Why are large fish so easy to buy?

[Tigz]

I'm the proud but pretty nervous owner of a 7" Tiger Shovel nose Catfish that I bought at a time when I had a 50 gallon 2'x'2 tank.

The sticker on the tank at the LFS informed me it would grow to 35cm.
I handed over some cash money and set off home really pleased with the weird looking 4" Catfish.

Opened up the Macbook when I got home and headed over to YouTube, to find that my new boy may grow twice the length of my tank.

So what can you do?
You have a fish that eats everything else in the tank, so you buy a bigger tank and some bigger fish to go with him.

Now the guy in the LSF was informed when I was inquiring about him that my tank was pretty small, and said nothing to me that it was no where near large enough.
To be fair, he did tell me he would eat all my other fish but assured me it was take years before he out grew the tank.
He has pretty much doubled in size these last couple of months.

I went to a Tropical house today with the wife and daughter to see some adult Paco's and an adult TSN and was amazed by the 4ft Paco, the 2ft TSN looked tiny.
I've see Paco's for sale in another LFS near me, again with no warnings about how large these guys will grow.

My point is, why are these specialist fish allowed to be sold so irresponsibly?

 

[Jimmy16]

easy to breed and common, and people want exotic looking fish for their tanks. on top of that, fish shops need to make money, so if they told you that you need a pond to own one of those fish, would you still buy it? probably not.

 

[fishman61]

LFS survive on selling fish. I always do my homework on a possible fish for my tank before I visit the store.

 

[aclockworkorange]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

[Szar]

Why not, free country and all that good stuff.

 

[Younglin]

It's Pacu. And greed. Pure and simple.

 

[Eupterus]

I think because they are already established in the market and seem like almost nobody in the industry* cares.

* Sorry to those of you running a LFS, going by experiences here.

 

[Joe M]

The only thing that is irresponsible is that you bought a fish that you knew nothing about. Theres no reason to restrict fish because people make bad decisions.

 

[Tigz]

The only thing that is irresponsible is that you bought a fish that you knew nothing about. Theres no reason to restrict fish because people make bad decisions.

My mistake was a foolish one, I have no excuse as I can read have the internet at home and an iPhone away.
To be honest if I had looked it up I probably still would have bought him.

But how many others are out there that buy from a shop after taking the LFS advice as they are not expecting to have to confirm what they have been told on a fish forum?

The amount of Pacu's in the tank today was scary, the guy was telling me most had come from peoples homes when they grew larger than their small children.

 

[leather]

The only thing that is irresponsible is that you bought a fish that you knew nothing about. Theres no reason to restrict fish because people make bad decisions.

When saying this you are assuming that they didn't ask the person who sells fish for a living about it. They did and were not told. Now they know that they were given false info and know that the lfs isn't the best place to get info on a fish. Can't fault somebody for believing what the "professional" tells them.