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Originally Posted by Cella75
I am currently feeding him flake and pellets and supplement it with see veggies, which is basically dried seaweed or algae that softens as it get wet. The Tang attacks it when I put it in the tank. I am so upset that the folks at the Aquarium store did not tell me about the gallon capacity of the Tang. They knew I had a 12 gallon tank. Thank you all for your help, I don't have a bigger tank so I am going to have to figure out something to do with my Tang.
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Everyone learns that lesson about fish stores sooner or later.
The sad truth is that the majority don't care about the animals that they sell; they view them as stock and nothing more, and all they want is to make the sale.
Many times it's also that the employees are really more minimum wage paid retail people as opposed to people who work there because they genuinely care about and like animals.
This, obviously, isn't true for everyone who works in pet stores, but a lot of times (especially at large chain stores), the 'experts' they have are only there because it's a job with a paycheck.
They're sales people, for the most part, and are in the business of making money. Many pet stores also rely on the ignorance of new owners or on imuplse buyers to make sales and they don't care about anything else but making the sale and bringing in the money.
Since prices are generally marked up quite a bit on most products, and since a LOT of new owners don't bother to ask and just assume it's 'normal' for fish to be short lived, they don't lose money if they have to restock fish constantly because those people (the ignorant ones and the impulse buyers) will always be back to buy more and more and more.
Impulse buyers can be tricky to stop, but ignorance can be fixed by owners reading up, researching and asking before they make their purchases or asking when they have an issue and being educated then.
It sucks that you had to learn about it after losing one fish and having another one get sick, but on the plus side, you won't make the same mistakes again and you'll know to research before you buy and take what pet shop staff tell you with a big grain of salt.
And, once again, before anyone gets upset, I know that not all pet stores and pet store staff are like this but the fact is that a good chunk of them are. :\
Cella, if you're looking for some good books on saltwater fish keeping, here are a few decent ones:
Saltwater Aquariums for Dummies (don't be put off by the title, it really is a good book).
Marine Reef Aquarium Handbook (if you want to go for a
nano reef instead of fish only)
The Simple Guide to Mini-Reef Aquariums
Reef Secrets: Starting Right, Selecting Fishes & Invertebrates, Advanced Biotope Techniques
For the time being, I wouldn't add any other fish to your tank until you've done a little more research on what can be done with what you have; nanos can be gorgeous little tanks, but as you've said, you're very new to the hobby. Take some time to read up on the topic so when you do add fish again, you can make informed decisions and not have to rely on what the pet store tells you (as you've seen, they tend not to know best. :\ ).
Believe me, you'll save yourself a
lot of headaches and money if you take the time to read up on keeping a nano tank before adding any more fish.
