Selecting a healthy Fish

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top international travel tips las vegas rent a car popcap games download where does money come from peer education drugs pusy killer bean iron on transfer movie sideways movie times san jose hotels in copenhagen hate it or love it gps softwere free download free adult movies jenteal Selecting a healty fish is crucial to the success of your aquarium. It also helps out the entire hobby! By only purchasing healthy fish, you encourage dealers to only sell healthy fish. There are many parts of the selection process that can help you determine if it is healty or not. Some major ones include:

• Condition of the store and tanks
• Health of the fish
  • Fleshed out or emaciated?
  • Color
  • Condition of fins
  • Behavior
  • Visable wounds?
  • Eating?
• Store policies
  • Quarentine period?
  • Will they sell a sick fish?
  • Do they seperate sick fish from the main tanks??
  • Do they offer a return policy?

Read below for a more in depth description of each topic.

Contents 1 Condition of the store and tanks 1.1 Things to look for 2 Health of the Fish 2.1 Important Note 3 Store policies 3.1 Quarantine period? 3.2 Will they sell a sick fish? 3.3 Do they offer a return policy 3.4 Do they treat their tanks with copper? 3.5 Final Notes

Condition of the store and tanks

While not -always- true, for the most part, a well kept store is a good indication that the owners are interested in providing the best possible experience, and therefore fish, to thier customers. A very clean, well kept store can sometimes have very poor fish though, so make no assumptions.

Things to look for

• Clean store overall
  
• Tanks are clean on the outside
  
• Tanks are clean and free of algae on the inside
  
• Nets are kept in a disinfecting solution, or at the least, rinsed before and after each use.
  
• No dead fish in tanks. If an occasional dead fish is found, this is acceptable as long as employees take action to remove it when they are notified, instead of letting it sit in the tank
  
• Tanks include hiding places for the fish
  
• If gravel is in the tanks, it should not be full of detrius
  
• Fish are grouped together appropriately; in other words, not one poor shy fish in a tank full of damsels. Not only does this signal a lack of knowledge about the animals, but wounded fish are more susceptible to infections and parasites which can then spread to healthy fish.

Health of the Fish

• Fleshed out or emaciated?
  

A healthy fish should look like it has been eating. It should not have ribs showing, and it's skin should not look loose or wrinkly(except in the case of a few species). While the stomach does not have to be fully rounded out, it should not be overly sunken in either. The head is another good place to look for signs of starvation. In some species, such as tangs, the bone structure of the skull becomes very evident.

• Color
  

As part of your research before purchasing a fish, you should find some good photos that show what color a healthy individual is. While the stress of shipping and being in a crowded tank can cause some color fading, a fish that is closer to its ideal color tends to be healthier and better recovered from the stress of shipping. Note that in some species, the brightest colored fish in the tanks may simply be the most dominant, and it's dominence over the tank may be causing the other fish to have paler colors.

• Condition of fins
  

While fins of a fish in a store could be in bad shape for many, many reasons, what is most important to note is that torn fins can mean an easier chance of infection settling in. Given a choice between two healthy fish, choose the one with more intact fins.

• Behavior
  

Again, some knowlegde of the fishes normal behavoir is good to have before considering it for purchase. Does it seem to exihbit ideal behavior?

More importantly though, is to make sure that it is not exibiting any strange behavior that could indicate disease or high levels of stress. Such behaviors to look for are

• • Sitting on the bottom of the tank, or laying on its(the fishes) side.
  • Seems to be stuck at the top of the tank, or rapidly bobs from the bottom to the top and back again. This could be a swim bladder problem.
  • Constantly rubs against rocks, ect... This could be due to parasites. Some small amout of occasional rubbing can be normal, but an excessive amount is not a good thing.
  • Swimming in circles or spirals, and not seeming able to swim straight
  • Gasping for air.

• Visable wounds?

Again, any wound large enough to be noticed is not good. Infection due to stress could easily develop. Also, some wounds like Hole in the Head disease, indicate that the fish has been in poor water qualitly for a long time. It could be too far gone recover. Also, if it has become accustomed to the poor water quality, placing it into high qualitly water could actually stress it out very badly.

• Eating?

Almost any store worth the time of going to will feed the fish you are intrested in to let you see if it is eating or not. This is espcially important to have done in the case of picky eaters, or fish known to have trouble adjusting to non-living foods. In tanks of schools of the same species, it also gives you an idea of which fish out of the lot are the most vigorous. Note that there may be times when the pet store has good reason to refuse a feeding, such as with Lionfish, Puffers, ect... It would be bad for the store to feed these fish thirty times in one day, just becuase thirty customers were intrested in the fish. In this type of situation, simply ask when a good time to come and see the fish being fed would be.

Important Note

While it may seem like a good idea to try and 'save' a sick fish, it is far better not to buy it. If the fish is sick, or too stressed out, it may perish before it reaches your house. If it lives, it may only spread disease in your tank. Perhaps most importantly, it sends the message to the store owner that people are willing to buy sick fish. This leads to a detrioration in the qualitly of fish in all stores, and overall, hurts the hobby.

Store policies

Quarantine period?

A good store will not take a fish that has just come from possibly twelve hours of transport, plop them in a tank, then pull them out and sell them twenty minutes later. Policies vary widely, however, the store should let at least twenty-four hours pass before selling fish from a new shipment. Stores with more room and resources may let fish quarentine for up to a week. Stores like this are a good find!

Many stores may look at you funny if you ask if they quarantine their fish. If they do not have a quarantine procedure, they should be willing to let you purchase the fish, but hold it in thier tanks for up to a week, to see if it develops any dieases. Stores are often more willing to do this for higer-priced fish, then for say, damsels. In the case of death in their tank, the store should at the least, offer you full store credit, and may be willing to give you a refund.

Will they sell a sick fish?

If a fish is obviously sick, a store should not be selling it. The worse case senario will be a store that does not even inform the customer that a fish is sick, but still sells it. If a customer points out that the fish is sick, the store should take some sort of measure to prevent it being sold by other employees that may not be aware of the sickness yet.

• Do they seperate sick fish from the main tanks??

The store should make some effort to ensure that sick fish do not infect healthy fish. This can be done by placing it in a quarentine tank in the back, or by closing off the tank the fish is in from the main system.

Do they offer a return policy

Some stores do, some don't. While this should not be a deciding factor for purchase, it is good to find out right away, so you are not left supprised of frustrated later on. While it makes sense that if a store is selling only healthy fish, it should be willing to offer a week-long return policy, some stores have had enough problems with scammers that they cannot have a lenient return policy. In this case, if you become a regular customer, the store owner may work with you. Or you can ask to be allowed to the abovementioned option of purchasing the fish, but leaving it in the stores tanks for a week to recover from shipping stress.

If the store does offer a return policy, make sure that you follow all the directions it requires to recive your refund/credit. This usually involves bringing in the dead fish, and a -seperate- water sample from your tank. Remember, bring in a 'clean' sample from freshly made water only hurts you, as you won't find out if there is a serious problem you were unaware of.

Do they treat their tanks with copper?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask your local fish store. If the tanks are treated with copper, this is an excellent way of preventing parasites, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. However, you need to make sure that, when acclimating the fish, none of the store water gets in your tank. Copper is extremely deadly to your invertebrates!

Final Notes