Thoughts about LFS vs Civilians.

[scoopsthedog]

I've been going to one LFS and recently switched as I found he was only interested in selling me goods vs helping me learn. Anyway with both of them the on thing I've been amazed with is how they break many "rules" of reef tanks and are not punished by the dino, Algae, cyno (etc) gods. I would assume they can avoid fish disease (or we don't see it) because they sell and move volume but the place I go to now has five Reef DT that seem to never have an issues that plague many us. Any thoughts?

 

[JaimeAdams]

What are these "rules" that you speak of? Do you mean just that their tanks don't seem to have any issues with dinos, algae, cyno and other stuff? I imagine that they probably do a good job at maintaining their tanks.

 

[Elementalj]

I have to be honest in saying that the difference in their tanks and ours is usually "staff".

 

[Coastie Reefer]

I have to be honest in saying that the difference in their tanks and ours is usually "staff".

Exactly. When we don't feel like doing a water change or manually removing algae or sump maintenance, they have people that get paid to do it.

 

[Triggreef]

As far as disease that plague us, They also tend to run low levels of copper in their systems and sometimes other things. They generally know better when a fish is ready to go to their display, because they know exactly what the fish has been in. If they took fish directly from their source and dumped them in their DT then they would probably have issues as well.

 

[scoopsthedog]

Thanks for the replies! I guess I'm speaking mostly about the nasty algae blooms and viscous dinos that can plague some reef tanks being brought in via frags. I've read several threads with many hobbyists dealing with never ending blooms etc and the fact that LFS don't have them even though they have a massive amount of frag "traffic" I'm wondering can this be traced back to better management, equipment, etc. having staff, cleaning every day, maybe even daily water changes...? Anyway I'll do a poll of my local coral heavy LFS and see what their maintenance cycle is.

 

[JaimeAdams]

In my opinion dinos and algae are more about dealing with nutrient export and proper tank maintenance than on lots of frags. My tank is usually stacked full with frag racks on all 4 walls and with a good clean up crew and halfway decent maintenance I don't deal with those problems.

 

[reefwiser]

I would never base my reefkeeping off what goes on in a LFS. They have to do things completely different as they deal with new corals and fish coming in every week. They just to super large water changes and top off tanks with Saltwater during the day if too much is taken out of the holding system. If you want to learn about keeping a Reef tank find out if your area has a local Reef Club and join and attend meetings. There you can ask Hobbyist and go to their house and see how to actually do things. Stores are there to sell you things.:)
Clubs and forums like this are here to help you learn and be successful.
When I go into a LFS in my area the store owners will ask me questions on what to do with coral care they know that is what my interest is and how long I have been learning about it. (since 1984) I learning everything the hard way by getting my hands wet and learning from fellow reef hobbyist. Both on forums and at MACNA's As I always say you get out of it what you put into it.:)

 

[Paul B]

I have helped start 4 LFSs here in New York and frequent almost all of them. They all have copper in the water for their FO tanks. If it were not for copper there would be no salt water fish stores. As for algae, their tanks are stripped and cleaned all the time because everything is easily removed so they can sell it.
As for dino's pests and algae, I also don't have any of those problems either because after a long enough time, you learn how to just not have those problems. All that information is posted on these forums if you know what you are looking for.