Don Geddis wrote:

This actually isn't a good way to tell. Most local fish stores have high
turnover in livestock, plus a good fraction of in-store mortality.

Agreed. In this case the store owner is as consciencious as he can be.
He always keeps the same types together also.

Just as an example, have you ever seen a mandarin dragonet ("goby") in your
local store? They're almost always kept in clear bottomless tanks. Yet we
know, to keep a mandarin alive long term, you need a mature tank with lots of
live rock. Mandarins will generally not eat prepared/frozen food, only live
'pods (which grow in your live rock). Net result: the mandarins in the stores
are generally all slowly starving to death, but may be purchased by a consumer
before they die. If the consumer has a large mature tank, they may find food
there later. If the consumer has a tank that looks like the fish store tank,
they'll die soon enough.

He usually has 1 or 2 mandarins, but no, he doesn't have any bottomless
tanks. They are always kept in established systems and supplemented with
some copepod-in-a-bottle thing. This, I believe:
http://www.reed-mariculture.com/copepod/

You're right though. Many places aren't as consciencious in caring for
their livestock.

As to your suggestion: peaceful gobies can indeed be good tankmates for
sea horses. But I just wanted to caution that you can't learn much just
because you see that pairing in the store. Those sea horses could well be
slowly starving to death.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
The human spirit is a very hard thing to kill. Even with a chainsaw.