# My Favorite LFS :-(



## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

My local favorite LFS had a terrible accident this past weekend. They have one wall of the whole place on one main filtration system. The tanks are stacked 3 high, a very clean and impressive setup. It is divided into four separate sub-systems. It can release water from all filter systems, and simultaniously add new tap water into each without mixing the water. Very cool system, expensive, and unbelievably convienient.

Well, on Saturday, when it came time for the weekly 20% total water change, an accident occured. It was after closing, the Owner's wife runs the store and she was gone. He started the change, and should have stayed there and watched the progress. Well, he got distracted and never went back to shut off the exchange system. It ran the exchange from about 6:00pm on Saturday until 7:00am on Monday. We had a huge freeze over the weekend. So all weekend long Ice-cold chlorinated water cycled through the system. A couple hundred dollars worth of fish died in a matter of hours. They lost some GIANT Pacus they were boarding for some guy. A couple 12" plus Jaguars. And their own personal pet of 5 years, "Pete", a 24"+ Peacock bass. This guy was a real attraction for the store, people would come just to feed Pete a couple of goldfish. I went and gave them about $60 worth of fish that I have been slowly collecting as friends get into, and then right back out of, the fish-keeping hobby.

Anyway. They lost a lot of money. Sad because they are such a small business that they are having trouble keeping afloat, especially with PetCo running them into the red.

Amazingly enough, and the reason I put this in the Cichlid Section, There were 9 fish to survive the catastrophe. 3 Large Tiger Oscars, 2 little albino oscars, and 4 assorted medium size oscars. Not all the Oscars they had survived, but a good bit. I wouldn't have believed it unless I had seen it. She said that they were all dead looking on the bottom when she came in, but everything else dead was floating. She got the heater warming everything up and started cleaning up the dead fish. She started on the end the furthest from the Oscars. She of course had to deal with customers for other pets along the way, as well as explain what happened to a good many loyal customers. When she got down to the end to clean up the Oscars, they were not dead, in fact, they were begging for food. Wild stuff. Apparently the water was just warm enough to keep them alive, since the exchange system was just barely turned on., the tap water was semi-heated when it went into the tanks.

Just thought I would share this sad story, along with a moment of silence for Pete...


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

Ug, what a story. Time for a new show fish, I guess....


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## Death in #'s (Apr 29, 2003)

dam that sucks
and oscars are so dam though


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## Enriqo_Suavez (Mar 31, 2004)

Damn that blows







I love local owned fish stores more than any name brand pet store







I would do the same as you did (donate to them)


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## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

I don't understand how they didn't die. I would swear it wasn't true, given the circumstances. Yet, I was in there on Saturday, admiring the large Oscars...

And when I was in there on Monday, after a friend called me and told me their plight, I went in to talk to her and offer fish. I walked to the back, looking at the crystal clear, rather deadly water...thinking how Ironic that we had just been talking about giving Pete a new home on Saturday. That is when I saw they Oscars. Craziness.


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## beans (Dec 7, 2004)

yea man oscars are beasts thats awesome that some oscars lived but that must suck to lose that pecock damm


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## Fido (May 21, 2003)

hope he will be more careful next time.


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## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

There won't be a next time. He won't ever be in charge of that duty again, she told me so herself.


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## Lahot (May 20, 2003)

how does a small pet store go without at least coming in to feed the animals much less be open on Sunday.

Oscars are almost the unkillable fish of the cichlid world once they get to 6-8"


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## Fido (May 21, 2003)

SirOneEighty said:


> There won't be a next time. He won't ever be in charge of that duty again, she told me so herself.
> [snapback]875726[/snapback]​










i salute her for that. Also they could probably get a pretty penny if they sell frozen fish on ebay. People like to buy em to taxidermy em.


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

Hate to ask this but what did they do with those large fish? I know of biology classes that could dissect them or at least get skeletons from them. Also helps with that feeling of 'what a waste' when they get used for something. I've had fish like this shipped to me packed in salt (prevents need to rush shipping), very useful.


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## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

Pete will be mounted and prominantly displayed for everyone to see at the store. As far as everything else goes... I don't know. I thought it rude to continue bothering them during this frustrating time.

They aren't open on Sunday because most places around here are closed on Sundays. Almost all stores that are not corporately owned are close all day Sunday.

They apparently had someone that was supposed to come in to feed them on Sunday morning, but we had a big ice storm that night. Most people are rather afraid of ice/snow here, we don't get enough of it for the roads to be safely taken care of. So more than liekly no one came.


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## Fresh2salt (Jul 16, 2004)

damn that blows


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## WorldBelow07 (Dec 16, 2004)

man that sucks. post some pics


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## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

I will post Pics of Pete whenever he gets mounted and displayed.


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## o snap its eric (Feb 19, 2003)

oscars are one of those fish i call bulletproof


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## piranhaqueen (Nov 18, 2004)




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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

Very unfortunate!


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## hyphen (Apr 4, 2004)

shitty =/


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