Attn: tang police
Sumpfinfishe
Sorry about your bad experience at the store.
As Mike said we have been having an out break of Ich lately. I can tell you it is not because of a lack of care for the animals. I feel personally responsible for the life of every fish that we get in the store.
I have been working in the Chilliwack store for the last couple of weeks, so, I did not see what shape the tangs were in when they arrived.But,I was surprised to see how skinny they were when I arrived at the store on Saturday, and made sure they were fed often through out the day. The fish were treated on Saturday and I left instruction with the other staff to make sure that the fish were fed several times a day.
I have been keeping saltwater and reef tanks for about 10 years. And I will tell you that keeping fish healthy in a tank at home and in a tank in a retail outlet are two very different things.
I think we have a very good set up for our store. There are only 2 tanks on any one system. Each system has a UV and it's own sump. And all the systems are lightly stocked. The system with the tangs in it has about 350 - 450 gallons in it and contains 4 small tangs and 3 small lionfish. So the ich was not caused by over crowding.
We have tried to run the tanks on a more natural system, using live rock in the tanks, the way we recommend our customers run their tanks. Having live rock in the tanks we have had to be carefull about the types and amounts of medication we can use in the tanks. We have avoided running copper in the systems, because of some of the information that is available on it's extended use. I know of other stores that use copper constantly in there systems, although I am sure that they still suffer loses from ich and other things like everyone does. Maybe it is time to look at how our system is run and make some changes. I would hate to remove the rock and start running medication constantly, but,if that is what it takes, then we will do it.
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