"Sokar" wrote in message
...
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.

snip

I think you may be missing my point completely. Petsmart, Wal*Mart, etc,
etc do not sell expensive tropical fish. They don't carry some of the nicer
fish one may find in Lake Tanganyika, because "They're too aggressive" or
"They're too hard to keep alive.". Much of which is bull, but I've heard it
from numerous shops in my area. These little shops and big chains for their
African cichlids selection, they carry "Mixed Africans" which come from
their supplier that way. These are cheap fish that cost these big chains
little. If they lose a couple fish in the week they spend in the store, it's
not a big loss to the store. As I mentioned with the N. leleupi that were
imported and put in soft water, they died within a year. It's not an instant
death in many cases. These are fish that should be living many, many years.
I enjoy my tanks and I enjoy the programming on my site. If you don't
feel the need to match fish to conditions to prolong their life, that's your
perogative. If you feel your fish will live just as long as mine will, more
power to you. I can only pass on what I've learned and give the point of
view of the biologists and ichthyologists. Either way, it really doesn't
matter to me. Happy fish keeping. =)
Tim

My thoughts on the Mixed Africans can be found in this article.
http://www.fishaholics.org/articles.php?ArtId=1