# I fell prey to the $1 neon tetra sale at Petsmart



## tatersalad

Yea, it happened to me again.....stopped in my local petsmart with the kiddos and noticed they had my neons on sale for a buck with my card.
I gassed 3-4 dozen of my neons in my big tank back a couple of months ago, so I thought this the perfect time to restock.
All the signs were there to tell me to not do it: fish looked washed out, store employee tells me they just got them in earlier that day, one or two dead ones in the tank already.....
Stupid me just went ahead and bought 2 dozen of them, heck I think the girl gave me 30 of them cuz she didn't want to try to count them all.
Longer story shortened: I'll be danged if every single one of those fish didn't systematically die 2 to 3 at a time every day for like 2 weeks till they were all dead.
I still don't know what the deal is, none of my normal inhabitants have exhibted any problems and they are all doing fine, but all the $1 neons are gone. And yea, I checked all my water parameters and everything is perfect and was perfect.
I just wish there was a good LFS around here that had a decent selection of fish, I know there are some good ones up around Dallas/Arlington, but with gas prices the way they are no one wants to make a 2.5 hour trip to get fish.


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## Sennagalous

hmm... could it be the shipping/rehousing stress factor? thats gonna be there no matter where you shop. i find the fish i get from my petsmart are much more healthy than what i get from my lfs. though i never buy a fish if i see a dead one in the tank... just a pet peeve i guess.


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## tatersalad

Yea I usually don't buy from them if I see dead ones either, there was just so many neons in that tank....it was hypnotizing me 
They were all saying "look at us, we would be awesome in your tank"


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## LB79

yeah, that happens to me sometimes. Annoying...


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## gotplants

Sorry about what happened.. I had 2 bad experiences at Petsmart and 1 at Petco. I will NEVER buy fish from any again. One was when I bought a Roseline Shark for $6 dollars at Petsmart!! Crazy right? Turns out he had ich and infected my other ones. Next was when I rushed over there for a $1 dollar Cardinal Tetra sale. I was so excited because they're normally $4 at my LFS. Went there and every single one of them had one of the worst infestations of ich I have ever seen. So disappointing  At petco, I bought some ich infested neons for $1 dollar each as well..


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## mordalphus

Wow, I'm glad my petsmart employees know what they're doing!

Never had a bad experience with fish from my local petsmart. Just picked up 8 roselines for 3.50 each a few weeks ago, all going strong, before that it was 10 otos, and they're all fine as well. I usually buy from hobbyist if I can, or the forum sponsors here, but who can pass up roselines for 3.50 each? Or otos for a dollar a piece? I bought all they had left of both of those, haha.


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## wendyjo

So you put sick looking fish into your tank with other fish without quarantining them first? If so I hope the other fish stay healthy.

You said you tested the water - how often did you test? I would imagine that unless you have a very large tank that adding 20-30 fish at one time would cause an ammonia spike. If the new fish were already sickly that would have probably killed them.

Petco & Petsmart, at least the ones by me, have a 14 day return policy so I would have returned all the dead ones and gotten a refund.


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## Aquatic Delight

i went to petco by my apt, and told the guy in the fish section i wanted to get a few a neon tetras he went "Which ones are those?" i said never mind.

I am sorry to here about your story.


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## GraphicGr8s

tatersalad said:


> Yea I usually don't buy from them if I see dead ones either, there was just so many neons in that tank....it was hypnotizing me
> They were all saying "look at us, we would be awesome in your tank"


Maybe there are dead fish because they just haven't had time to get them out yet so that's not really a good indicator. One store I use to frequent never had a dead fish in a tank. Every hour one of them use to go and collect them up. Use to go there for supplies only since they were cheaper. Only bought fish there once. Once was enough.


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## tatersalad

Yea I realize a quarantine tank would have been ideal, but that will never get approved by the warden. Hindsight's 20/20, looking back now I probably should have introduced them 6 or 8 at a time. But when they are only a buck, they won't last long in the store, they get bought up pretty quick.


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## DrGonzo

tatersalad said:


> Yea I realize a quarantine tank would have been ideal, but that will never get approved by the warden. Hindsight's 20/20, looking back now I probably should have introduced them 6 or 8 at a time. But when they are only a buck, they won't last long in the store, they get bought up pretty quick.


Actually at petsmart, their sales run for about a month so you could find out when they get their fish and get some neons a few days after to weed out the not so healthies 6-8 at a time over the course of a few weeks.
Definitely use a quarantine tank though because you never know even though they do have UV sterilizers.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus


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## [email protected]

Every other year I purchase a batch of neon, cardinal, and black neon tetras from Petsmart. It was 40 this year. 
They always go into low light quarantine tanks for two months. I feed a variety of foods, dry and frozen as these fish were recently in streams and aren't being fed anything that looks like food from home. In a bad year I might lose 10%. In my opinion, they are hungry and stressed from shipping.


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## OVT

[email protected] said:


> ... these fish were recently in streams ...


In tubs in Easter Europe or Asia is more likely


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## tatersalad

[email protected] said:


> Every other year I purchase a batch of neon, cardinal, and black neon tetras from Petsmart. It was 40 this year.
> They always go into low light quarantine tanks for two months. I feed a variety of foods, dry and frozen as these fish were recently in streams and aren't being fed anything that looks like food from home. In a bad year I might lose 10%. In my opinion, they are hungry and stressed from shipping.


I agree with you, they had that very pale look that fish have when they've been stressed out to the max. Believe me, if they weren't $1, I wouldn't have chanced it.


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## wmsvn

mordalphus said:


> Wow, I'm glad my petsmart employees know what they're doing!
> 
> Never had a bad experience with fish from my local petsmart. Just picked up 8 roselines for 3.50 each a few weeks ago, all going strong, before that it was 10 otos, and they're all fine as well. I usually buy from hobbyist if I can, or the forum sponsors here, but who can pass up roselines for 3.50 each? Or otos for a dollar a piece? I bought all they had left of both of those, haha.



I never have any trouble with the one I got from my local petsmart either. Just add 10+ ottos into a new tank 2 weeks ago.


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## thedudeabides

I picked up some cardinals for a buck a while ago had some casualties but that is sometimes expected with cardinals. Neon's are usually captive breed so they aren't as bad off most of the time. As a general rule I wait a couple of days so that the weak die off in their tanks if I am making a purchase there. Sorry to hear that but at least you can learn from the experience.


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## tigerstarr830

*Neon Tetras*

I have ordered fish online and they not only have gotten there safe and sound but were robust and healthy. Why don't you give it a try??? I'm going to order some neons online myself and I'm really not worried. These guys want you to come back you know??? So they do a really good job. I'm anticipating healthy inhabitants!


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## Gavin Citrus

Does Petsmart really occasionally have Cardinal tetras for $1 each?

I haven't even found Cardinals at my local Petsmart.


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## philipraposo1982

that many fish with no QT... wow. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of your fish aren't sick. Good luck, hope for the best.


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## Wolff

I have to get a quarantine tank. Same exact problem as the original post. I bought 5 buenos aires tetras 2 days ago and I'm down to three. All of my original stock are fine. Got them from my local LFS which I've had tremendous luck with but who knows how long they have had them. Where online can you buy a few fish and not get killed on shipping.


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## mattjm20

I don't mind shopping at petco or petsmart for common fish that I don't want to pay a premium for, but those fish will be quarantined first regardless of how they look in the tank. I proactively treat for ich and sometimes internal parasites. Introducing some sort of sickness into my 90G because of carelessness is not an option because it's pretty hard to get fish out of there for treatment without mangling the scape, and quite costly to medicated 90G's


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## Vancat2

two letters: QT.


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## Raith

Wolff said:


> I have to get a quarantine tank. Same exact problem as the original post. I bought 5 buenos aires tetras 2 days ago and I'm down to three. All of my original stock are fine. Got them from my local LFS which I've had tremendous luck with but who knows how long they have had them. Where online can you buy a few fish and not get killed on shipping.


If you do not have a QT, it is fine, get a 50gallon bucket, this is what I do, I just fill the bucket of water with the water from my tank and then just QT the fish there for a day or two, I don't need to QT a week to know whether the fish is sick or not.


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## Clear Water

Bleach out fish are stressed. If they aren't colored up walk the other way. I would never buy fish that just been in the tank a day or less. They have to have some time to rest. When they have these sales there moving fish in an out so fast as they can and these kind of losses are to be expected.


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## RoseTyler

tatersalad said:


> Yea, it happened to me again.....stopped in my local petsmart with the kiddos and noticed they had my neons on sale for a buck with my card.
> I gassed 3-4 dozen of my neons in my big tank back a couple of months ago, so I thought this the perfect time to restock.
> All the signs were there to tell me to not do it: fish looked washed out, store employee tells me they just got them in earlier that day, one or two dead ones in the tank already.....
> Stupid me just went ahead and bought 2 dozen of them, heck I think the girl gave me 30 of them cuz she didn't want to try to count them all.
> Longer story shortened: I'll be danged if every single one of those fish didn't systematically die 2 to 3 at a time every day for like 2 weeks till they were all dead.
> I still don't know what the deal is, none of my normal inhabitants have exhibted any problems and they are all doing fine, but all the $1 neons are gone. And yea, I checked all my water parameters and everything is perfect and was perfect.
> I just wish there was a good LFS around here that had a decent selection of fish, I know there are some good ones up around Dallas/Arlington, but with gas prices the way they are no one wants to make a 2.5 hour trip to get fish.


The only LFS I know of in that area is True Percula -- which always had terrible freshwater stock. I did notice, before I moved out of Arlington, that there is another LFS but I don't remember what it's called or where it was. I want to say off Cooper somewhere.


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