# Red fish, blue fish, big fish, little fish too.



## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

The common addage of 1" of fully-grown fish length per gallon of water is a very easy-to-use way of determining tank size, however it has also been argued that plants, increased maintenance/filtration, and other factors can contribute to the ability to increase the tank's population, but I have another thought:

What if you don't want to keep fish until they grow old?

I recently decided I would like to mix up my livestock inventory, and my LFS has openly offered to buy my fully grown danios, tetras and rasboras from me for the price I bought them at my LPS. It made me think - I could buy little fish from the LPS, get them healthy, big and fat, then sell and replenish with new fellas and ladies. What's wrong with putting fish back on the market when they get big enough? At least we're not killing them.

Now don't go and think I'm going to get into breeding and start selling the offspring wholesale - I'm talking about me being your average recreational fish keeper with only one or a few tanks. After awhile, certain aspects of keeping the same tank with the same critters and plants in it gets old for me.

Any thoughts?


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## tinman (Nov 3, 2009)

Thts a reAlly nice Lfs 

I get bOred after keeping te same fish for a long time too 
I hope someone near me offers the same policy


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

It's in their best interest. I know the owner fairly well and she has told me they sell out of danios and tetras left and right so the demand is high, and she said she could use the rasboras in her show tanks.


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## tinman (Nov 3, 2009)

Wat amazes me mote is your tank habitats in your siggy 

You keep aa crayfish with very docile fish. Wouldn't the cray fish eat the fish ?


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

I actually got them for cheap with the intent of him maybe nabbing one or two and having something to entertain himself with. Thus far he's been having issues and has been hiding a lot though.


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## Scuff (Aug 10, 2010)

There's nothing wrong with getting young fish and growing them up nice and healthy with the intent of trading them in for other younger fish. The only concern I would have is if you get a bunch of young fish, and the store either goes out of business or decides that they don't want to give you money/credit for them. I do not give out credit or money for fish brought into my store, with very _very_ few exceptions, and it's becoming more commonplace these days for an LFS to simply take the fish in on donation and nothing more.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

I actually just sold all of my danios and tetras to a guy who lives 5 minutes from my house 

With that being said, what are some good top swimming community fish besides guppies?

Also, what are some good mid-swimmers besides tetras that get along with RCS?


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## tinman (Nov 3, 2009)

harlequin rasboras for the middle swimmers 


top swimmers im also looking for some  zebra danios are all i know


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## Scuff (Aug 10, 2010)

You could try one of the varieties of hatchetfish for the top swimmers, just make absolutely certain you have a good cover on the tank, as they're notorious jumpers.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Scuff said:


> You could try one of the varieties of hatchetfish for the top swimmers, just make absolutely certain you have a good cover on the tank, as they're notorious jumpers.


Hatchetfish and some harlequin rasboras sound perfect. I've got a full glass hood on there so no worries about jumpers


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

Probably a good idea to make sure you have an agreement if you're planning to do this, since there certainly are plenty of places that have no interest in this kind of agreement. Still, if you're really interested in changing up, maybe it is worth it to you to just give up your old fish, and get new, even if you lose your initial investment?

Another option would be aquabid. If they're large and healthy, maybe a breeder would be interested in taking them off your hands...


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

To be honest I couldn't bring myself to do this knowing that many of the fish if not most of the fish would probably go to unsuitable homes and likely be dead within a couple of months. Once I have a fish I like to keep it until it dies of old age, but that is just me, I also name my fish . The same thing puts me off doing too much fish breeding, because when dealing with hundreds or thousands of fry you just can't be too picky about the homes they go to. But many responsible fish keepers breed fish and are okay with that. 

The trouble could be like has been mentioned what will you do if the fish grow and the LFS doesn't want them any more, are you able to provide a suitable tank, find alternative homes or will you have to cull them?


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

That is a problem. Lots of people see culling and such as no big deal, but some of us have a harder time with it. I don't like just killing a fish. Giving culls away, even if it is to people who might use the culls as feeders solves some of the problem for me - even if a fish might die, at least it serves a larger purpose, feeding a fish that must eat live food. Plus some of my freecycle give aways end up in classrooms and home aquariums of people who couldn't afford the prices that will be charged at the pet store. I guess that's the key for me, getting my fish to the place where they'd be far to expensive to mistreat (lol). If you pay $10 - $25 for a fish you're going to sweat the details, take pains with acclimation, run out to the LFS if it comes down with something. Now I'm not to that place yet - I'd need to win some awards to pull those kind of prices. I'm still at the trade them in for $2 and they sell for $6 level, which is good, I'm proud of that, but its still store credit. I would like to get to a cash/direct to consumer place at some point. I'm also still making more money off plants than fish, which should maybe tell me something (lol). Besides, you never have to cull plants, and they're easier to ship.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

I've never had a problem with fish-eat-fish cycles like that. The guy I sold my danios and tetras to was a community hobbyist and was looking to add them to existing schools in his 55 gallon though. Plus I had a nice little old lady call the next day, haha.

I wasn't able to get my dwarf striped rasboras out of the tank. There's 4 in there. Should I load up and do a school of 15 or so of them as middle swimmers (not adding all at once) instead of the harlequin rasboras, or will the dwarves school with the harlequins?


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

I'm feel the same as chris, I don't mind too much if a fish is fed to another fish but I don't like to just kill them, or be homed where they will die a slow death. I'm thinking about breeding celestial pearl danios, they are so tiny if I end up with 200 that I can't/don't want to sell it won't really matter because I'll have room to keep them .


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