New Fish Store need help and oppinions

badxgillen

filter maintence isnt any harder than keeping a sump when it comes to the mentioned filter types and i dont know if you noticed but 90% of the fish stores also arent up to par when it comes to livestock.and i find keeping it a few degrees warmer than most has little effect on driving customers out.on acclimation i like the drip method but when i get larger shipments in it is imposible.if you can find small, cheap, stackable,and food safe tuperwares to use for the acclimation its easier.just drill a couple of really small holes in the upper rim of the tupper wares and the water drips in or osmo regulates on its own.i do alot of sensitive inverts such as corals,anemones,and crustaceans and this works great.

zof

Filter maintenance isn't harder its the water changes and moving filters around when you empty and fill tanks with live stock is all I'm pointing out. And with neglect any system will fail and you will lose live stock, you just have more wiggle room with a sump system since you have more water volume distributed among the tanks. Say you have a tank with only 2 or 3 fish in it for some reason (low stock, aggression, etc.) and you have a tank in the system that is way overstocked (large buy of live bearers that you want to keep all in one tank) then the empty/almost empty tank will help balance your bio load plus the extra water in the sump. Of course if you don't have breeders around that keep healthy stocks then a sump system would not be ideal as you will always be fighting diseases coming from the breeder and affecting other live stock that might not be infected.

I've seen fish stores with both setups, and combination of the setups and both work fine, as long as you get a maintenance routine down and stick with it.

Also just thought of another reason I like sumps, when you take water out of the tank to bag fish the water level in the tanks wont lower as it will be the volume in the sump that is affected.

I just went by my LFS today and they had black gravel in most their tanks as badx pointed out it actually does make it look alot cleaner cause you can't see the fish poop and for ascetics as I was watching some root around in the gravel, made for an interesting watch.

1077

I like the drip acclimation and use it .This would work well in smaller shops.
Large chain store such as the Petco I mentioned,, receive large boxes (eight or more with twenty or more bags of fish per box. They are not inclined to place the number's of tubs for this method of accclimating, all about the area where tanks are located. Hence, my suggestion of adding some tank water to each bag over a period of time.

Some who ship fishes ship fish in bags with mild medication's, ammonia resins or powder's. antibiotic's etc.
By dumping two or three bags of fish into one tank as I have watched some folks at P--Co do,,they are adding much more pollutan'ts to tanks where fishes are under stress from shipping and also attempting to adapt (osmoregulate) to water's that may or may not be ideal and prolly very high in total dissolved solids.
Given the small display tanks at these stores, and large number's of fish inhabiting same,,they can turn toxic rather quickly.(bad,foul water)
I would keep fishes at lower temps to slow metabolisims down ,inhibit bacterial pathogen's that thrive in warmer tropical temps,and would feed fish maybe two or three times a week were it my shop but hey,,, that's just me. opinion's vary.

badxgillen

ahh yes i neglected to mention when doing the method with the tuperwares i use a few apropriate buckets that i have water from the tanks awaiting the livestock.it also helps to know your distributor as some may use medication on transport but most do not.in alot of the salt water fish orders we get do have copper in the sytem they are being kept in and it is of utmost importance to not let the copper into you systems containing invertebrate life.and i must say that almost all of the betta orders come in with a malachite green or methalene med in the water.dont let it in your tanks.

zof

I'd just drip into the bag they come in, remove some water from the bag, then float and secure the open bag in the lower tank and drip from the higher tank, no need for tubs then. Just need a good way to secure open bags in the lower tanks.

Mikaila31

The shops I buy from usually rely on UGF's and air driven sponge filters, though some do have a few tanks that appear to be on centralized systems. When ever I trade in fish to them they use the typical floating method for acclimating most of their fish. I am pretty sure they use more controlled methods for the more expensive and sensitive fish like FW rays and Discus. Live plants are a plus, its really not that difficult to keep the hardy varieties alive under the lighting mentioned above. They are also more inventory that you can sell and provide a place for the fish to hide.

I personally have a disliking towards bare shop tanks. I know its easier to maintain and everything. However it can be a lot more stressful for the fish. Usually this isn't a problem but in a store setting you have fish that have been shipped in and are already stressed. You acclimate them to new water then introduce them to a new tank that is bare. Eventually once they can be sold they have to deal with the stress of escaping a net and having their tankmates caught. Stressed fish will want to hide, if they feel vulnerable then they are going to stay stressed longer. The longer they stay stressed the more likely you are to wined up with sick fish. On top of that stressed fish show poor color. Its much easier to sell colorful fish that feel good about themselves then pale fish that just want to hide.

Feed your fish minimally. This is something one shop I use does maybe a little too much lol. Hungry fish are more likely to come to the front of the glass when a customer approaches. In one shop most of their fish swarm the front glass if you get within 5 feet of the tanks. They generally have very healthy and colorful stock, just really hungry. Its also probably why the tanks are so clean.

All the rack system I have seen tend to be wood this may be cheaper then the metal. As far as maintaining temperature you can either heat the tanks individually or heat the entire room. Which one depends on how many gallons you are running in how many square feet. Keeping the entire building at 76*F is cost effective for some shops if they have a lot of tanks. One of the stores I use does heat the building, they have 8,000 gallons in a pretty small building. They focus a lot more on livestock though. Its like a maze in the building with about every wall being a fish tank. It does get warm being in such a building, but its not unbearable. In summer its hardly noticeable, but in winter it can get kinda uncomfortable. This is Minnesota though, I have to dress for the 20*F outside too.

migdem

what is the best way to heat the room with 1 heater and consuming less energy? maybe aircondition set at around 24 *C?

badxgillen

yes the AC will be key to removeing humidity wich can get excesive.

migdem

but is a heater less consuming than an AC?