The Truth & Lies of Buying Fish Revealed
- Jul 30, 2021
- Anshika Mishra
- 472 0 0
Whether you are getting fish for your very first aquarium, or you are a seasoned veteran, advanced enough to call yourself an aquarist, buying fish is the most fun part of this entire hobby. But, it is a situation that can be glorious or a disaster.
So, to help you out here is kgtropicals' buying fish true or false:
Big-box pet store gets their fish from the bad suppliers, and this is why their fish die too fast: False
Most fish sellers, including the big-box pet store, get their fish from the same farm distributers. So, do not automatically assume that the place you are getting your fish has better fish than the big pet stores. There is always an excellent chance that they all are coming from the same place.
Transporting fish is a death sentence for the fishes: False
How do you think they got to your fish store?
Bagging and transporting fish are very stressful. This is true, but let's not get carried away. The first thing to think about is that except for the rare fish store that bred their fish, the fish you are buying has already been shipped.
Most of the significant fish farms are overseas, which means when they are shipped to your pet stores, they have been bagged for a while, sometimes up to a week. If they have been bagged for weeks and now they are in your fish store in perfect health, then you have nothing to worry about for them being in a bag for 20 minutes until they get to your home.
With that being said, it is entirely understandable that it can be stressful, and you want to get them out of the bag as soon as possible. While there is nothing wrong with being worried about your fish's health, but all we are saying is don't rush.
Stores with recirculating systems are risky because if one fish is sick, they are all going to get sick: True.
Though the above statement is true, it doesn't necessarily mean that you must avoid buying fish from those places. If you are not aware of what a recirculating system is, then know that all designs are hooked up with the same filtering system. This means that all of the fish are sharing the same water.
This also means that if one fish has a contagious disease, all of the other fish will be exposed to it and possibly get the same illness. So naturally, this scares many fish keepers and makes them want to avoid such stores, but it does have to be that way.
One of the hot-button words is fish keeping is quarantining, and this is the perfect scenario where quarantining makes total sense. Having a spare tank set up to put your new fish for a while and monitor them can ensure that those fish are clean and free of disease and eliminate the risk of affecting other fishes.
It doesn't matter if your fish store has a recirculating system or not. When you buy new fish and introduce them to your main tank with existing fish, you always risk the fresh fish being sick and contaminating your current fish. If this risk is too much for you, just set up a quarantine tank.
We should always buy Gluttons: True & False.
You must see the fish store owner feed the fish before buying them because they are healthy if they have a big appetite. This is true but also false. So yes, a fish that aggressively goes after fish is usually a sign of a healthy fish, but it is not a guarantee.
There is more to look at than just the fish's appetite. You want to inspect their fins, make sure their eyes are clear. They don't have any redness around their gills. Just look at the fish's overall health and appearance, and if they look good, they are active and energetic, and you can get them to eat, and everything checks out, you should have the confidence to bring them home. But do know that there is never a guarantee so be careful full.
Drip acclimation is important: False.
When you bring your new fish home, you should slowly drip water from your aquarium into your fish bag so that it can mix and the fish can get used to the water slowly before you put them into the tank. Unfortunately, this cannot be more untrue.
Fish are constantly producing ammonia, and they are producing it from the wastes as well as their gills. They are breathing in oxygen, and they continuously produce waste in the form of Ammonia. This ammonia is building the second the fish gets into the water.
This ammonia does not go to lethal amounts, but the pH is also dropping, and when you start slowly introducing water from your tank with a higher pH, it can cause that ammonia to spike to a lethal level.
Do know that even if the fish have been in the water bag for an hour, the water in the bag is disgusting. So float the bag over your tank to get the temperature even out, cut the top, and pour the bag through a net to catch the fish, and plot the fish only in the tank.
Fishes need air: False.
It is understandable that you see your fish in a sealed-up bag, and you feel bad for them and thinks that the fish store that injects pure oxygen into the bank is doing something great for the fish, but this is not true. Though there is nothing wrong with doing it, we are just saying that you don't have to stress over it cause your fish will be okay.
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