CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Went to the mall today & decided to go through the "Petland" store.
Most of the fish they sell at that location are small (Tetras, Danios, Neons, Rams, etc.,)

As I walk by, I was absolutley stunned to see a beautiful 10+" Lutino Oscar and an 8" Sailfin Pleco in this tiny tank that's about the same size as my 21" computer monitor (maybe 20 gallons tops)!! Laying diagonally in the tank, the poor Oscar had about 3-4" of free space on either end. Every 3 mins or so the O would turn slightly & bite the Pleco.

I asked to speak with the manager on duty. She told me the mall location doesn't deal with fish that big, but she got the pleco & big O as a transfer from another store location without any warning. She understands the tank is too small, but says there is nothing she can do. The tanks in that store are all custom units with the largest being about 45 gallons. 3 of the 4 biggest tanks they have are for feeder minnows & feeder goldfish.
The final big tank holds a bunch of small African cichlids.

Since they have no idea how long the fish will be there, but I'd have swapped the Africans & the O/pleco combo. It would be better than keeping them in that tiny prison.

Such an awesome looking Oscar too.....
Soooooo sad seeing it like that........

i have seen this a lot too. its pretty sad even more because these are people who sell fish for a living and most of the time they lie about stuff they dont know or at least im my experience. one time i saw these two oscars with a really really bad case of hith and i asked if they got the oscars in that condition and they replied " o thats how they look when they get older"

Yeah, there are alot of people and pet shops out there that just don't know and don't bother to. It's sad but some pet stores don't give proper training and only care about making a buck. It's too bad you don't have another tank, you could have probably got both fish for a good deal because she would know that a fish of that size is difficult to get rid of. The Manager of the fish of the lfs here use to call me when they got large stock like that with great deals like 5 bucks for an 8" O or any thing that he didn't have room for. Even got a couple freebies.

man i hate it when i see dumb ppl running fish stores, i wnat to open up a fish store one of these days and run it right, if they wouldn't be so worried about money they would make more.

that is sad you would think they would change the tanks around even a bit to make room for such a big fish even for just a bit until they could sell it or give it away if it was such a problem. But as far as the LFS's I have been to a couple where there fish were in really bad condition. About a couple months ago I went to a store about 20 minutes from my house and all of there Oscars had such bad hith you could fill the hole in there head with water and they were not even treating the fish. Where did the responsibility and care for there fish go.

I just came across a fish store in Truckee CA that does not have ANY filtration in their tanks whatsoever. All the guy has is heaters. There's no gravel in the tanks and they are cloudy due to no cycles occurring in the tanks. There were floaters all over the place. I asked for the manager and the chump behind the counter said he was at lunch. I'll be back. -might even make a few phone calls. The store looked brand new and struggling but there's no excuse for that. Anyone with more than a gold fish bowl could run this place better.