A Good Deal, Maybe Wasn’t.
I stopped at this small independent fish shop in Hagerstown Saturday. I’ve usually been disappointed whenever I went there, more often than not horrified by the tanks of sick and dying fish. The fish looked relatively good the other day though and they happened to have Sterba’s Cories for $3.98 each. This is a very, very good price for that particular fish, so I bought all three they had. Like any independent fish shop, they have a wretched guarantee, three days for store credit only. Okay, well, it’s better than nothing. One died pretty much right away, so I was able to get my credit for that one; today another died, beyond the warranty period. I suspect the third will die also, usually fish act like dominoes.
I wish it was poor water quality, but it isn’t… agh, buying fish at independent fish shops really does tend to be like throwing money away. Maybe I’ll be lucky and the third will live, but I doubt it.
I bought an Angelfish at Petsmart Tuesday night, it was dead by the time I woke Wednesday, heh. At least Petsmart provides a two week warranty on fish, which is pretty much the primary reason for buying fish there. Now, any fish that can be obtained at Walmart, that’s the best… 90 days of warranty on all the fish! Usually they’re pretty sickly, but if you get there on the day, or the day after they arrive to the store and quarantine like should be done for any fish, it’s a good deal. Interestingly enough, the Walmart fish have been the most healthy of any. The downside is, of course, the longer the guarantee, the more ordinary the fish.
My plant order from Singapore arrived Monday. Thankfully it was mostly intact/alive. The only definite casualties were the Ludwigia ‘cuba’ and the Stargrass. The Glosso still doesn’t look so great, but since some of it survived I’m sure it’ll be fine. They wouldn’t refund my money for them, due to how I chose the wrong shipping method. I still feel strongly that they misrepresent their policies and hide the details in small text on a relatively hard to find page. At least, if I were to order again, they’ll give me replacement plants. I’ve given them plenty of feedback, some parts of the website have already been changed, so hopefully no one else will be in this situation again. Unfortunately though, it’s something like $32 shipping minimum to get my two plants for free, so… for free it isn’t, really.