Fish Abuse in LFS

[BichirQueen]

I sold a Florida Spotted Gar to Charlie's Aquarium in Pekin for (unfortunately) $10 in-store credit. I straight up told them his species and that he ONLY eats feeder fish, he won't eat dried food.

I come back a couple weeks later and they are selling him as an Alligator Gar and he looks extremely skinny and his growth rate has slowed tremendously.

I have reinformed the workers three times now that he is a SPOTTED GAR and needs live fish or they are going to kill him!!! Still no change and he is looking worse and worse! There is literally about a two foot size difference between the two species and spotted is the smaller! Wouldn't you think it would be easier to sell him as his actual species???

It's sad as **** because the only way I can save his life is to pay the $40 they are now asking for him! If I had the money to buy out Charlies and fix the entire store, I would ENSURE all the fish were labeled correctly and were put in the correct living conditions.

 

[Woefulrelic]

Florida and spotted are two different, nearly indistinguishable gar I think

 

[BichirQueen]

Sorry, typo, my bad. I think I told them just Spotted though so there should still be no reason. I just woke up after a night of drinking and didn't read over what I wrote.

 

[BichirQueen]

This place also has an outrageous amount y of black brush algae and are keeping bichirs in 30gals... It's ridiculous.

 

[kewpiefishypewpie]

Sorry to hear that, that sucks. Maybe another hobbyist on here that lives nearby can pick him up? Where is this place?

 

[BichirQueen]

Pekin, IL.

 

[Grinch]

I come back a couple weeks later and they are selling him as an Alligator Gar and he looks extremely skinny and his growth rate has slowed tremendously.

I have reinformed the workers three times now that he is a SPOTTED GAR and needs live fish or they are going to kill him!!! Still no change and he is looking worse and worse!

This is sad . Maybe they'll let you buy a bag of feeders to put in his tank?

Unfortunately, if you want money or store-credit in a hurry, this is the risk. It's increasingly rare that a LFS will take a fish in, let alone give you anything for the fish, so you might want to tread carefully so as not to burn any bridges. If you are able, buy him back, get him back to health, and put him on CL for an adoption fee... at least then you have some modicum of control over where he goes.