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Posted by §tudz on October 28, 2005, 11:30 am
Please log in for more thread options Here is the final reply from the council:
Dear Mr Studdart
I have now been for my second visit to Pets at Home. Everything is now of a
satisfactory standard. All tanks have been cleaned and more that 50% of the
filters have been renewed. There is an "improved" maintenance scheme in
place to prevent the tanks reaching the poor state that they were in.
I will continue to keep a close watch on the situation until my yearly
inspection in December 05/January06. This inspection is for their licence
renewal and they have been informed that should standards slip, their
licence may be affected.
Should you have any questions, please contact me.
Kind Regards
Paul Blackburn
Technical Officer
Environmental Management
Chester City Council
Tel: 01244 402311
Finally a result, thats one for us I think
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Posted by Marksfish on October 28, 2005, 11:53 am
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> I will continue to keep a close watch on the situation until my yearly
> inspection in December 05/January06. This inspection is for their licence
> renewal and they have been informed that should standards slip, their
> licence may be affected.
>
> Finally a result, thats one for us I think
>
>
Good result :-) Let's hope the Council keep their end of the bargain!!
Mark
--
www.marksfish.me.uk
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Posted by Gill Passman on October 28, 2005, 1:08 pm
Please log in for more thread options §tudz wrote:
> Here is the final reply from the council:
>
> Dear Mr Studdart
>
> I have now been for my second visit to Pets at Home. Everything is now of a
> satisfactory standard. All tanks have been cleaned and more that 50% of the
> filters have been renewed. There is an "improved" maintenance scheme in
> place to prevent the tanks reaching the poor state that they were in.
>
> I will continue to keep a close watch on the situation until my yearly
> inspection in December 05/January06. This inspection is for their licence
> renewal and they have been informed that should standards slip, their
> licence may be affected.
>
> Should you have any questions, please contact me.
>
> Kind Regards
>
> Paul Blackburn
> Technical Officer
> Environmental Management
> Chester City Council
> Tel: 01244 402311
>
> Finally a result, thats one for us I think
>
>
I'm glad that they took you seriously on this one :-)
In fact, I'm a more than a little fed up with the standard and health of
fish that we are offered for sale, not only in the UK, but it would
appear to be worldwide. Some shops offer refunds after 24-48 hours if a
fish dies providing the water tests out OK - but it takes much longer
than this for disease/parasites to become apparent.
The market for other pets is heavily regulated. Noone would buy a cat or
dog (or any other mammal for that case) and accept the level of
mortalities that we do in the fish keeping world of our new aquisitions
without serious complaints/action being taken.
I went into one LFS not so long ago with a list of mortalities of newly
purchased fish over a 6 week period (it was around 30%) and did get some
sort of credit . And this was a shop where they DO look after their
tanks and take fish off sale if they look unwell, plus spend time
acclimitising them before selling them...so it looks as if it was the
stock itself that had come in with a problem that didn't become
immediately apparent. Yeah, yeah I know all the arguements about fish
already being stressed from being shipped but these fish are not
cheap....there has to be a duty of care from the retail industry to cut
on disease and losses - even if this means that they take to task their
distributors for sending sub-standard fish (maybe they do but there
doesn't seem to be much improvement). Afterall if the fish they are
getting in are sub-standard the LFS is onto a bit of a loser - lost
custom, profits, unhappy customers, fish suffering etc - so this has to
be in their interests as well
Yet again my Clown Loaches are struck down with Ich that will not
respond to either Protozin or Interpet Anti White Spot. The only
responses I get is that Clown's are prone to this, they must be stressed
but no acknowledgment that the fish were already affected when I bought
them. The answer to that one is always "it's present in all aquariums"
and then they try to sell yet more Protozin. But if they hadn't been
infested in the first place I wouldn't be watching the poor things
suffer like this - grrr....No spots apparent until a day or two after I
bought them which leads me to think they might have been treating them
prior to selling them but not for long enough (none of their water went
in my tank). The bettas I bought at the same time also had Ich which
responded very quickly to protozin (don't think I'll be buying any fish
there again - it was a new place I was trying). One place I go to
actually has labels advising customers to treat their Clown Loaches with
Protozin for 3 days after purchase - with my recent CL experiences I'm
starting to think that this is very sound advice.
I know that alot of LFS's do care about their fish and their
customers...and yes there are commercial considerations as well...but if
more of us took the stance of complaining (even beyond the so called
"warranty period") some improvements might be possible. Or maybe we
should just lie back and throw away our pounds (dollars/euros etc) on
fish that are going to die on us after a few days (despite our best
efforts to create good healthy environments for them)....
I'll get off my soap box now
Gill
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Posted by 2pods on October 28, 2005, 5:12 pm
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> Yet again my Clown Loaches are struck down with Ich that will not respond
> to either Protozin or Interpet Anti White Spot. The only responses I get
> is that Clown's are prone to this, they must be stressed but no
> acknowledgment that the fish were already affected when I bought them. The
> answer to that one is always "it's present in all aquariums" and then they
> try to sell yet more Protozin. But if they hadn't been infested in the
> first place I wouldn't be watching the poor things suffer like this -
> grrr....No spots apparent until a day or two after I bought them which
> leads me to think they might have been treating them prior to selling them
> but not for long enough (none of their water went in my tank). The bettas
> I bought at the same time also had Ich which responded very quickly to
> protozin (don't think I'll be buying any fish there again - it was a new
> place I was trying). One place I go to actually has labels advising
> customers to treat their Clown Loaches with Protozin for 3 days after
> purchase - with my recent CL experiences I'm starting to think that this
> is very sound advice.
>
> I know that alot of LFS's do care about their fish and their
> customers...and yes there are commercial considerations as well...but if
> more of us took the stance of complaining (even beyond the so called
> "warranty period") some improvements might be possible. Or maybe we should
> just lie back and throw away our pounds (dollars/euros etc) on fish that
> are going to die on us after a few days (despite our best efforts to
> create good healthy environments for them)....
>
> I'll get off my soap box now
>
> Gill
>
Just a thought Gill, could you borrow a aquarium UV and see if that helped
the Ich ?
They work for some of us, and it's worth a try.
If you already have one, forget I mentioned it :-)
Peter
Peter
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Posted by Gill Passman on October 28, 2005, 6:02 pm
Please log in for more thread options 2pods wrote:
>>Yet again my Clown Loaches are struck down with Ich that will not respond
>>to either Protozin or Interpet Anti White Spot. The only responses I get
>>is that Clown's are prone to this, they must be stressed but no
>>acknowledgment that the fish were already affected when I bought them. The
>>answer to that one is always "it's present in all aquariums" and then they
>>try to sell yet more Protozin. But if they hadn't been infested in the
>>first place I wouldn't be watching the poor things suffer like this -
>>grrr....No spots apparent until a day or two after I bought them which
>>leads me to think they might have been treating them prior to selling them
>>but not for long enough (none of their water went in my tank). The bettas
>>I bought at the same time also had Ich which responded very quickly to
>>protozin (don't think I'll be buying any fish there again - it was a new
>>place I was trying). One place I go to actually has labels advising
>>customers to treat their Clown Loaches with Protozin for 3 days after
>>purchase - with my recent CL experiences I'm starting to think that this
>>is very sound advice.
>>
>>I know that alot of LFS's do care about their fish and their
>>customers...and yes there are commercial considerations as well...but if
>>more of us took the stance of complaining (even beyond the so called
>>"warranty period") some improvements might be possible. Or maybe we should
>>just lie back and throw away our pounds (dollars/euros etc) on fish that
>>are going to die on us after a few days (despite our best efforts to
>>create good healthy environments for them)....
>>
>>I'll get off my soap box now
>>
>>Gill
>>
>
>
> Just a thought Gill, could you borrow a aquarium UV and see if that helped
> the Ich ?
> They work for some of us, and it's worth a try.
>
> If you already have one, forget I mentioned it :-)
>
> Peter
>
> Peter
>
>
Thanks Peter, it's certainly worth a try, I'm planning on a trip to the
LFS on Monday when it is quieter. What I am doing at the moment is still
dosing with Protozin ever other day and concentrating my gravel vacs in
the area where they tend to sleep in a heap. Fortunately this is in a
corner at the front of the tank so quite easy to get to. What I am
seeing is that some of them will get clear of it and then pick it up
again - I guess this is part of the clown heap thing making them closer
to it. The fish themselves are still doing OK which is good. They don't
hide and they come up and hand feed when I give the bloodworm or other
frozen goodies at night....and take the flake or guzzle the sinking
pellets and catfish stuff I put in in the morning.
But I am still very cross that we, as fishkeepers, are forced to deal
with these sort of problems. We should not be sold sick or infected fish
- end of story. I don't really care about all the arguements we get back
from our resellers about this, that and the other....we all should
really take the stance that this is not acceptable.....what would you do
if you bought a TV that blew within two weeks of purchase????? Or a
puppy that died within a week????
I went in to bring to my LFS's attention the number of casualties I had
with new purchases - I gave him a list and it was taken on-line and some
were taken off sale within a few days. Obviously I got the 10th degree
but these fishes went into 3 different tanks all with perfect water
parameters....I'd had them longer than the 48 hour warranty period - 48
hours is ridiculous - look at Elaine's recent posting about her sick
betta - I'm sure nothing Elaine did brought this about - the fish was
sick when she got it....as I would probably guess poor Flower the Discus
was....
How long are we going to take this?????
Mr Studdart (what's your first name as I can't figure out how to get
your alias on my keyboard???) is very right in taking this stance....if
more of us went in and complained we will get better quality of
fish...while we maintain the status quo nobody will ever do anything or
even care....
I think I might be on this soap box a very long time.... :-) but I am
fed up of being told that it is just one of those things while my money
drips away....and even more importantly when I go and buy fish I have
generally researched them, get excited about introducing this new
fish...I want them....the absolute downer is then watching them die
because the quality of the fish wasn't good enough. My middle child,
Matthew, had a passion for his fish....he has a 30gall in his
bedroom...it is way understocked....I bought him Yoyo loaches for his
birthday - we have one left due to a quality issue with the stock
(admitted and I got credit). He does not want to ever buy any more
fish....he told me that it broke his heart to get so excited over
putting something new in and then just watching it die.....the exception
might be the Yoyos as one on it's own won't work. He used to have a 15
gall tank as well but it got wiped out - we still don't know why but it
was stable till we added new fish about 2 months before the massacre -
it is now in my kitchen with a new identity...but it's understocked and
I'm not about to upset the status quo - too scared that I will lose what
I have.
I really think we should all be going and complaining when our fish get
sick....forget the 24-48 hours plus water sample stuff - that only
proves that the fish died because our tanks weren't up to it....very
rarely would I expect a fish to die instantly other than my water
quality wasn't good enough or was significantly different to the water
at the LFS....as I said most infections/parasites take much, much longer
and hey they have this great caveat that it is over the warranty period....
I am sick to death with all this....let's all fight together to get
better quality fish....if we don't we will all be putting up with this
forever....
Very much still on her soap box
Gill
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> inspection in December 05/January06. This inspection is for their licence
> renewal and they have been informed that should standards slip, their
> licence may be affected.
>
> Finally a result, thats one for us I think
>
>