Impulse walmart dojo "rescue"

[paperdragon]

Well, I got my dojos a bit sooner than I had planned. I was in walmart today and discovered they had a limited special with gold dojos for $5.97. Normally I wouldn't have bought them without having my loach-specific tank yet, but I know even being stuck in a hex tank for a month is better than the lifetime in a 10g that most of the walmart fish in town are resigned to.

I got a male and two females, about 2 1/2" to 3" long. I did discover once I got them home that one female has a torn dorsal fin, which I'll be keeping an eye on, but other than that they look like they're in pretty good shape - nice clear eyes, active but not constantly panicked. I'll get some pics once I get them acclimated and they get settled in a bit.


By the way, do dojos eat juvenile pond snails? My Q-tank has a bunch that came in on my hornwort plants.
Edit: just to clarify, I do know that they eat some snails, I just can't remember if the pond snails are a type that need to be crushed first (which is something I can't bring myself to do).

[Shieldmaiden]

Kudos on your kindness.

I rescued six kuhlis from a cloudy nasty tank in Wal-Mart. One had what appeared to be a cotton fungus on it and sadly, they eventually all died.

I "rescue" things all the time from awful places like that (and have complained countless times about their deplorable tank conditions). I have a tank full of pearl danios and platies to prove it.

Best of luck on your new finbabies. Hope it goes well.

[botiaboy]

Horay for rescues!
I ended up using my science fair project as an excuse to save 3 goldfish from life(which would have been around 3 days) in a fishbowl. I actually have a dojo in with them right now. I think that if the snails are big enough they will eat them. My dojo ate 2 big snails once(the kind that people buy to keep with their fish). If the opening is big enough the dojos can slurp the snail right out.

[paperdragon]

Heh, yeah, I'm bad about rescuing animals. The current inhabitants of the hex tank are 5 eastern mosquitofish that came from a college bio lab. I was doing workstudy in the lab, which included taking care of the fish that came from a pond on campus, and at the end of the semester I was told to toss the fish back in the pond in 30*F weather.

Hmm, the snails might not be big enough yet, but they're certainly working on it. They've almost tripled in size in the last week.

[Diana]

Pond snails have a thin enough shell that most Loaches can crunch them easily enough. Popping the snail sounds cruel, but it will help the Loaches learn how to open the packages.

[newshound]

this also will sound cruel but
rescuing fish just means that the store wil l understand a demand exists for that fish and order more. I am really sorry to say.
This doesn't apply to the huge fish that someone takes back to the LFS.

[paperdragon]

Eh, I can see where you're coming from with that, but I have a feeling those dojos are all going to be sold regardless of my getting a few, and hopefully the employee that got them out for me will at least remember their size requirements from my rambling (she didn't know what they were so I decided to enlighten her a bit ).
I was also planning on getting some dojos in another month or so anyways, but I had expected to have to special order them.

Looks like the torn fin on the one girl was nothing to worry about, it's already looking better. They all seem to be doing pretty good. Still a bit shy, but I tossed a couple peas in there and one of the girls scored a few goals as I was watching.

I'm already a die-hard loach fan.

[botiaboy]

this also will sound cruel but
rescuing fish just means that the store wil l understand a demand exists for that fish and order more. I am really sorry to say.
This doesn't apply to the huge fish that someone takes back to the LFS.

this doesnt exactly apply for rescueing goldfish because 1 was a feeder, and the other 2, well goldfish are going to be in demand at this point whether or not I buy a few

[Shieldmaiden]

Well, better to rescue them than to let them sit there in die in disgusting conditions. At least I saved those specific fish.

Not to mention complaining again about the deplorable conditions of the tanks. Maybe someday it'll do some good.

[newshound]

Not to mention complaining again about the deplorable conditions of the tanks. Maybe someday it'll do some good.

may someday come sooner than later!

[paperdragon]

Well, I was back in walmart today, so I took a look at the fish tanks. Out of the 30+ dojos that were crowded into the little 10g tank, only about a 9 or 10 were left, so they decided to fill up all that extra space with half-dead parrotfish. They have three of 'em in there, and one was stuck to the filter. Until now, this walmart had fairly good tank conditions, but I guess the person that actually knew something about fish in there must've left.


Good thing I got my dojos when I did. Mine seem to be doing great.

[Shieldmaiden]

Not to mention complaining again about the deplorable conditions of the tanks. Maybe someday it'll do some good.

may someday come sooner than later!

I wish so much! The tanks are always sooooooo nasty. One tank had like 10 dead red-finned sharks and one little spotted cat cowering in the corner.

I've complained like 10 times.

I hate it because it seems like the big chain stores treat them like "inventory" - like who cares if they die because they'll just write them off? I'd rather them not sell fish at all...