Q'TING,WOULD YOU PAY$$

[veron]

Something that a few BIG/POPULAR ONLINE stores do and info gathering.
CORALS, would you pay a premium fee to have your corals held for a small period of time,dipped for certain pests. man I think this option would be super popular, imagine knowing that you have a better chance at not introducing pests.

FISH. would you be willing to pay say an extra $5 to $10 per fish if the store was setup to hold your fish for 3 weeks,feed them to regain there fat reserves and adjust to tank life.,let the fish die in there store if it was gonna die.
treat with PRAZIPRO for flukes, use CUPAMINE or hyposalinity for ICH.

Now having said all this, I know stores need to sell and move stuff but imagine how happier a customer would be with these options !! These options alone would reduce the death rates bigtime and me personally I would frequent THAT store because I knew they were doing all they could do.

TRANSHIPPING: reduce the number of tanks that a fish has to adjust to and get a reducing in cost for this options as you would be taking all the risk.

PERSONAL QT'ing should still be followed

[Hookup]

I would pay extra for both.  The Coral one seems way easier to do for a LFS and I believe some do that already.  Getting a few dips going as part of the process isnt' hard and costs can be controlled and predicted. 

As for fish, yes, paying extra for "healthy fish" is awesome.  Show me a fish that has been swimming for 3 weeks, is actively feeding on frozen, flake and pellet foods... that's worth money.  I'd imagine it'd be hard to keep control of costs for doing this.

Good thoughts.

[veron]

I wonder just how hard would it really be? it should be doable and a win/win for store and customer. maybe just an ''option'' formula.
PLAN A. full QTING PROCESS.
PLAN B. standard one week inhouse and out the door.
PLAN C. tranship, pick up in the back.

I'd be suprised if most hobbiests DIDN'T take PLAN A.

[Vincenzo.]

wont happen. To much work in volved. Way more tanks, w/c's, treatments, feeding, it would not b 5-10$ more, more like 50$... Great on paper...wont happen. Less hassle for store the better. And what goes to say u put the fish in and it dies of ich?

[Cheebs]

I'd pay, but I'd be a bit skeptical too. Depending on the company, they could say whatever they want to get you to buy it, and I don't think that they'd give you any extra guarantees. I think most of our local, less mainstream stores would be willing to hold a fish for you if you asked, at least for a while, whether that involved a small fee or not.

I think the problem resides more with certain larger companies, or one specifically which I won't name.  If a company is willing to ship in hundreds of new fish and stick them in tanks that were infected with Ich the days before, and then sell those fish without a word to the buyer, I don't think QTing is something they would even be interested in doing, as great an idea as it is.

I've visited most of the Sponsors on OVAS, and it wouldn't be presumptuous to assume that, if you asked, they would dip a coral for you or at the very least be as honest as they can about the condition of their fish/corals.

I just don't think it's something you should pay for, and that the people who have frequent problems and need these methods the most aren't interested in change. But one can only try I guess!

[Severum]

I like this idea too. But I don't think it will be possible because of the inevitable feeding frenzy that happens each time a LFS gets a new order of fish or corals in. Whats the point in waiting around 3 weeks for a fish or coral when all the great ones were snagged up the first day the shipment arrived?

[jimskoi]

We hold items for customers now.Some we have held for weeks.Its not that big of a deal.we also do the tranship also.Seems to work very well.The fish alot less stress.Its 1 less move that they have to go through.
Corals are not that big of a deal.We also dip our corals.Coral dip-FW dip then a SW dip.You do lose a few nice creatures from the dipping but atleast you have no chance of getting a nasty one.

[RoxyDog]

If this were something equivalent to Live Aquaria's Diver's Den, I'd for sure pay more!  In the case of a fish, more than $10 more for sure, and probably more for the coral too.  But I would also expect the guarantee that LA provides.

[HappyGuppy]

Sorry to be a bit of a pessimist here, but my experience is that *occasionally* you find a truly knowledgeable employee at pet stores / LFS, however most there are minimum wage "experts" that got their "training" while working in the stores.  I would have to say that a huge amount of advice I got from many (gotta love Petsmart for this), even those working at BA's (though in general they do have the best knowledge), is well not even worth the two cents for their thoughts.  The point is this... who is going to manage on a day to day basis your QT tank?  One of those minimum wage guys.  Do you seriously believe that one of those minimum wage guys is going to be absolutely perfectly meticulous with sterilizing equipment, even hands, between tanks?  I can't say that I would trust them for $5.  If I paid $100 and had a $5,000 guaruntee against nasties being introduced into my tank then I'd consider it, as for sure they would be VERY meticulous, however I wouldn't pay that much myself for the service.  Bottom line is that I trust myself and I know what I did every step of the way.

[Hookup]

I agree with the inherent problems, to a point.  I think if this were to occur, you'd have to have a tonne of tanks/systems.

Week 1: A new batch of fish... Put them into System A
Week 2: New batch of fish... Cannot put into System A, have to put in their own system.
Week 3: New batch of fish... cannot put into System A or B, must put them into system C
Week 4: Fish in system A are now "ready", but a new batch of fish is in... Got to put "QT fish into System D" and put new batch into System A.

Ok so now we have 3 systems, each with 6 tanks to avoid conflict, and a 4th system having 8 tanks or more which are "QT'd fish".  System D could have no copper, just a "clean" system, because the fish are already clean and eating.  This helps when selling, or at least when buying.

If you allow someone to buy from any system, just only marking up the QT'd system, you might have a solution.  You're going to have to ensure you do not get more fish in than any one system can hold..

Hum... the more I think this through, the more I see this being a possibility for some of the LFS with the space...

[robt18]

In London all aquatic stores QT their new fish for a full week before selling them no matter what. All big stores including BA there do it. It also helps reduce the deaths caused by moving a fish from different systems twice in a few days, resulting in extra stress and shock to the fish.

Also, since they QT'd all fish for a week after they came in, they would let you pay for the fish once it arrived and hold it for you for the rest of the week until they were ready to go home. If somehow all of the species you paid for died during the QT week they gave you the full value back in store credit or would order them again for you.

Instead of having numerous systems for QTing, this also allowed them to just put them in the tanks in the store, write 'New arrivals' on the tanks, and this day they were still being displayed and not taking up extra space.

[Hookup]

I like the concept, but once a fish is "past its one week" mark, if you add any "fresh fish" you've kind of defeated the purpose.  Not sure how they would get away with not having multiple systems?

[RossW]

If you are doing QT for disease, you can't mix fish from different weeks otherwise you reset the counter.  If your intent is not su much QT for disease but rather allowing the fish to rest, recover, transition to being fed, and adjust to aquarium life then you can mix but be aware you have not QT'ed for disease.

[veron]

very good thoughts here. ROXYDOG is right on the money for the store That has HUGE respect and customers.
It could be done but not easy. but hey,with the price of livestock always on the rise for both the retailer and the hobbiest why not?
not to mention the less stress/death rate of new fish. if they sit and eat for say 3 weeks in a QT setup then your chances of having dead fish are diminished.

[robt18]

It can't really be done on marine systems, since they're typically all hooked up with each other. All of the stores in London only did this with their freshwater fish. For marines they did have a couple systems, and tried to alternate which ones they put fish into as much as they could. Luckily most stores typically won't get marine shipments more than once a week, so although not as effective as it could be, it can still sort of be done.

[Hookup]

very good thoughts here. ROXYDOG is right on the money for the store That has HUGE respect and customers.
It could be done but not easy. but hey,with the price of livestock always on the rise for both the retailer and the hobbiest why not?
not to mention the less stress/death rate of new fish. if they sit and eat for say 3 weeks in a QT setup then your chances of having dead fish are diminished.

Things like having Gov of Can put a tarriff on imports of this nature would be a huge benifit to the "natural environment".  So many things are simply taken from the wild and not respected because it's significantly cheaper than ethically and renewably managing the resource.

Many fish can be acquired as captive bread which not only protecting natural resources it also gives a higher survivability rate in our systems than wild-caught, and then you consider the lack of diseases.  However, the COST is almost always 2x or more for captive bread.  People are driven by the "cheapest" price so the wild-caught are winning the day.


If you go back and look at what the sponsors are brining in on a weekly basis and assume others are bringing in similar there are thousands of pieces of coral and fish each week coming into Ottawa alone...  I know my tank is over-stocked, but I do not have thousands of fish & corals... where are all of these going?

Wild captured fish/corals are in expensive and are in a never-ending supply...  Until one if not both of those facts change, concepts like QT'ing fish/corals, and captive bread fish cultured corals a so fourth will never truly take off.  For everyone hobbiest who is willing to do things the 'ethical way' there are 2 dozen behind him/her who want cheap and fast.

[bergenm]

If you go back and look at what the sponsors are brining in on a weekly basis and assume others are bringing in similar there are thousands of pieces of coral and fish each week coming into Ottawa alone...  I know my tank is over-stocked, but I do not have thousands of fish & corals... where are all of these going?

More than likely, they are going into the garbage. I think people would be quite surprised at how much FW & SW livestock dies in-transit, in-store and is replaced for the customer... Most stores view this as just part of the business and incorporate the losses into their margins - which is why Q'ting would not be high on their priority list.

[jcmh]

If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.

I wouldn't trust anyone to properly QT a fish. Especially if they are doing many fish at a time. It would be so hard to keep track.

One online retailer in the states is apparently doing it without very much added cost though. Every fish you buy from them goes through the process. But they don't ship to Canada nor do they have any plans of coming here.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=425