Why sell it when...

[DMD123]

I spent Friday over in Gig Harbor getting a steroid shot to a finger joint in the attempt to fix a condition called trigger finger. Any way while I was over there I stopped in to the Pets & Pals and was surprised how many large adult Oscars and one large Pacu that they had.

This made me ponder all the little Oscars you see in the stores along with Pacu, common pleco, etc. and ask:
'Why sell it when...'
1. Most people can not house them properly?
2. Cant even give them away, when they are bigger?

Why are stores stocking these items? They could easily change the stock they carry...

So what are your thoughts on this?

 

[VsKitchen]

I think there is a fair amount of "supposed to have" or other traditionalist type of thought in the hobby. Not that that is all bad mind you.

I'd like to hear what some of our sponsers and lfs connected people say about your questions. They are good questions.

 

[DMD123]

Many of the sponsors here are very good about what they stock. The problems with the Pacu for instance are the big box stores like Petsmart selling them to a very uneducated public.

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3958034

So they recommend a minimum of a 75+ gallon tank for a fish that can get 24". They should change that to 300g and stop carrying the fish in stock.

 

[VsKitchen]

I didn't mean to imply that the sponsers are making inappropriate choices when they are stocking, just that as people having to constantly make stocking choices and having a "finger on the pulse" of the public's fish trends that they would probably have an interesting input.

For instance a couple weeks ago when Cory said he ordered 500+ of the smaller fish a month I founds that to be very interesting that there would be that much consistant stock turn-over.

 

[Fyurae]

For the most part, LFS will inquire about the housing and will educate. Chain stores are the issue, where a lot of the people working with fish don't actually know much about fish. The store itself just wants to make money. This isn't ALWAYS the case, but often is.

I agree that stores shouldn't be selling fish to people who can't properly care for them, the issue comes in that a lot of the time the stores themselves don't know how to properly care for them.

 

[DMD123]

I wasnt saying our sponsors were making bad/inappropriate stocking choices. I did a little finger pointing at the big box stores...

 

[JimA]

I think it's part of the reason walmart got out the fish selling dept. Just not enough time and hired experience to make the machine run.

When I first got into this hobby someone had left a nice 46 gal bowfront with stand at work. I took it home cleaned it up and the kids and I had went to petsmart and picked out some random colorful fish. All was fine till they started to mature then all hell broke loose. I think I still have 1 unknown and a couple of the original yellow labs from that purchase. But it was "I" that was partially to blame for not researching and learning the different variety's that are compatible with each other. I quickly learned from all the forums out there on what I needed to do. Thinking back I could have saved quite a bit of money if I had just taken that tank back and left it work. :violent: Kidding I love this hobby.

As long as those box store's have people that will buy fish they will sell them, as sad as that is. Some might be lucky enough to have a guy/gal that actually gives a chit. Most will not. The other thing is how do they purchase, you think each "individual" store actually orders fish they want? I don't think so. They are set up as fish are sold the system tells some purchaser sitting behind a desk to get some fish ordered or it's just done automatically and they have no control of what they get in. Probably what ever sells the best.

I would maybe point fingers instead at the breeders/suppliers that are selling fish to the big box stores. If they said hey were not selling you anymore fish the corporates would say fine, will find someone else who will and they are probably ordering from several different ones at any given time. It would take all of them to stop selling to these places and even then it probably would still fail. I am sure the suppliers make good money selling fish to these places so unlikely they would stop right or wrong.

I am sure some mom and pops are in that bag also but not nearly as bad as the 1000s of petsmart/petco type places across the globe.

 

[DMD123]

The box stores love to advertise "responsible" pet keeping when it comes to dogs and cats. In fact they will many times not carry them and only do adoption programs.

When it comes to fish thats a whole different story. The Petsmart I bought my Midas at asked me what size tank I had before selling him to me, that actually shocked me. But when I purchased a Jack Dempsey from another one they just bagged him up and asked me nothing. When I purchased my Pleco from the B&I pets I was informed about the potential size of the pleco way ahead, but then again he thought I was getting a gibby and not the type I have which is smaller. But I was impressed none the less that they pushed for responsible fish care.

At the least I think stores like Petsmart should stop selling Pacu as a stocking item, they just get too big for most people to care for.