Misinformation on fish diseases! Help debunk it!

[snorvich]

Somewhat OT but..... Someday I will own a LFS - and I will offer QT fish for sale. However, I will also provide regular, non QT fish. The two sections will be on complete opposite sides of the store, to take into account aerosol transmission (thanks to info I've learned on this forum).

Any customer who wants to see it, I will explain/show them my exact QT procedures in the back. They can then decide whether it's worth the higher price tag... or if they'd rather just stick with "regular" fish. I think this is only way to make it work.

While I think your dream is a good one, as one who is intimately familiar with the financial models associated with an LFS, I suggest that the only way to break even on an LFS is to have a robust maintenance business. The store side of the business is a loss leader which is paid for by the maintenance side. If you want to test that, compute the breakeven point for a brick and mortar store without a maintenance business which supplies cash. The interesting side note, is that most maintenance businesses which supply fish do quarantine their fish since they charge much more and guarantee for 30 days.

 

[HumbleFish]

While I think your dream is a good one, as one who is intimately familiar with the financial models associated with an LFS, I suggest that the only way to break even on an LFS is to have a robust maintenance business. The store side of the business is a loss leader which is paid for by the maintenance side. If you want to test that, compute the breakeven point for a brick and mortar store without a maintenance business which supplies cash. The interesting side note, is that most maintenance businesses which supply fish do quarantine their fish since they charge much more and guarantee for 30 days.

Oh, I know there will have to be a maintenance side as well. I actually plan on starting it as maintenance only and then it will evolve into a LFS. This way the QT fish aspect will never be a waste of time/money... what my customers don't buy, I know my clients always will.

 

[acorral]

Somewhat OT but..... Someday I will own a LFS - and I will offer QT fish for sale. However, I will also provide regular, non QT fish. The two sections will be on complete opposite sides of the store, to take into account aerosol transmission (thanks to info I've learned on this forum).

Any customer who wants to see it, I will explain/show them my exact QT procedures in the back. They can then decide whether it's worth the higher price tag... or if they'd rather just stick with "regular" fish. I think this is only way to make it work.

Will do the same, hopefully before retirement!!!

 

[ShoniNikki]

Hello all! I'm new to this hobby and so far I love it even tho I had to recently learn the hard way on why you can't just dive in without precaution! My husband and I thought we were doing everything correctly because we were listening to the "saltwater girl" at our lfs (she does know her stuff but didn't fully advise us on some things)! First, we didn't have a QT (didn't research and weren't informed) street our tank fully cycled we were thrilled went to LFS and bought a black clown, waited a few weeks and went back and bought a few coral frags and a cute little occelaris clown, waited about 3 weeks and went back in, they told us they had a shipment coming in the following day with some awesome fish coming in, we asked them to hold an anemone, a coco worm, and my husband would be in the next night after work to pick those up and look at the new shipment, my husband ended up coming home with the following: a lion fish, long nose butterfly, bi color Angel, the anemone, the coco worm and a pistol shrimp! My husband had concern with the lion fish however was reassured that he wouldn't eat anything in our tank! So he brought him home, We acclimated them and tossed em right on in! The angel and butterfly hadn't even been taken out of their shipment bags before my husband brought them home! No quarantine at the lfs, no quarantine at home, due to our lack of knowledge being newbies and all, needless to say the poor fish didn't even last 2 weeks in our home and I believe it started with the butterfly! I started to notice white specks on him (we have had freshwater aquariums before and had dealt with ich once or twice) so I had my husband swing on in to the LFS and pick up the treatment that our "saltwater girl" recommended! Oh and btw the lion fish ate our cute little occelaris clown after about 2 days of treatment the butterfly looked considerably better, white specks were disappearing, but then the anemone started to slime and folded himself inside out?! That day, the specks on the butterfly were back and we're worse than before and his eyes were cloudy! I also noticed the black clown had the cloudy eyes but no specks?! Then the lion fish got the cloudy eyes!! Uggghhhhh
So I researched... from everything I read I was sure it wasn't ich at all, it was marine velvet! I continued the treatment because it was good to treat velvet as well! 2 days later there was no improvement! So I got a hospital tank! Set it up with hypo salinity, Did some fresh water dips on the fish then put them in the hospital tank! Within hours, 2 of my fish were dead!!! Freaking out, my husband insisted we put them back in the DT, so I listened! Within 30 minutes the angel was done the other 2 seemed fine, the next morning the butterfly was floating grrrrrrrr I have 1 fish left and he is getting the cloudy eye however I have continued to do my homework and realized our filter was carbon based, killing of the meds we were treating with! So today I took out the filter and am continuing treatment!
So far all of the corals and inverts are doing fine! Hopefully I can get this turned around!

So my question now is, would treating my DT with hypo salinity be okay?! I don't want to move this little fella and stress him even more than I already have! I know I cannot treat with copper as it will kill everything in my tank besides the fish!

 

[snorvich]

Hello all! I'm new to this hobby and so far I love it even tho I had to recently learn the hard way on why you can't just dive in without precaution! My husband and I thought we were doing everything correctly because we were listening to the "saltwater girl" at our lfs (she does know her stuff but didn't fully advise us on some things)! First, we didn't have a QT (didn't research and weren't informed) street our tank fully cycled we were thrilled went to LFS and bought a black clown, waited a few weeks and went back and bought a few coral frags and a cute little occelaris clown, waited about 3 weeks and went back in, they told us they had a shipment coming in the following day with some awesome fish coming in, we asked them to hold an anemone, a coco worm, and my husband would be in the next night after work to pick those up and look at the new shipment, my husband ended up coming home with the following: a lion fish, long nose butterfly, bi color Angel, the anemone, the coco worm and a pistol shrimp! My husband had concern with the lion fish however was reassured that he wouldn't eat anything in our tank! So he brought him home, We acclimated them and tossed em right on in! The angel and butterfly hadn't even been taken out of their shipment bags before my husband brought them home! No quarantine at the lfs, no quarantine at home, due to our lack of knowledge being newbies and all, needless to say the poor fish didn't even last 2 weeks in our home and I believe it started with the butterfly! I started to notice white specks on him (we have had freshwater aquariums before and had dealt with ich once or twice) so I had my husband swing on in to the LFS and pick up the treatment that our "saltwater girl" recommended! Oh and btw the lion fish ate our cute little occelaris clown after about 2 days of treatment the butterfly looked considerably better, white specks were disappearing, but then the anemone started to slime and folded himself inside out?! That day, the specks on the butterfly were back and we're worse than before and his eyes were cloudy! I also noticed the black clown had the cloudy eyes but no specks?! Then the lion fish got the cloudy eyes!! Uggghhhhh
So I researched... from everything I read I was sure it wasn't ich at all, it was marine velvet! I continued the treatment because it was good to treat velvet as well! 2 days later there was no improvement! So I got a hospital tank! Set it up with hypo salinity, Did some fresh water dips on the fish then put them in the hospital tank! Within hours, 2 of my fish were dead!!! Freaking out, my husband insisted we put them back in the DT, so I listened! Within 30 minutes the angel was done the other 2 seemed fine, the next morning the butterfly was floating grrrrrrrr I have 1 fish left and he is getting the cloudy eye however I have continued to do my homework and realized our filter was carbon based, killing of the meds we were treating with! So today I took out the filter and am continuing treatment!
So far all of the corals and inverts are doing fine! Hopefully I can get this turned around!

So my question now is, would treating my DT with hypo salinity be okay?! I don't want to move this little fella and stress him even more than I already have! I know I cannot treat with copper as it will kill everything in my tank besides the fish!

Short answer, read the stickies here. There is no "real" short answer to your question. After reading these stickies, start your own thread in this forum for additional questions. Your LFS is not very knowledgeable.

 

[SDguy]

The interesting side note, is that most maintenance businesses which supply fish do quarantine their fish since they charge much more and guarantee for 30 days.

I never even thought about that.... where do they QT?

 

[snorvich]

I never even thought about that.... where do they QT?

They do it semi-properly by isolating in a separate tank and treating with a therapeutic dose of copper (CP would be better). However, in general they add a significant markup over LFS retail pricing.

 

[HumbleFish]

I never even thought about that.... where do they QT?

A lot of maintenance businesses don't have a store front. I worked for the largest one in New Orleans 15-20 years ago, and the owner did everything from home. He had QT tanks all over his house. I know lots of people in multiple cities doing the same thing today. If the maintenance business ever becomes profitable enough, then they might consider opening up a brick & mortar store.

 

[wooden_reefer]

I think the two greatest factors are:

1. Overemphasis on the link between nutrition/immunity and diseases, for all diseases from A-Z.

2. The failure to appreciate the profundity of the effect of the lack of dilution of waterborne pathogen concentrations in a closed system, together with the lifecycle of pathogens.