That sounds horrible.....7 large fish crammed into a 55....as Grant R said, hopefully they'll find a better home.
One of the worst cases of overcrowding I've ever seen, (besides the LFS's live feeder tanks), was in a magazine Practical Fishkeeping. A lady had something like 150 fish in a 55g. They were all small fish like tetras and cories, but still, the poor fish really didn't have any room to move around. In the article she stated that she lost all her previous fish due to some bad advice about an antibiotic treatment, but I'm sure that being so overcrowded was the real culprit.