Loaches Online Forum

holy cow. i saw some pokadot loaches at petsmart this weekend for 21$ each. they were roughly 1.5" long and no bigger than that. they all looked healthy but 1 was about dead with skinny disease. not only that, the clowns they had at petco were 1" or less and almost left for dead. what a sad day at the lfs.

whats really sad is that every fish store near here, even big al's carries dyed or tattooed fish. and most of the loaches that i have seen are not taken care of at all. they all look left for dead( is my best description). they ask 10$ for a 1" clown loach that appears to be on the deathbed. what a sad day!

The conditions etc are terrible, but those prices are just a joke. I can get 1" Clowns for CDN$3.99 in Toronto. Botia kubotai are about 9.99 max for the size you're talking about.

Martin.

Can you haggle on the prices?
I mean, you're doing them a favor by taking half dead fish that nobody wants and freeing up their tank for more fish.

agreed mistergreen but these guys won't budge. they would rather the fish die than lower the price. the poor baby clown i saw was so helpless. i wanted to save him but that would only encourage them to buy more helpless baby loaches left for death.

Wow those prices are crazy I got my kubotai for 4.99 each and I even recently got three 5 inch clowns for $20 each.

That IS crazy. All the Petsmarts I have been into lately have dropped the price of kubotai down to $9.99. I think LUVALOACH mentioned in a recent thread, that she had seen them at Petsmart for $9.99.

they're $21.95 all over Atlanta. Most of the ones I've seen look pretty decent though.

$20 for a healthy large Kubotai is not unreasonable, but not for what you describe. I paid $7.50 for 2"+ Kubs recently, and these were healthy... skinny after the store diet of a little flakes only, but this is curable.

The clown prices do seem to be rising, at least around here.

I saw a 3" one for $30 in petland over the weekend (?!) -- this is supposed to be a cheap chain. I felt like rescuing him, except that his coloration pointed to parasites (curable), and I could not see the barbels..I think they totally eroded (incurable? but just how bad is it?)...still thinking and feeling sorry for him.

I got my angelicus when they dropped their prices twice to under 10 bucks. Clowns and golden dojos (none available recently) are around 8 bucks.

Quality of tanks is so variable. Here in Flagstaff, our petsmart fish "manager?" and college kids who staff are really committed, and the tanks look great. Never had any problems.

Visiting a friend outside salt lake city--the petsmart tanks there were frightening. Cloudy water, overrun with snails. We got a few guppies (did not listen to that inner voice of "Danger will robinson, danger!" and they brought in disease to my friend's tank.

Man, I feel almost guilty that I have such good LFS's and such. Only one of them has recently gone down in their quality of fish and enviornment. They recently got a shipment of beautiful brigh orange parrot cichlids, only they were tatooed. This sickened me because half of them were dead and discoloring, and they looked very unatural.

Further more, they recently got in a bunch of gold dojos. This is teh first thime they've had those in months. But, much to my dismay, half of them were dead, and looked like they'd been dead for quite some time.

Next come the clowns. Ich. And when this place gets ich-fish, they aren't treated.

Then, blue botias. I'd gotten two of these earlier, and they were very healthy, and I was to get more, only to find out they'd put silver piranhas in with them. Their fins were destroyed, and I ddin't want to get either of them, lest they carried possible ich from stress.

I left that place sad, and now I'm boycotting them for awhile.

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I noted this on another thread---I think dojo farms or wherever they get them must be flooding the US market. Over a year no golden dojos in Flagstaff at our LFS OR Petmsart, then they are here. Then I heard from someone else on here they suddenly showed up in their petsmarts/petcos as well! Wonder if there is anything to that?

I think you might be better off buying fish from the web. The shipping can cost but if you are buying a lot of fish at lower prices, it will make up for your shipping costs. I've had very good luck buying mail-order and if you can buy directly from the breeder the fish are much healthier than imports.