LPS "hopping" leaves me sad and annoyed

Hi guys,

I'm writing this thread not to discredit anyone or spread further animosity towards the average LPS.
I write this purely as a concerned and unhappy fishkeeper.
The day off allowed me some time to go LPS hopping. As most of us enjoy just having a look at what the LPS's have on offer, and every now and again you are lucky enough to see something interesting or worthwhile.
Unfortunately, this trip left me disgusted and utterly disappointed.
As a discus enthusiast my focus mainly sits with what shops have available in their Discus tanks. By now I have become accustomed to the rubbish these guys mostly have, (I will not apologise for my opinion) but this time it really went too far!
Almost ALL the shops I went to had a tankfull of 5c piece size Discus, all of them withering and dying in numbers! This truly blows my mind. I would put these poor discus at no more than 8 weeks of age, an age where they should still be recieving carefull treatment and lots of care!
Instead they are carted halfway around the world, spending upwards of 48hrs in a small amount of water, no food, and then dropped into a wholesalers tank for a short time. Again, stressed out, more time pass without these guys eating, and just as they MIGHT (A BIG "MIGHT") start thinking of relaxing, the are bagged again and carted of to a LPS, where again, while stressed they will not consume any food! They start dying in numbers. (all these tanks had in excess of 50 of these with many dead on the tank bottom)
FACT- (i'm sure @Dirk Bellstedt will agree with this) IF any of these poor things survive, the whole ordeal which has probably left them without food for >7 days WILL result in the lucky few that might survive being stunted and problematic for their entire lives. I just cant see them recovering.

This is an absolute crime by breeder, wholesaler and LPS to support this practice. These poor things should not be bought by the wholesalers in an attempt to force breeders to accept accountability for these fish until they have reached the proper size!

Its a damn shame that humanity will always bend and break nature for the sake of the $. These things leave me ashamed to be human.

Thanks for reading my rant

Marco

 

Yip agreed, have seen it time and again, however the up side of our fresh water tropicals is at least they are captive bred for the trade, for the most part, unlike the hugely booming marine business, where destruction in the wild is rife !

 

Hi Marco, I have seen what you have described but I have to also share something remarkable I have seen at an LFS. I would never say that the conditions at this particular LFS is optimal but they really do seem to care about what they have in store. The attatched pic was taken 5 days ago. I was debating posting this pic since I didnt want to seem that I was promoting any LFS, but I do believe this is something special. The 2 discus in the tank are not the prettiest I have seen but they do seem healthy and are obvioulsy well enough to spawn and lay eggs. The fish are 7-8cm and in the +/- 10 minutes I stood watching them, they never had stress bars and were quite happy to be in the front of the tank. They never tried to hide or showed any erratic behaviour.

 

@Marco... I share you feelings exactly. I know I will not be getting Discus (when I do make the plunge) from any LPS for this exact reason!

I can actually mention a few LPS just off the top of my head that do not stock Discus purely for this reason! (Hat's off to them)

Oh, and I can tip my hat to @Jungle Aquatics too... everytime I've been to their store the discus they sell are usually bigger than 8cm.

 

@Zoom,
I second you on that! If importers import a load of crap, the LPS should just not buy it! Period! Thats the only way habits in the trade will get altered.

@jedigenie,
That specific Discus is from a strain from which the stress bars has been bred 'out'...so they cant show them! Lol. But I get what you are saying. At most LpS you find the Discus hiding away and the excuse is normally 'we just got them, they are still adjusting to the tank...go back two weeks later and they look the same, or worse, you question the staff and what do they say ..."we just got them they are still adjusting to the tank"
Bloody laughable!

 

Just had the same conversation with an LPS last week, they had four medium sized new arrivals, quite nice conditon but hugely stressed as usual, that were cowering in the very top back corner of the tank and fighting the current of a high volume internal filter that was blasting them from the side. The tank had anothing in it just silica substrate. I got them to turn the filter down and to plant several thickets of vallis, hope they settled down after that...

 

I think part of the problem is that the LFS will often have a list of fish they want, and will just get those delivered, without having ever seen the fish at the wholesalers? Just makes the matter worse, and I would guess that the LFS has no come back should the wholeseller pass on fish that are too small?

And as you have already pointed out, a lot of this can be avoided by the breeder not releasing fish before they are ready! But again, simple economics comes into play... The longer the breeder has to keep them, the more he has to spend raising them, and the higher his price, the wholesellers price, and finally the LFS price become. This is partly why I avoid certain fish from the likes of these, and would rather buy from a local breeder. Obviously this is not always a possibilty, so to a degree there will always be some 'reliance' on the wholeseller/LFS chain.

But let us remember that not all LFS's, Wholesellers and Commercial Breeders are this irresponsible, and when you do manage to find a good one, they tend to get the repeat customers.

Cheers
G!

 

Just my 2c

I run a small aquatic outlet here in Somerset West and had an order for discus by a client. So i ordered a couple of extra so my client had a better selection and before i knew it, the discus bug had bitten me. With the help and advice of Prof Dirk, my 'shop'discus are getting the proper care. And on all my discus tanks there are now huge NOT FOR SALE stickers. I will NOT sell a discus( or any fish at that) unless i know exactly what system the fish is going into. I too have browsed other LFS in the area and seen discus for sale not under the best condition and can understand why there are so many discus that are stunted. I see these fish offered on gumtree from time to time.

As for wholesalers, I get my stock from 2 sources and BOTH have allowed me to bring a client in to view and self select fish as long as I am present and no prices are discussed ( obviously ).

In an ideal world wouldnt it be great to trade in all fish that were locally bred by hobbyists??

Btw, if a customer steps into my outlet, he/she must first fill in a questionaire stating tank size, fish kept, filtration etcetc. No fill in of form = no go thru to my pHish room.

Andrew

 

hehe, bit extreme, but you go boy!

 

Phish_man I will support just because of your care.