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I remember going to the pet store many years ago as a child. I remember seeing mostly guppies and goldfish, mollies and common plecos. Today that selection looks a little different! Today you can walk into most fish shops and find aquatic life spanning the globe!
As exciting as this is, it can also create some issues...
It is really just tough to guess sometimes how an African cichlid is going to act with even a South American cichlid or whatever else you keep in your tank.
And even if they are getting along today, that doesn't mean they will get along in the future when they reach maturity or breeding season. Sometimes you just have to find out. But sometimes you find out bad news...your combination of fish just isn't going to work.
So what do you do?
It's often nothing you did wrong but quite the contrary.
That problem fish in your tank is often a big, beautiful, healthy fish! So what do you do? Hopefully you know someone in the hobby who can help you out. Some local fish shops will let you donate them but that's really it these days.
And if you have ever had to go through this, you know that it always seems like such a shame!
Not just because you are losing your pet but for another reason… Fish aren’t like dogs or other pets. Let’s say you buy yourself a pure bread, healthy puppy (you are often talking about thousands of dollars today). Now let’s say you put in time and effort and raise that puppy to be a friendly, house trained, obedient, perfectly healthy, adult dog. NO ONE WANTS YOUR DOG. And if you tried to sell it, you most certainly would not get anything close to your money back if anything at all. People just prefer puppies.
But your fish are the exact opposite!
The bigger they are the more valuable they are!
You know that someone would love to have this fish and that’s why it seems like such a shame. That big, beautiful, healthy, “problem” fish is now worth 5-10x what you paid for him! I can’t tell you how many times I have walked into a local fish shop and seen donated fish and realized they were the most expensive fish in the store. Someone would absolutely love to add your “problem” to their aquarium!
But wait! We forgot to talk about the other side of the problem us hobbyists face.
As I write this, I currently have a 125 gallon aquarium...
In that tank are primarily some larger adult cichlids. Tank looks good but I would like to add a few more fish. Well let me tell you about this process… First, I need to pick my fish and find my fish. Next, I bring my fish home and put them in my 40 gallon aquarium. Yes! I need a whole other aquarium for new fish…
Now we wait!
Hopefully if all goes well over the next 6 months or more I can raise these fish to be big enough and healthy enough to go in the big tank.
Now don’t get me wrong! I do enjoy this process and that is part of the fun of it for me. I also understand that there are places that offer adult fish, but those are hit or miss on options and are also usually very expensive! Sometimes I would just wish there was a different, maybe faster way especially when you know people are just giving fish away because they don’t know what to do with them.
