Disease outbreaks in LFS, calling experts w/ LFS Experience

[avandss]

i purchase fish from the LFS .chris. works at, it is very clean and i very rarely see disease in his tanks. again it WILL 100% mask most diseases, but they usually flush the entire system with FW and copper before receiving a new batch (to be confirmed by him)

now compared to every other lfs in town... they have the cleanest ones with a highest chance of survival

last batch of fish i got from his store had ich in my QT tanks and flukes.

not velvet, brook or anything nasty

as much as i want to agree with dosing copper, you are passing your problems down to your clients, and if they do not have a good qt protocol, it could hurt you in the long run if your system is not clean to begin with. if my fish showed signs of velvet of brook after a few times of purchasing from a lfs, i usually ban them from my list, and being a small community it can hurt your business as i would definitely tell other local reefers to avoid that lfs

Both. I bought some inventory off of another store and picked up many of their orphaned customers but I am an independent and separate business.



If you don't mind me asking, when you say "haven't had a problem with velvet or ich in over a year" do you mean you have literally 0 problems with ich or velvet or that it has decreased its victim percentage by say...70%?

If you also don't mind me asking, on an average day how many fish will you typically lose for one reason or another out of the total average you have on hand at a given time?



Another thing I am curious about and wondering if anyone can give insight is why does saltwater ich, velvet, brook, and other parasites seem to take a better hold than freshwater ones? On an average day we lose 5-10 feeder guppies/minnows/goldfish but no other freshwater fish. However, our saltwater fish seem to be dropping daily (especially the last week). Wouldn't parasites be just as deadly in freshwater systems as saltwater? I haven't even noticed a single incidence of ich's trademark salt on a freshwater fish in two months, yet on half the marine fish it is visible.

Thank you everyone for the advice.

 

[snorvich]

as much as i want to agree with dosing copper, you are passing your problems down to your clients, and if they do not have a good qt protocol, it could hurt you in the long run if your system is not clean to begin with. if my fish showed signs of velvet of brook after a few times of purchasing from a lfs, i usually ban them from my list, and being a small community it can hurt your business as i would definitely tell other local reefers to avoid that lfs

That was why I did not support the copper suggestion. While it does mask the problem at the LFS, it always reappears for the end user.

 

[JackandJill]

if my fish showed signs of velvet of brook after a few times of purchasing from a lfs, i usually ban them from my list, and being a small community it can hurt your business as i would definitely tell other local reefers to avoid that lfs

Is there really any point in "banning" that LFS? Its not like they are going to have MORE brook in their system than any other LFS unless they just have a larger amount of fish coming through potentially. It's not like they are just so good they don't have brook, or ich, etc.


And correct me if I'm wrong but I would imagine as a customer you would be more likely to not revisit a store that had multiple fish clearly diseased than one that "looked" clean. Considering most LFS business is not advanced hobbysts but rather entry level, the concept of medicating, copper, parasite lifecycle, and masking diseases is not on the main customer's mind at all. They are more likely to notice the little white spots that everyone says are bad and spread the word that multiple fish are infected at that store.

That was why I did not support the copper suggestion. While it does mask the problem at the LFS, it always reappears for the end user.

I started my store with the intention of not dosing copper and maintaining water quality and feeding well with a variety of food to keep the fish's slime coat as protective as possible. However, after losing $200 of fish (cost) yesterday and ~$200 again today I am somewhat desperate as I cannot operate on a 3% margin (including deaths).

 

[gone fishin]

Is there really any point in "banning" that LFS? Its not like they are going to have MORE brook in their system than any other LFS unless they just have a larger amount of fish coming through potentially. It's not like they are just so good they don't have brook, or ich, etc.

I would and have stopped going to businesses because of this. If I buy livestock that are continuously diseased or die from a particular LFS I will not spend my dollars their. Their are a few in my area that meet this criteria. I wish you good luck in your endeavors.

 

[avandss]

I would and have stopped going to businesses because of this. If I buy livestock that are continuously diseased or die from a particular LFS I will not spend my dollars their. Their are a few in my area that meet this criteria. I wish you good luck in your endeavors.

exactly!

 

[avandss]

i realize you own a lfs, however as i said (burned multiple times, not once...multiple times) you would be crazy to go back. first of all i do not like losing fish. second waste of money medication time and stress.

i am not in the business of giving my LFS multiple chances, its not a friend. i pay for fish. i expect good livestock.

and it is doable, when i buy fish from .chris. even if he runs low levels of copper i never got anything nasty (my buddy either and has been buying from them for over 1 year)

and other lfs that look clean, i always get a fish with a nasty disease.... and i am not the only one.

so yes i 100% ban anyone that can not provide me with good livestock, especially when it is doable.

Is there really any point in "banning" that LFS? Its not like they are going to have MORE brook in their system than any other LFS unless they just have a larger amount of fish coming through potentially. It's not like they are just so good they don't have brook, or ich, etc.


And correct me if I'm wrong but I would imagine as a customer you would be more likely to not revisit a store that had multiple fish clearly diseased than one that "looked" clean. Considering most LFS business is not advanced hobbysts but rather entry level, the concept of medicating, copper, parasite lifecycle, and masking diseases is not on the main customer's mind at all. They are more likely to notice the little white spots that everyone says are bad and spread the word that multiple fish are infected at that store.



I started my store with the intention of not dosing copper and maintaining water quality and feeding well with a variety of food to keep the fish's slime coat as protective as possible. However, after losing $200 of fish (cost) yesterday and ~$200 again today I am somewhat desperate as I cannot operate on a 3% margin (including deaths).

 

[.Chris.]

Both. I bought some inventory off of another store and picked up many of their orphaned customers but I am an independent and separate business.



If you don't mind me asking, when you say "haven't had a problem with velvet or ich in over a year" do you mean you have literally 0 problems with ich or velvet or that it has decreased its victim percentage by say...70%?

If you also don't mind me asking, on an average day how many fish will you typically lose for one reason or another out of the total average you have on hand at a given time?

Another thing I am curious about and wondering if anyone can give insight is why does saltwater ich, velvet, brook, and other parasites seem to take a better hold than freshwater ones? On an average day we lose 5-10 feeder guppies/minnows/goldfish but no other freshwater fish. However, our saltwater fish seem to be dropping daily (especially the last week). Wouldn't parasites be just as deadly in freshwater systems as saltwater? I haven't even noticed a single incidence of ich's trademark salt on a freshwater fish in two months, yet on half the marine fish it is visible.

Thank you everyone for the advice.

I mean I have literally not had a single case of velvet or brook since we have begun dosing copper. Only ich and flukes, and only rarely. Although I'm not sure why we even have ich, as we dose high enough for it to be killed by the copper. Flukes is a bit trickier, but we try to keep up with them by using praziquantel routinely. Unfortunately it's not a guarantee.

Obviously it depends on how many fish we have in the store (we're quite large, so we can have fluctuating levels of stock), but I'd say our mortality is 10%, across an entire order, excluding DOA. i.e. if we received 110 fish on an order, lose 10 on arival, we'll lose a total of ten more before we sell every fish from that order. We usually sell 75% of an order within a couple weeks, and the last 25% will hold on for a couple months.

 

[.Chris.]

i purchase fish from the LFS .chris. works at, it is very clean and i very rarely see disease in his tanks. again it WILL 100% mask most diseases, but they usually flush the entire system with FW and copper before receiving a new batch (to be confirmed by him)

now compared to every other lfs in town... they have the cleanest ones with a highest chance of survival

last batch of fish i got from his store had ich in my QT tanks and flukes.

not velvet, brook or anything nasty

as much as i want to agree with dosing copper, you are passing your problems down to your clients, and if they do not have a good qt protocol, it could hurt you in the long run if your system is not clean to begin with. if my fish showed signs of velvet of brook after a few times of purchasing from a lfs, i usually ban them from my list, and being a small community it can hurt your business as i would definitely tell other local reefers to avoid that lfs

avandss and I have had this discussion several times. From a business perspective, we try to keep our fish alive long enough to get them out the door, but we try to keep them as healthy as possible.

Again, at the levels we dose, we shouldn't have issues with ich, but avandss has personally reported that he had ich after buying fish from us. Although thinking about it further, we did do a transfer from a non-copper system to the main copper system. Perhaps they didn't sit long enough in the copper to kill it.

That was why I did not support the copper suggestion. While it does mask the problem at the LFS, it always reappears for the end user.

What would you propose as an alternative? Disease is a daily reality of an LFS, and with new orders weekly in a lot of cases, from all around the world, with no possible way of knowing how clean the fish are coming in, there's no good way to handle this. Proper QT protocols are, as you stated, financially infeasible.

Copper is the best solution, if dosed at appropriate levels and checked vigorously.

 

[pktech]

avandss and I have had this discussion several times. From a business perspective, we try to keep our fish alive long enough to get them out the door, but we try to keep them as healthy as possible.

Again, at the levels we dose, we shouldn't have issues with ich, but avandss has personally reported that he had ich after buying fish from us. Although thinking about it further, we did do a transfer from a non-copper system to the main copper system. Perhaps they didn't sit long enough in the copper to kill it.




What would you propose as an alternative? Disease is a daily reality of an LFS, and with new orders weekly in a lot of cases, from all around the world, with no possible way of knowing how clean the fish are coming in, there's no good way to handle this. Proper QT protocols are, as you stated, financially infeasible.

Copper is the best solution, if dosed at appropriate levels and checked vigorously.

So what would you guys suggest he do? I guess it would be too late to switch wholesalers right now.
Jack - do you have another shipment coming in? Can you load up on the freshwater side & ease off the sw side until you've handled the problem?

Chris & Avandss - I agree that I'd be hesitant to buy more fish from a store that simply didn't care. There are some stores near me that basically tell me sorry it died. But there are others who'll extend me credit & do their best to keep me coming back, I think this is where customer service is critical. When you told Chris about the ich & flukes, what did he do to keep your business? I can't imagine you were a happy dude.

Is it really one & done with who you do business with?

 

[JackandJill]

So what would you guys suggest he do? I guess it would be too late to switch wholesalers right now.
Jack - do you have another shipment coming in? Can you load up on the freshwater side & ease off the sw side until you've handled the problem?

What I am going to do, it seems, is dose copper on one of my systems and keep most of my fish in that system. The other system will not dose copper and instead utilize a large UV Sterilizer to help combat outbreaks and use this system for copper sensitive fish.

The wholesaler is not the problem, just as if a hobbyist receives ich it is not the LFS fault. These fish come from the ocean and as such there is going to be a percentage infected no matter what wholesaler or retailer you go through.

 

[avandss]

its not "pick one lfs and stick to it" however if i get the random disease from my lfs its fine, its part of the game, i understand that

since i know it is possible to have good livestock, and if i get "bad" livestock time after time from the same place and i get excuses like "well its not the lfs fault time after time" i would have to be crazy to ever step foot in that lfs again

it is a niche market, its simple, if you can not give that personal touch, service, positive attitude, good clean livestock clients will not buy from you

and right away saying disease happens its not my fault, i would not give them my business when so many other lfs have faith in the fish they sell and some are more than willing to credit or at least take every precaution to try to have the cleanest lfs and take the time to discuss everything with you

when i told .chris. i got ich his answer was not, its not my fault! first thing he did was try to figure out how it happened based on the protocols he has in his store, and then tried to help my right away and i am sure if i got a batch of fish that died of brook his answer would not be "thats not my fault"

i am not in the US, but everything i read about liveaquaria is positive, the quality of livestock they sell seems very good and they give a 14 guarantee on top of it! so it is possible to have quality livestock and they all come from the same source

So what would you guys suggest he do? I guess it would be too late to switch wholesalers right now.
Jack - do you have another shipment coming in? Can you load up on the freshwater side & ease off the sw side until you've handled the problem?

Chris & Avandss - I agree that I'd be hesitant to buy more fish from a store that simply didn't care. There are some stores near me that basically tell me sorry it died. But there are others who'll extend me credit & do their best to keep me coming back, I think this is where customer service is critical. When you told Chris about the ich & flukes, what did he do to keep your business? I can't imagine you were a happy dude.

Is it really one & done with who you do business with?