PETCO Acclimation Tips/Guarantee

I just purchased a new fish yesterday from PETCO and decided that for those of you that have PETCO stores in your area and wanted to know what their aquatic life policy states upon purchase then here is their acclimation tips/guarantee written word for word...

-Before adding new aquatic life to the aquarium, float the bag on top of the water for a minimum of 15 minutes, no longer than an hour to allow the aquatic life to adjust to the new water temperature. The water temperature in the bag should be the same as that of the tank prior to placing the fish into the tank.

-Aquatic life, introduced into an established tank, can carry disease and/or may become aggressive or be attacked upon its release. Change or move the decor to alter the established territories. Feeding established fish prior to introducing the new fish may help alleviate potential aggression in the established fish. PETCO will not refund or replace established aquatic life that have been injured or become ill as a result of introducing new fish.

-In a properly established habitat, we guarantee our freshwater fish for 15 days from the date of purchase. A receipt and water sample is required for all refunds or exchanges (please see store for details).

-There is no guarantee for saltwater fish or other marine life. These animals have unique requirements, and are very delicate. They are not recommended for the beginner aquarist.

-PETCO provides a care sheet for all our Aquatic Life Care sheets are available from any associate in the store or at www.petco.com

I can't say I totally agree with what they have written here, how would they really know if it was "established aquatic life" unless you told them? Also, what good does a water sample do when you could have changed the water the fish was in prior to returning it? I am also not totally sure that within 15 minutes the water in your fish's bag could have adjusted to the exact temperature in your tank. PETCO should have healthy aquatic life to sell to people so I do not understand why it says: "can carry disease" who would really want to buy fish from a store like that after reading this? Luckily I have 15 days to return my freshwater fish if need be.

Death by Moss Ball and Review

Sadly with all the different methods of water testing, chemicals and new products that come on the market it can also result in tank fatalities. In under 24 hours I placed an Exo Terra Moss Ball into my tank and lost all of my fish (I did post my review on the product on the stores site as a warning), I had found two fish barely holding on, but they were too far gone to make a recovery.

On the upside, I will get my $5 back for returning the moss ball which I can use toward purchasing new fish. Ironically the same day all my fish had died I got an e-mail from Petco reminding me that it was also my guppies birthday and I can get a 10% discount.
I am still debating loading the video of the night I added the moss ball into my tank so that you can see how spooked my fish were... wish I had realized why they were so scared at the time.

Click image to enlarge

Above are a few images which are inspiring me to create a new aquascape, I especially like the 3rd photo the best.

How to Quarantine

I am sure everyone has their own method to quarantining their fish for those that do it, but this is how I do it. Here is another website which has some good tips and advice on it as well. Since most of my fish aren't too costly in price and a lot of fish stores have a short return policy I'll generally quarantine my fish within a week's time (7 days).

Step 1: Have your new fish tank setup at least 24hrs before purchasing your new fish. This means your water is new and unused (no other fish in the tank), the decor has been cleaned and the filtration system, and you have put in the proper chemicals to treat the water for your new fish.

Step 2: Once bringing your new fish home place it into a plastic bag (if not already in one) and place it into your water-filled tank. This will let the temperature in the bag adjust to your aquariums temperature (important if you use an aquarium heater). I don't like to leave my fish in the bag for 24hrs since they're already a bit stressed, so I'll wait several hours before placing any new fish into the aquarium.

Step 3: Remove the bag from the aquarium and place it into an appropriate sized bowl. Cut the bag open and carefully pour the water and fish into the bowl. Next use a fish-net and scoop the fish out of its old pet-store water it came in. Slowly place the fish into your aquarium water and release the fish into the tank.

Step 4: Inspect your fish making sure it is swimming normally and seems in decent health, you may want to watch it on and off for several hours before proceeding to the next step.

Step 5: I then use chemicals and such to treat common fish diseases such as ich, slime coat, fungus, etc. Now is probably a good time to give your fish a little bit of food as some fish when under stress won't take to food right away and it will just become waste (Guppies, however are typically eager to take to food rapidly as they always beg for food even when they aren't exactly hungry at all). Be sure not to overfeed your fish or use too much of any chemical treatments.

Step 6: After watching the fish for a week, if all seems well with them I will do an entire tank cleaning of my current fish tank and place all of my fish in the tank together. Be sure to return any fish that do not look healthy (or dies) back to the store, if this is the case you may want to continue another week of tank quarantine on the fish you keep and repeat this process over. Once all your fish look healthy then proceed to place all your fish in a clean tank to live together.

Tip: When looking your fish over to insure its overall health look at its coloration, scales, gills, swimming pattern, fins, eyes, diet, behavior, etc. Remember that not all fish get along well with other fish and could possibly eat, kill or nip at other fish, be sure do research prior to purchasing new fish or keep them in a separate tank, use a divider or an in-tank box/net if necessary. This is also my method if I find any of my current fish seem ill as well.

Quick Tank Update

I purchased the Top Fin Greek Pavillion with Airstone for my 10 gallon fish tank recently but unfortunately it was slightly too wide to fit inside the tank, so either I'll return it or keep it until I decide to setup my larger tank again in the future. I did look at some of the other Greek style decor they had but I opted to purchase the Conceptual Creation Stack Stones I found in the terrarium isle instead. The devils ivy in my tank has grown a lot so I trimmed down the length of the vines and re-anchored them back into my tank. I am considering setting up another tank I have because I am looking into the possibilities of purchasing a Ranchu in the near future and I would not want a goldfish type living with my current fish. Unfortunately I did lose one of my store bought guppies during my week vacation (and no it was not the barb lover, hah). I also purchased a fisheye lense for my DSLR camera so you can expect to see a lot more of those photo's to come. I have been medling with my water quaility lately and it has been a learning experience which I hope to share more of soon.

Hope you enjoyed my quick video!

Fishy Behavior

A few months ago I purchased a new male tequila sunrise guppy and several small gold barbs. I've noticed that my new guppy does not seem to be interested in mating with my young female guppy, but rather tries to entice my small gold barbs with its mating dance ritual and my gold barbs have no real interest in him what-so-ever. I have heard that guppies are capable of mating with mollies, platties and sword-tails, but mainly because they all reproduce live-bearing fry, although more often then not the fish which are born can be too mutant for survival. It has been said that a male guppy is more persistent mating then these other live-bearing species and that it can cause harm to other female species. So perhaps my guppy is in no way capable of reproducing with a gold barb and perhaps he is more enticed by the gold barbs because they have similar colors as himself. Or it could possibly be a sign of aggression but it does not seem like overly aggressive behavior as when my guppies fight they have a nose to nose stare down and move around the tank until one seems to tire himself out and retreat.

Current Tank Setup & Fish *Updated*

I've recently donated dozens of my guppies(all but one actually) to live in aquariums all around DC, so I'm now down to one 10 gallon fish tank (purchased from Petco) which has made life a lot easier now that I'm in college. I kept only one of my bred guppies, purchased 2 new guppies, bought 5 small gold barbs which will hopefully grow to befriend the 2 larger barbs I currently own and I still have my 1 black neon tetra(whom doesn't seem to mind being solo).

Although I have 11 fish currently in a 10 gallon tank, I did purchase a new Aqueon Aquarium Power Filter (20gal) filtration system which is made to accomodate a larger tank. I could classify my tank as overstocked by a smidge, as for each 1 inch of fish should be 1 gallon of water(this is a rule of thumb I learned in school but some say otherwise for different fish) although the larger filtration system should hopefully make up for the tank size. I do like the Aqueon brand for power filters thus far and my only complaint is that the lid of the filter seems to rattle a little on occasion but this might just be my indicator to clean out the filter cartridge or replace it.

My fish's current staple diet is the Aqueon Tropical Flakes, this seems to be their favorite of the many different flake foods I've tried in the past...I honestly think they love this more than the Hikari Freeze-dried Brine Shimp I give them as a treat.

I haven't had much luck with any aquatic plants I've purchased from local pet stores so I decided to take some of my Devil's Ivy, snip off a few vines and place them into my tank. Surprisingly it seems to give off a lot of oxygen into the tank and started growing roots almost immediately. I really am not sure if this plant is toxic or not but the fish don't seem to be harmed thus far and it has been in their for nearly 4 weeks now.

I have a new Aqueon Deluxe Full Fluorescent Black Aquarium Hood (20" Length) which is setup on a timer so I have it running for a good 8hrs starting at sundown. I didn't really care for the color and brightness this hood gave off but I think it's starting to grow on me and the plants seem to be doing great so far.

As for substrate I use a mix of old gravel I've been using for awhile now which I believe is a mix of PETCO Nutmeg Mix Aquarium Gravel, PETCO Pebble Beach Mix Aquarium Gravel and PETCO Rock Gravel Accents in Black Miami Beach. This combination makes for a natural looking gravel substrate and the rocks help keep the Devil's Ivy in place.

The background of my fish tank is a design I created on my computer which took 3 whole sheets of print paper and a little tape to adhere it all in place.

As for water conditioners and additives I'm currently using Jungle Plant Care Solutions Fertilizer and Water Conditioner, PIMAFIX and MELAFIX (I use them all as directed on the bottle).

After 2 weeks I changed a little more then a liter of water and added some of my water additives to it, washed off the Aqueon filter cartridge and placed it back into the filter. I also used my new battery operated Eheim Gravel Vacuum which does work nicely and is great for getting out any debry the filtration system missed, this doesn't seem to disturb the fish while I'm using this either.

So that's pretty much it for how I run my current tank setup, its been working great, the water still looks clean enough to drink and my new barbs seemed to have a grown a bit!