A common pleco will start growing again if you put him in a bigger tank. :D

Fresh water here. I mainly keep New World cichlids and a few oddball bichirs. Don't want to bother with salt water, too much of a hassle mixing RO water with salt mix and trying to get the right levels or else all of your fish/reef will die.

Well, we went to an aquarium shop to check out the fish and potentially buy our stuff to get going, but the woman who owned the shop was really, really mean to us, so we left. We then started pondering if the fish need to be fed every day, and what that means if they're office fish, and we got all intimidated. I think we'll just buy a painting of a fish.

The fish basically need to be fed everyday. But there are a number of different things you can do for the weekends or off days. Automatic feeders, weekend feeding blocks, or throw in some zucchini or cucumber. Any one of those things or a combination will more than suffice. What kind of fish were you thinking about getting?

Unless fish are aggressive, you don't need to feed them every day.

I've left livebearer tanks without food while on 4 and 5-day vacations.

Fish can go a long time without food.

Hmm, information like this is useful.

As far as the type of fish, we had settled on "pretty and entertaining to watch". The woman at the aquarium shop did not wish to help us get more specific within this category, and told us "it wasn't her job to teach us", among other things.

I wouldn't buy fish there. It IS her job to teach you if she's interested in facilitating fish keeping as a serious hobby. If she's just interested in moving fish and collecting the money, her fish aren't worth buying because she likely cuts corner in their care in-store.

I've currently got about a dozen O.B. peacock cichlid babies darting around my tank right now. Mama fish is holding another ****ing clutch already. Goddamn mouth brooders. I've been selling some to the pet store, but I can't keep up.

Anybody want some babies?

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What pet store do you sell them to? How much do they give?

City Pets in Westport. They generally carry peacock cichlids when a lot of other stores don't. I really enjoy peacocks. They give me store credit for them, not cash. Which is fine with me as I'm always needing pet supplies. $2-3 bucks a piece.

Cool thanks. In addition to asking the garden stores next year about the shubunkins and sarassa comets I am raising, I was thinking smaller pet shops would be better options than say a Petsmart or Petco. Store credit is something I hadn't thought of so that is a good angle.

Petsmart or Petco won't take them. They told me they don't do that kind of thing anymore.

City Pets does pond fish stuff too, so they'd probably work with you.

Too bad Waldo Pets isn't around anymore....

I loved that place. I had been going for years, then one day I drove over there, must have been 6 years now, and it was just completely gone. I was shocked.

I actually worked at Petsmart for almost two years as my first job in the aquatics/small animal department. One time someone brought in a red bellied pacu they said they caught in a creek. This thing was huge, with a length of at least 18 inches. I imagine someone dumped it there and this person caught it shortly thereafter. I threw it in one of the empty aquariums and someone took it home (free of charge) within a few days.

So, who wants my syno cats for free? I really need them gone.

I would buy some from you. I've wanted ob peacocks for awhile. Well depending on how far you are from blue springs.