Qt any fish trade ins, I will never buy from one
lfs in my area because they simply dump their trade in fish in the tanks. I saw them dump a Green Spotted Puffers in with a tankful of columbian sharks that clearly had ick and that just raised a ton of questions in my mind as to the competance of the staff.
The maintenance of the tanks is the best determination for me. If I see dead, sick fish or dirty aquariums I just cringe and walk out.
One thing that I would really love to see is a decent fish profile at a
lfs. Semi aggressive /aggressive /peaceful is just not a very good way to sort fish. I would drool if I walked in somewhere where next to the tank it had
ph,
kh, full grown sizes, suitable tankmates, minimum tank size requirements, and if possible ways to determine the sex of the fish. That would make me so happy I don't think I would ever buy from any other store.
Mixed species tanks at
lfs are also completely awesome. It's nice to see a tank that looks like something that you're trying to create. I'd much rather look at a 55 gallon with cories, tetras, danios loaches, etc. mixed together than a 20 gallon with 500 danios in it.
NO BETTAS IN CUPS. It drives me nuts and just about every single fish enthusiast I have talked to agrees.
Buy fish from local breeders. I love when the
lfs tells me "Well normally you would need to do this to the water but these fish are from a local breeder and thus are acllimated to the water conditions so don't worry about it"
Also, I would also reiterate that allowing some type of return policy is a must. I refuse to go back to possibly the best
lfs in the area because I spent $60 on 2 fish (that's alot for us freshies) and had the fish die within 2 days due to no fault of my own (they even said their entire shipment died) but they said that's too bad, we have no return policy on livestock. I never return cheap fish and rarely have had to ever return a fish but I think that a week's guarantee is not too much to ask.
Basically, I think most fish people understand that you have to make money. For the most part all we want is for the tank not to look like something you see at the local dentists office and a knowleadgable person to help us.
Please come down to New Orleans and open an
lfs, all of ours are horrible.
The local petsmart(I must say that not all of them are bad-no bettas in cup either) is by far the best place to buy fish and I get sick of looking at the same fish every day when I stop by on my way home. It would be nice to see a good
lfs.