PetsMart Trip Summary - My new community tank

[Shawn P. Good]

Thanks to all who responded to me about PetsMart and their fish section. I
suppose it was common sense that each store would be different depending on
employees, and management.

Anyways, less than an hour ago, I just arrived home from PetsMart, after
making the 1.5 hour trip there and back and I thought I'd tell the group of
my experience.

First off, PetsMart was VERY clean. The fish section had over 100 tanks -
every one of them spotless. I found only one tank with one dead fish in it.
The rest of the tanks - all the fish seemed healthy, energetic, etc etc. I
can't tell you of the disgust I get when I go into either one of my 2 LFS in
my town of 15,000 people. The shops are dark, dingy, smelly, the tanks are
poorly kept, sick looking fish etc etc.

Anyways, I was impressed with PetsMart's (Burlington, Vermont) cleanliness.
I asked some basic questions about cichlids (I wasn't buying cichlids - I'm
switching over to a planted community tank), which I knew the answers to, to
the kid (early 20's) who seemed to be helping everyone with their fish
selections. I wasn't satisfied with his answers. He didn't even know the
difference between African and South American cichlids. I said "so, these
convict cichlids are from Lake Tanganyika, right ?". And he said yes. Then
I said, "isn't convict cichlid just another name for jewel cichlid" .... and
he said "uh, yeah, I think so". Anyways, I went and found the Department
manager to help me.

Now, I DON'T know much about the various fishes that are commonly used in
community tanks. The Department manager was ver knowledgeable and helpful,
and after picking out and buying 40 fish and 10 plants, he gave me a 10%
discount. Not much, but a nice gesture.

So - this is what I now have happily swimming around in my 55gal long right
now :

15 zebra dania
6 red miner tetra
6 neon tetra
6 Rasbora (species listed on tank as "letromorpha" ... but I've never heard
of that
5 Red Wag Platy's
2 Clown Loaches

For Plants I bought 4 bunches of hornwort, 2 bunches of red ludwigia, 2
banana plants, 1 java fern, and 1 micro sword.

For a 55gal. long - this is pretty meager right now. I eventually want a
really lush, green, vibrant planted tank. Even my 40 fish seem to be lost
in my tank - which is relatively small. But, I guess I can expect to have a
full vibrant tank at the flick of a switch. It will be a work of art in
progress !

I'd be interested in hearing what others think of my choices to start off
..... and possibly any suggestions on where to go from here !

Thanks - Shawn

[Tedd Jacobs]

"Shawn P. Good" wrote...
> Thanks to all who responded to me about PetsMart and their fish section. I
> suppose it was common sense that each store would be different depending on
> employees, and management.
>
> Anyways, less than an hour ago, I just arrived home from PetsMart, after
> making the 1.5 hour trip there and back and I thought I'd tell the group of
> my experience.

<snip>

> I'd be interested in hearing what others think of my choices to start off
> .... and possibly any suggestions on where to go from here !

sorry, no suggestions,... but i am glad to hear you had a good experience with
them and it all worked out. :-)

[Len]

Shawn P. Good wrote:


>
> Now, I DON'T know much about the various fishes that are commonly used in
> community tanks. The Department manager was ver knowledgeable and helpful,
> and after picking out and buying 40 fish and 10 plants, he gave me a 10%
> discount. Not much, but a nice gesture.
>
> So - this is what I now have happily swimming around in my 55gal long right
> now :
>
> 15 zebra dania
> 6 red miner tetra
> 6 neon tetra
> 6 Rasbora (species listed on tank as "letromorpha" ... but I've never heard
> of that
> 5 Red Wag Platy's
> 2 Clown Loaches

I'm not sure that I would have added 40 new fish all at once. Might be a

strain on the biological filter.

[Fish Keeper]

petsmart is not a bad place to purchase fish/supplies. they do have
great prices (especially on african cichlids) and all come with a two
week guarantee.

we have several petsmart stores here in phoenix and i do have my
favorites. i like to get to know the staff......i get to see the lists
of fish before they order them and can request some of the more rare
ones. i got a beautiful lungfish a few months ago from them.

happy fishing....

[Reg]

Shawn P. Good wrote:
> Thanks to all who responded to me about PetsMart and their fish section. I
> suppose it was common sense that each store would be different depending on
> employees, and management.
>

<snip>

> 6 neon tetra
> 6 Rasbora (species listed on tank as "letromorpha" ... but I've never heard
> of that

<snip>
6 rasbora heteromorpha?

Overall sounds a lot like my tank :)

Reg

[Jeff Pratt]

Shawn P. Good wrote:

> Thanks to all who responded to me about PetsMart and their fish section.
> I suppose it was common sense that each store would be different depending
> on employees, and management.
>
> Anyways, less than an hour ago, I just arrived home from PetsMart, after
> making the 1.5 hour trip there and back and I thought I'd tell the group
> of my experience.
>
> First off, PetsMart was VERY clean. The fish section had over 100 tanks -
> every one of them spotless. I found only one tank with one dead fish in
> it.
> The rest of the tanks - all the fish seemed healthy, energetic, etc etc.
> I can't tell you of the disgust I get when I go into either one of my 2
> LFS in
> my town of 15,000 people. The shops are dark, dingy, smelly, the tanks
> are
> poorly kept, sick looking fish etc etc.
>
> Anyways, I was impressed with PetsMart's (Burlington, Vermont)
> cleanliness. I asked some basic questions about cichlids (I wasn't buying
> cichlids - I'm switching over to a planted community tank), which I knew
> the answers to, to the kid (early 20's) who seemed to be helping everyone
> with their fish
> selections. I wasn't satisfied with his answers. He didn't even know the
> difference between African and South American cichlids. I said "so, these
> convict cichlids are from Lake Tanganyika, right ?". And he said yes.
> Then I said, "isn't convict cichlid just another name for jewel cichlid"
> .... and
> he said "uh, yeah, I think so". Anyways, I went and found the Department
> manager to help me.
>
> Now, I DON'T know much about the various fishes that are commonly used in
> community tanks. The Department manager was ver knowledgeable and
> helpful, and after picking out and buying 40 fish and 10 plants, he gave
> me a 10%
> discount. Not much, but a nice gesture.
>
> So - this is what I now have happily swimming around in my 55gal long
> right now :
>
> 15 zebra dania
> 6 red miner tetra
> 6 neon tetra
> 6 Rasbora (species listed on tank as "letromorpha" ... but I've never
> heard of that
> 5 Red Wag Platy's
> 2 Clown Loaches
>
> For Plants I bought 4 bunches of hornwort, 2 bunches of red ludwigia, 2
> banana plants, 1 java fern, and 1 micro sword.
>
> For a 55gal. long - this is pretty meager right now. I eventually want a
> really lush, green, vibrant planted tank. Even my 40 fish seem to be lost
> in my tank - which is relatively small. But, I guess I can expect to have
> a
> full vibrant tank at the flick of a switch. It will be a work of art in
> progress !
>
> I'd be interested in hearing what others think of my choices to start off
> .... and possibly any suggestions on where to go from here !
>
> Thanks - Shawn

Well, if you're looking for that lush and overgrown look, hornwort will
provide ;-) Normally it is used as a floating plant, but I like the way it
looks streaming upward in a little jungle, so I've developed a solution.

If you have, or can get your hands on a dremel or similar rotary tool, a set
of diamond points for it can be had around the $20 mark. The diamond
points are capable of going through just about anything, including terra
cotta. What I do is go to the dollar store and buy a few bases for terra
cotta plant pots, the part that looks like a saucer (you may need to buy a
pot as well, but thats OK, they make great caves). I turn the "saucer"
upside down, and drill a series of small (~1/8 inch) holes through. You
can then push the base of the stem and 1 or 2 nodes (where the leaves are)
through each hole. The hornwort stays anchored, and with a decent amount
of light the hornwort's phenomenal growth rate will soon fill the tank.

NOTES:

1) WEAR A DUST MASK WHEN DRILLING TERRA COTTA!!! It produces a LOT of fine
dust that you just don't want sitting in your lungs.

2) Rinse your terra cotta in clean fresh water after drilling, you may want
to boil it, but I haven't noticed any adverse effects without.

3) There may be accessories for a regular drill that can deal with terra
cotta, I don't know, since I've never tried them.

4) This post is not an advertisement for, nor sanctioned by the dremel
corporation, but if they want to send me some freebies to play with, I'm
sure I could come up with some posts that are. ;-)

Jeff

[axemanchris]

snip
>
> I'd be interested in hearing what others think of my choices to start off
> .... and possibly any suggestions on where to go from here !
>
> Thanks - Shawn
>
>

Lucky you! I'd love to fill another tank from the ground up. If you have
the space in this tank, try to get another Clown Loach. They like to be
kept in groups of 3 or more.

Jacqui

[NSP]

> So - this is what I now have happily swimming around in my 55gal long right
> now :
>
> 15 zebra dania
> 6 red miner tetra
> 6 neon tetra
> 6 Rasbora (species listed on tank as "letromorpha" ... but I've never heard
> of that
> 5 Red Wag Platy's
> 2 Clown Loaches
>
> For Plants I bought 4 bunches of hornwort, 2 bunches of red ludwigia, 2
> banana plants, 1 java fern, and 1 micro sword.

I hate to be negative, but I recently made the mistake of adding 18
fish over the course of a weekend in an uncycled tank. Of those, only
4 survived.

I would buy Cycle and use it dilligently. Also buy an all-in-one test
kit to follow the cycle process.

You may want to buy some Ammo-lock as well to get through the ammonia
hump. I used it when my biological filter got killed off by a poor
medical judgement on my part - no losses despite high ammonia in the
tank.

If you have an aquaclear filter, you can poor the Cycle directly into
the filter basin.

I hope you fair better than I did!

Regards,
Neil