All of the Tropical Fish Stores in my Metropolitan Area (300,000+
population) do not adjust the water parameters of their water for African
cichlids. Also, all of these Tropical/Marine fish stores sell their fish
from at least one tank called mixed cichlids. I suspect that Petsmart, which
has about six stores in this area, sells about 10 times more fish than all
of these smaller tropical fish stores combined.

What economic advantage is it to them (Petsmart) to keep their fish in poor,
life threatening, water conditions, as you claim they are doing.

For the record, I do buffer my cichlid's water with Seachem's
Malawi/Victoria Buffer, but the freshwater fish who swim in the same tank
with them, seem to be a healthy lot, dispite my misguided efforts on their
behalf.

"Amateur Cichlids" wrote in message
. ..

"Sokar" wrote in message
...
The local pet stores, Petsmart, ect., do not charge their water
parameters for their cichlid fish, but please note that they want to sell
you water conditioners, pH adjusters for your tank, and special dietary
food for your fish in your "special" African tank.

Marketing rules, "profits are us" rules, are meant to be broken.


I personally don't buy fish from shops like Wal*Mart, or any other shop
that sells "Mixed Africans". When N. leleupi were first imported, they
were kept in soft water. None of the imported fish lived longer than a
year. The people here thought they required the same water conditions as
the West African cichlids they'd imported in the past.
Hardier fish like many of the Mbuna can be acclimated to different
water conditions and be mixed with other fish. And if you feed them the
wrong thing and they die, well that's a four dollar fish dead. If you buy
a Cyathopharynx foae and mix it with the wrong fish and it gets stressed
and dies, well now you've killed a hundred dollar fish. Your views on
water conditions and mixing may change a bit. These are fish you'll not
find currently at places like Wal*mart.
If you're so sure it's only a marketing ploy, I think we should conduct
a test. Go purchase yourself some Xenotilapia sp "papilio" from Lake
Tanganyika and acclimate them to a tank with a pH of about 6 and a
hardness below three. Then toss a few Melanochromis in the tank. By your
thinking, you'll have nothing to worry about, the fish will thrive and be
happy so long as you pack enough fish in there. If you can get them to
live say 6 X. sp "papilio" and 6 M. auratus in a 55 gallon tank with no
deaths for a year, I'd be willing to pay for the fish. ;-)
Being uneducated in the interactions between certain species and having
a few fish live together for more than a month, does not make you an
expert. I don't claim to be an expert myself, but I've lost fish when I
started by mixing incompatible species, and I've lost fish to improper
water parameters. I prefer to research now and keep my fish in their
proper environments to protect my investment.
Tim
www.fishaholics.org