"Dick" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 23:10:07 -0400, "NetMax"
wrote:

"Dick" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 24 May 2004 22:22:01 +0200, "McEve"
wrote:

snip

I think you are being too careful. The fish the store sells are not
likely to go to homes that add salt. The store would have gone out
of
business if large number of fish had trouble. So, I would conclude
that the fish are able to make the adjustment.

Your conclusion is incorrect. The business model for some of the
chain
operations does not require *any* profits from the live fish dept.
The
profits are from people buying pet food & paraphenalia. The fish are
loss leaders. This is why the mom& pops went under. As remarkable
(and
cynical) as it may sound, they would have no problem with all their
Platys dying, provided they lived a few weeks and they sold a few.
You
don't have to believe me, but I'm in the trade (fortunately not in one
of
those chains) and there have also been posters who have worked with
and
seen this going on.

On this topic, I verified today with one of my importers (who travels
to
the far-east), that off-shore breeders are keeping all their
livebearers
in 4 to 5 grams of salt per litre of water. I think that is 19 grams
per
US gallon (or 3.8 US teaspoons /g). Whether your LFS knows it or not,
this is probably what their livebearers were born and raised in.

I buy all my fish over the internet. Why would internet suppliers be
different? I have never had problems with mollies, platties or
swordtails so I assume they are not using salt.

LFS = local fish store
There are many large scale suppliers around the world. For livebearers,
the least expensive source of supply which has reliable transport is
Singapore, which has several exporters working with local fish farms.
Other sources, in no particular order (China, Indonesia, Hong Kong,
Thailand etc) follow similar breeding conditions (warm saline) for
reasons of competition. The South American exporters are not big on
livebearers, and prefer to keep to locally available sof****er fish.
European suppliers are not an economic option here, like paying North
American costs plus air transport, so most LFS source through Florida to
Singapore, or directly through transhippers.

Buying fish from the Internet, usually means that you are paying much
higher prices for local labour operating smaller volume productions.
It's nice to imagine that you're getting better fish (genetics, health
etc), and you might be, but it's just an assumption. Internet fish could
have come from anywhere, but the supplier would need to have a
significant sized operation before they could buy from importers (who
deal in boxes of thousands of fish).

If you are buying from the Internet, simply ask what water parameters
they kept their fish in, (including how much salt they use), but then you
would need to buy a test kit ;~)
--
www.NetMax.tk