Loaches Online Forum

Well usually big al's only carry clowns but yesterday they had a full tank of kubotai, striata, yo-yo's. unfortunately, they all looked a bit too skinny and small. the only two large healthy looking striatas i picked up out of another tank..


the tank that the kubotai, yo-yo's, and striatas were in had two dead plecos and the botias were eating off the plecos. not only that, all of them had skinny disease. and it didn't appear that they were feeding them well. on the contrary, the two i picked up in the other tank were very healthy looking, lets see if i can fatten them up.

my first sign of choosing these guys was that they were about 2" each and much fatter than the others. the 2nd sign was when i wiggled my fingers near the tank, they both came right up and started loachy dancing for me.

and now....


they have been loachy dancing for me all morning!

the sad thing is, that the quality and care that i have seen at big al's has been diminishing in the last few months. they let dead fish sit there for days and honestly i don't know if i can buy fish from them anymore. its come to the point to where many of the lfs's around here are so bad that petsmart takes better care of their fish. and thats horrible to say imho.

Man, I thought things were bad here but wow.

I love it when they loachy dance.

LoachOrgy wrote:
the sad thing is, that the quality and care that i have seen at big al's has been diminishing in the last few months. they let dead fish sit there for days and honestly i don't know if i can buy fish from them anymore. its come to the point to where many of the lfs's around here are so bad that petsmart takes better care of their fish. and thats horrible to say imho.

Yuck. I have a LFS near me that just has horrible conditions every time I go in there. Dead fish, etc.. the same place I posted about that had an entire tank full of dead snails. The only thing I will buy from there is the Aqua Clear supplies for filters, they are the ONLY store local to me that carries AQ.

I hate hearing conditions like this all over. It makes me angry that they call themselves fish / pet stores and dare actually give out advice. Horrible!

Oh, btw.. the Petsmart here (and the Petco too, for that matter) take better care of all their animals than that LFS I talked about above.

This happened to my lfs. They used to be great, then the original employees quit and the new ones dont know what they are doing. Algae all over the glass, dead fish and tons of ich. Now i have to drive at least 30 minutes for an average but healthy selection of fish. A 60 minute drive to ThatFishPlace/ThatPetPlace in Centerville, Pennsylvania is required for a wide selection of healthy fish. Biggest fish store in the USA i believe. If you are ever in the area, visit.

clownloachfan wrote:This happened to my lfs. They used to be great, then the original employees quit and the new ones dont know what they are doing. Algae all over the glass, dead fish and tons of ich. Now i have to drive at least 30 minutes for an average but healthy selection of fish. A 60 minute drive to ThatFishPlace/ThatPetPlace in Centerville, Pennsylvania is required for a wide selection of healthy fish. Biggest fish store in the USA i believe. If you are ever in the area, visit.

Hmmm.. Centerville.. I don't know where that is, but I will Mapquest it and see how far I am. I'm all the way in the northeast corner of PA (Wayne County).

WHOA.. if that's the one in Washington County, it says it would take me over 5 hours to drive there! I guess that's not happening anytime soon!

I dont know if its in washington county but its right outside of Lancaster. It will be worth the drive. Stock up on your dry goods too, best prices anywhere. Visit their website.

clownloachfan wrote:I dont know if its in washington county but its right outside of Lancaster. It will be worth the drive. Stock up on your dry goods too, best prices anywhere. Visit their website.

Ironically I was just told yet again today to go to this place. I found out from the girl that told me it's only 2 hours from me. Apparently there are at least 3 Centervilles in Pennsylvania. I will search for their website, thanks.

Still too far for me to travel being only weeks away from delivering!

LoachOrgy wrote:Well usually big al's only carry clowns but yesterday they had a full tank of kubotai, striata, yo-yo's. unfortunately, they all looked a bit too skinny and small. the only two large healthy looking striatas i picked up out of another tank..

Why not encourage them to use Levamisole hydrochloride to treat for their skinny state?:)

The rest are shocking.

because they don't care. its 16 yr old kids that don't care. i told them. they didn't listen.