PlanetCatfish.com

I have breeding balloon bellied mollies in a breeder net in a 55gal tank. They like a little salt in their tank (very little). Well i discovered yesterday i have a slow leak in my catfish tank. I need to move them quickly. I have plenty of room in my mollie hatchery (ha ha)to move my 4 pime. pictus cats. Will the salt content be dangerous for my cats?
For humans a little salt water can heal wounds, is this true for fish?
On a different note I AM OUTRAGED with the Wal-Mart Corp. Not only do they sell tattooed / injected fish but they assign incompetent untrained staff to care for the fish in their pet dept. Yesterday while shopping for tank sealent (obviously) there was a woman purchasing a pictus cat from a 50 something yr old WM employee. The clerk scooped one out to put in a bag when its pectoral fin got caught. I advised him to be careful and the man retorted "Mam, i do this everyday...I think i know what i am doing." The clerk placed the bag in the holster and set it in the sink then proceeded to viciously beat the net against the counter. I cried out to the man to STOP while my husband went for a Mgr. The cat then slid out of the net and across the counter when i noticed the left fin was still cought in the net and a fleshy hole in the cat where it had been. The woman that wanted him had walked away while i ran to scoop him up with my hands and set him in the bag. We explained what had happened to the Mgr. and the old man was fired on the spot. I then informed the Mgr. that the cat would die if left in their hands so im taking him home and they can take his cost out of that man's last pay check. This isnt the first time i have witnessed fish brutitality by Wal-Mart employees in many stores and its not always teenagers either. Well safe at home he has made it thru the last 24 hrs so we've named him lefty.

Fortunately WalMart has made the correct decision to begin phasing out their live fish departments nationwide. It will take some time but at least they finally recognized their limitations in trying to persist through these kinds of problems. Hopefully by next year all of the aquarium departments in WalMarts will be closed.

Pictus cats don't normally live in hard/salty water - mollies do like hard or brackish water much better than soft water.

If you have naturally hard water (I have some idea about the water in some areas of the US, but unfortunately not in Florida), you should be able to keep the mollies on a "no-salt" water condition. But if you have soft water, you do need to add something to the water to make the mollies happy - either make the water hard or salty.

If you have a very low salinity in the tank, then it's very likely that the Pictus cats will survive in the that environment [better than going without water ... ]

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Mats

In the short term a bit of salt may help the wound heal.

Apart from healing the wound, salt does prevent fungus from infecting the wound. Depending on your tank, fungi could be very agressive

I've been very hesitant to reply to this one.
I find the WHOLE story disgusting. I don't approve of the clerk's behaviour. But I also strongly disapprove of the writer's apparent happiness about the fact that an old man is being sacked on the spot.
Personally I wouldn't be too proud of that. The fact that she takes the fish home and the one that has just been fired can pay for it needs no further comment.
The fish is called lefty; does the man get a name as well? Out-of-worky might do.

Marc,

Let's try to keep this more on a more fish-based track - I agree, that getting someone sacked from their job ss nothing be proud of.

My personal comment on the "job-loss"...
I think "customer service" is a much more important "employment criteria" in the US than it is in Europe. Whilst I may be told off by a manager in Europe for being in some way "not customer friendly", the US has much "higher standards" [The son of a Texas friend of mine worked in a supermarket there as a "middle manager", and he got sacked on the day for telling a customer that he was lying, when it was quite obvious to my friends son that the cusomer WAS lying].

--
Mats

I do agree with Mark I don't like Princess' smugness of having someone sacked. However, this is a fish forum, and we must realize cultures vary very much worldwide. That is why I did not go into that. My feelings are similar.

However, as we are going a bit broader than the relevant question about the pictus

breeding balloon bellied mollies

is not something I'm very found of either

I just hope WalMart continues selling their $5.00, 10 watt, 6700K screw in compact fluorescent lamps. They are designed for a standard incandescant fixture but produce 10 times as much light of the right quality as a standard 15 watt incandescent and add almost no heat. Two of these will transform a ten gallon tank into a beautifully planted tank and these lamps lose little of their output in 12 months.

A similar version sells for up to twice that through major aquarium equipment vendors.

I was'nt happy that the guy was fired. He did not give a second thought to that poor fish and who knows countless others. Just collect his pay check and go home. What if this fish was for a little girl who would now be tramatized by watching his deliberate actions resulting in that fishes arm loss. So no i wasnt happy, if he had lost his arm that way he may have learned a cosmic lesson and become a better person.

Princess,

Please realise this forum has users worldwide. Issues as this one are regarderd very, very differently in other places than yours

We feel very different about events such as this. I try to withhold my feelings, but I'm getting tempted to response

Why didn't WalMart just transfer him to their handgun department?

After reading his actions above, if I were to speak to a customer in a similar way. "mam, I do this everday, I think I know" I am pretty sure I would be fired too.
And when you are being paid to take care of fish, what do you expect but to be fired if you harm one.

I wouldn't feel too bad about the guy losing his job. He probably had a new job somewhere else by the end of the day. If he can't handle working with the public, he should go somewhere else. With unemployment as low as it is, Wal- Mart can't be too choosy who they hire.

IMO the shop assistant was not 'fit for the job' and I wish that Pictus cat had jabbed him deep in his thumb with its pectoral fin causing intense pain!!!

I think stores also need to train their employees better. Even at my local Petsmart I have seen the workers use nets to scoop up Catfish. They sometimes get caught, and they gently remove them from the net.
However, if they were trained to use a container to catch the cats, then this wouldn't happen in the first place.
It is dangerous for the fish, and it is dangerous for the worker to have to stick his hand in a net and try to get sharp barbs unstuck.

KSUpilot wrote:and try to get sharp barbs unstuck.

It's not the barbs that get stuck, but the pectoral and/or dorsal spines.