost a female guppy. Thinking not much of it, I went to petco and bought a female guppy. When I took her home, I noticed her behavior. After about two hours, I saw visible signs of velvet. Inorder to save the rest of my fish, I took her out, and isolated her. Within only a few days, all of my fish have developed the disease. I lost every one of them.




From that moment on, I boycotted petco and all other petcos. It angers me to go in there again after two years and see the fish in even worse condition than two years prior. I feel saddened by the fish, but I feel like there is nothing I can do. I feel like I want to take all of them, fix them up, and give them happy, loving homes; but it is out of my reach...








Save these fish.
 
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#2 ·
Yes it is a sad situation to see this and I have personally been escorted from stores for complaining about their fish treatment. There is not much that can be done but to refuse to purchase from such a store. If you refuse to purchase any equipment or supplies from them and any fish, as much as you may want to help them, the fish store will eventually not be in business and putting more fish in jeopardy. This seems against human nature, you want to do the opposite and go in and buy all those fish and save them but the truth is they will replace them with others who will be treated just as badly. The next best thing is to contact the corporate headquarters with pictures you have taken with your cellphone and send them the store number and name of the manager. It may not do a lot of good but also post the name of the store and manager's name on a place where it will be seen locally like at a local fish club and show copies of the pictures. Fish hobbyists will avoid going there.

It may not seem like much but this is about all you can do.

Rose
 
#5 ·
thats why my dad and i both refuse to go to petco for livestock. the problem is, they hire teenagers looking for a job that have no clue about how to keep fish and many other pets. one time, a girl at my local petco accidentally overflowed half of all the tanks and killed alot of fish just doing a water change!*n1
 
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#39 ·
Haha!!!*r2*r2*r2 The people at DEATHCO are so stupid (sorry about the fish tho*frown) Once there was this really big guy there who would not let me get 3 tetras, he said only 2 or ALLLLL my fish would die (I was starting my first school) I called him a lazy pain in the u know what under my breath because he was too lazy.
 
#6 ·
yeah, the only place I go to is a 10,000 square foot fish store. All they sell is fish and aquarium stuff. The place is massive, it even has a small koi pond in it. The people who work there are extreamly avid aquarists. Its the only place I go to for all of my aquarium stuff.
 
#12 ·
im guessing that place is Aquarium Adventure. If so, i say they are pretty good with the livestock, but prices are sky-high!

and yes i think a group chat about fish mistreatment in pet stores is a great idea!:)
 
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#7 ·
It makes me absolutely sick to see how the fish are treated in chain stores. Last time I went in to a PetCo to buy salt and replacement filter media, I started thinking about how this could actually be stopped. The mistreatment of fish in these stores is flat out animal cruelty. Most of the problems result from poor water quality, which is overall an easy fix. Fish come in very sick and stressed out and then are dumped right into a tank with little acclimation time. There is never any quarantine treatment; occasionally you'll see a sign on a tank that says, "Fish Under Observation," and those are the fish with so much Ich that you can't even tell what color they're supposed to be. I think what needs to be done can only be solved by laws/legislation. I personally think we should all do some research and find out who our Senators are in our respective districts that might have a history of involvement in animal rights issues, and collectively draft a letter that any one of us could send to these Senators. There are rules and regulations regarding how you can treat dogs and cats in a pet store; there is absolutely nothing that makes a fish any different. We need mandatory 10-day quarantine procedures, water quality parameter guidelines, and people who are assigned to come into these pet stores randomly and check to see if the stores are abiding by the rules. Just for a start.
If you would all be interested, I would be more than happy to write a first draft of this type of letter so we can all try to get it out there. What do you all think?
 
#8 ·
ladyonyx, i am 100% in agreeance with you. We should ask the admins and moderators, such as JIM, if we could have a night called "Save these fish night" or something like that. (i know it sounds cheesy.) It could be a massive gathering in the chatroom and we can discuss our thoughts about it, and how we can start to find a conclusion to this problem.
 
#9 ·
I found one of our local petcos in the same kind of condition once. I took pictures, then went online to their corporate headquarters posted a very detailed complaint. But also stated how the manager lacked abilities to manage the store if he was able to let his employees let the tanks get in that condition. Guess what. They fired the manager 2 weeks later for that reason. The store is now and has been for the last 2 years is kept up and the tanks are clean and the fish are healthy.
 
#10 ·
I'm glad you at least got one PetCo cleaned up susankat.
Having a "Save These Fish" night sounds like it would be a good start, so we can at least get a bunch of peoples' thoughts and ideas together on paper and go from there. Not to sound dumb, but I've never contacted an admin or moderator for anything; how do we go about doing that?
 
#11 ·
This is what I sent to JIM:

Hi JIM,

My name is Alex Rose (ladyonyx) and a few of us would like to have a group chat night to discuss fish care in pet store chains. We're all appalled by the conditions in which many fish are kept in these pet stores and would like to have an open discussion one evening to try to find a solution to the problem. In my opinion, the way to solve this major animal rights problem is to write a generic letter that anyone can use, presenting our issues with fish mistreatment in chain pet stores as well as some valid solutions to the problem, and to then contact Senators in our respective areas about this issue. By having a discussion night, we could put everyone's ideas and suggestions togther to draft a cohesive letter that could be sent to any Senator and hopefully make an impact, or at least draw some much-needed attention to this problem.

Thanks for reading. Please advise.

Sincerely,
Alex Rose
 
#13 ·
A chat time is great to discus these things, but this is something that you have to be very careful with as it could bring about the past bill resurfacing again with the exact laws taking place and we could all loose our rights to buy imported fish. Let alone a bill like this can close most fish stores and it won't hurt places like petco or petsmart as their biggest sales are in the drygoods area, having fish is basically just a perk for the customers to come in.

Its just like a conv. store like Shell, Mobile, BP and such, there sales are mainly inside sales and the gas is just an incentive to get people in. They will only make like 3 to 10 cents per gal of gas, and like a fountain drink, they pay at the most 10 cents a cup and look what the customer pays.

Places like petco pay very little for livestock and they have basically a high mark up, but the profit margin on the whole is very low.

The best thing to do in these situations is to just keep writing letters to corp. offices and show your disgust in the situation. And basically its best not to name names online as that can lead to lawsuits on the forums and such.
 
#14 ·
I completely agree with you susankat, and we certainly don't want to be losing our ability to keep fish. I think a letter like the one I am suggesting writing would be a bit different than a lot of peoples' complaints though. I fully support chain pet stores selling fish, they just need to take care of their livestock. There's no reason the all pet stores can't have mandatory quarantine procedures, or educate their staff as to how to care for the livestock. It's simple things like good water quality, treating and isolating sick fish, proper diet, etc. that need to change. I think these pet stores should keep selling fish. It makes me happy that anyone can walk into a chain pet store and have the opportunity to acquire and care for fish. Keeping fish is a wonderful experience and privilege. But there need to be more regulations as far as animal care go so as to avoid animal cruelty. Perhaps this type of letter would be better sent to "Pet____" corporate first like you suggested, before considering anything too drastic.
 
#15 ·
And petlover516, I definitely like Aquarium Adventure (PetLand). I've bought a few fish from them and have been happy so far. The people are all very knowledgeable as far as I can tell and actually try to educate their customers about what they are buying and how to properly take care of it. Nice to see once in a while
 
#16 ·
The problems usually stem from management of these places. Corporate hires these managers and expects them to take care of their stores and to train the employees. When the employees fail at doing the job, I think management should be held responsible if the matter isn't straightened up. Either train them right and keep them trained or replace them. I have been in management and know how it works.

Just like my daughter works for Walmart. She works in infants but wants to work in the pet dept as she knows how to take care of fish. But they way they are set up, the fish are at one end of the store while the pet care products are at the other, so the fish dept gets ignored until someone wants help to buy a fish. I have already had 2 dept managers fired from there for that reason and am pushing to put the fish and petcare together to keep up with the fish. It has gotten so bad one of their suppliers for angel fish refuses to deliver anymore.

But the situation keeps happening and it always will as most of the general public and even societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals don't look at fish as pets. Rats, mice and such they do, but not fish.
 
#18 ·
Jim personally I would keep the forum sponsership of it out as it could lead to problems for the forum. Chat is one thing but the involvement should be kept at a personal level as much as possible. I have seen this kind of stuff almost take out some good forums because of the legality of such issues.
 
#19 ·
As the creator of this thread, I would like to bring up a few points.

1.) Petlover516, the place is called Exotic Aquatics. It is located in Parkville, MD, so if you are around the Baltimore-metro area, you should check the place out!



3.) Most importantly: Guys, we are jumping to big things first. We are talking about things as big as legislation. We must start small if we want to change something. It is best to start small, and then work our way up. The perfect way to start small is to have a "Save these fish night," in which we can have a massive congregation in the chatroom. This is vital; it will get us organized, and will provide an ideal time for sharing our thoughts about this subject.



P.S. I wrote to JIM too. :)
 
#20 ·
I completely agree with you. My father(who used to breed fish many years ago) said the the same thing when we walked in about 2 weeks ago to pick up fish food for my tank and his pond. It is a truly depressing sight, I seen in the guppy's tank about 7 dead fish stuck to the filter & tons of diseased fish as well. They really do need to take better care of the animals they have.
 
#21 ·
While it is commendable to wish to save these fish and do it with a large number of people behind you, you have to remember that it is not something that you can do with forum backing without the Administrator's permission and while he and the others running the forum may be sympathetic with, it is not wise for them to put themselves legally in a place where the forum could be put in harm's way for this. While I am sympathetic, and I HATE the actions of the people doing this, asking people to put themselves in a legal problem for this is not the right way to handle it either.

I totally agree with Susankat and say that the correct way to do this is to get your evidence together and go to the corporate offices of the store. They are the ones in control of the situation and the only ones who can change the situation. You can hold chats until the cows come home and this is not going to change things for those fish.

If you want to get things cleaned up you need to get the evidence together and make your case to the people who are in charge as they do not want to lose the money they have invested in the store. If they find out that their finances are being wasted this way they will do something about it and that is the bottom line. This is their property that is being wasted and until they are included in the issue no change will be made.

Rose
 
#22 ·
Then chickadee, what can WE do? Like I said, many are jumping to big ideas first. Susancat wrote a letter to corporate offices before and got the manager fired. :)

Susancat, can you send me a PM, or post a reply on this thread of what you EXACTLY said? I think that composing a generic copy would be a good start in the problem-solving strategy. Please susancat, you have done and succeeded in doing this before. The people on this forum, inclucing myself, would benefit greatly, but more importaly, many fish of the future will thank you for your actions. :)
 
#24 ·
Susancat, can you send me a PM, or post a reply on this thread of what you EXACTLY said? I think that composing a generic copy would be a good start in the problem-solving strategy. Please susancat, you have done and succeeded in doing this before. The people on this forum, inclucing myself, would benefit greatly, but more importaly, many fish of the future will thank you for your actions. :)
What I did was take pictures. You can either email these pictures or mail copies of them, but make sure you keep copies and records for your self.

I took pictures and dated them, at times I would do this 2 or 3 times a week for a month sometimes more. Dating the pictures each time. If I seen no change what I would do is write a letter stating how deplorable the conditions are and how I felt that the manager/or dept manager wasn't doing their job. and how the manager wasn't training their employees to do the job. I waited a week then went back, if the conditions were changing towards the better, I would let corp. know, If not they got more dated pictures and another letter. This time also telling them I would tell everyone that I know not to purchase anything from that particular store and I knew a lot of people.

I have even offered my skills to go in and train the employees in the care of the tanks and fish.

I know I have been lucky that I have managed to get a few people fired for the way they were doing. Lots of times they just don't care even if corporate comes down on them. But every once in awhile good does happen.

But to sound like a broken record, I would advise not taking this to a congressional level as it can and will shut down lots of the smaller stores, even down to the breeders who sell to the stores. They are already in the process of re writing this past bill to make it easier for actual fish keepers to get the fish they want, but if to much complaining done on how they are kept in a few in comparison to the many that do a decent job it will just make it easier for the old bill to pass. And I for one like to obtain my fish legally as opposed to black market.
 
#23 ·
I've had very good luck with the quality of the fish my closest PS carries. They are co-located with a great vet clinic who tends to the fish problems. All of the fish are looking good, with great survivability. It really does depend on the particular store and management, and what the public demands about the fish quality and care. I would hate to condemn every PS in the country. Some are good fish tenders, and some are not. When I visit their fish dept, I cheerfully help educate the newer staff. But I know our fishy friends there are well cared for. Wish all the chain stores took such interest in their livestock.
 
#26 ·
Susankat and chickadee-I also think that this forum shouldn't be involved directly on a sponsorship level. We certainly wouldn't want anything jeopardize it's existence. I suppose that decision is up to Jarred though. But I do think this is the perfect place for people to get together and talk this thing through to a point where we can write a letter. Nothing can really be done until we have a letter that succinctly states our position and past experiences with these pet stores and provides solutions to the problem.
Does everyone agree that a discussion night about this is the right way to start? We need to compile everyone's ideas somehow and I think that's a good way to do it.
 
#28 · (Edited)
I see nothing wrong with individuals sending in mail on an individual basis with proof of what they are seeing like what Susankat is talking about but if they start getting form letters from everyone saying the exact same thing they are going to ignore them. Believe me I do know from previous experience. While you may make an outline of things you want to say, to be really effective you really need to have it be in your own words or they are going to think you are a PETA group just trying to push them around and that will be that.

I have been an advocate for fish before and an activist in my own way but I do not organize and let someone else speak for me because of this. The moment corporate chains start to see chain letters they begin to think of crackpots and that just turns them away from what you are saying. This is why petitions and such do not work anymore. Unfortunately organizations like PETA and those that make such fools of themselves have made it harder for the ones who are really well meaning to get anything across to the management and chairmen of these corporations with their ridiculous tactics. Just write a heartfelt letter with proof of what you are saying and do as Susankat said keep following up and make real solution suggestions not threats so much as solutions and they will be more likely to listen.

If they get 1000 letters from different people all saying something different about the care of the fish in one store they would pay much more attention than 10000 letters all saying the exact same thing word for word about the care of fish in that same store. Why? Because it would be obvious to them that 1000 people had noticed the actual care of the fish in that store, not that 10000 people had been told what to write on a piece of paper.

All I am saying is decide what you want to include for subjects like:

Dead fish in tanks
Sick fish in tanks
Dirty tanks
Fish that look like they have not been fed in weeks
Betta cups that have dead fish in them
Algae in tanks
Fish in tanks that are not compatible to be together
Tanks overcrowded

(I am guessing here so don't quote me) and then each of you choose three of the subjects but not more and write about it. That way all of your letters will have the topics but not all of them will be alike and yet there will be a lot of complaints. You will get your points across but not like a rubber stamp.

Rose
 
#29 ·
I agree with Rose, A form letter isn't going to have an affect on anything. Not even a petition as each store will be different and will have different problems that you will see. If you want to write to corporate, go to the store that you feel you need to write about. Take notes, take pictures what ever you deem necessary. Keep dates down. First go to the store manager and complain if you want. If he or she acts like they don't care, tell them you are going to contact corporate. Don't hide the fact that is what you are going to do. Write in your own words how you feel about the conditions and also state how the manager treated the problem, like if he didn't care. got mad or agreed with you. Once in a while you will find a manager that is willing to listen and try to do something about it. Offer your services to help teach employees or even the manager in the care of his live stock. You may be mildly surprised at the effort of some of those managers.
 
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