Notice i said i exagerated?? i was just saying how easy to pollute a tank.
I think its a terrorist attack XD

Im wondering if they got a shipment late tuesday night like all the other LFS in the Area. They all brought in huge amounts of liverock, coral and fish. Perhaps got a little excited and added to much to quickly, then went home for the night... damage was done. I have already heard that they are not the most polite to the animals they keep... I would like to know the outcome of this.

I would like to assume that anyone who owns an LFS knows the ins and outs of the hobby. IE they would know what happens when you put 1000 pounds of live rock into a system with living creatures for example.

i dont kno the layout of the place. but usually all LFS i go to has a private tank for the live rock with its own little sump. They place it in one of those koi pond system.

Feels like were detective. Im actually eating a donut as we speak hahaha

You didn't even read the links, did you?

They have more than enough money to make room for the animals they "save".

From my understanding, they have a coral loop, SW fish loop and a Freshwater system. Rumor has it they have used the same setup as a fish wholesaler in the GTA. I cant say that with any certainty as I have only been there once, and it was a brief visit. They still haven't really finished renovating their fish room from what I have heard.

IF they are floating bags and poking holes in the bags as part of the acclimation, combine that with the addition of live rock, which when I was there was in their fish system from what I could tell. But thats assuming they made one mistake after another... I really want to doubt they would be that 1989 about saltwater.

Just went to the coffee shop, complete with donut ! lol.

I still it think it has something to do with dechlorination of the city water they are using.

Interesting... Note that I've never been to this store but why it's interesting many people her are suspecting insurance fraud. Honestly though the insurance co. will certainly conduct an investigation before any payments are made. They're familiar with scammers and they're trained to notice these types of things.

Also, none of the news articles went into detail on what they did to remedy the situation after the chemical. They could have dosed a de-chlorinator, or the could have done a 1000g water change... It's only speculation based on the articles.

Not all of the aquarium shops by me have noticeable surveillance... I think it would be relatively easy to dump some chemical into one of the tanks. Of course I still can't fathom a motive though...

On a side note, can cocaine kill fish? How's the mafia presence in Toronto?

You know what?? When hurricane ike hit houston. I tried to file insurance on fishes!!!! that #### did not work -.- lost the whole system.

You are correct I did not read the links and just magically knew the details in my reply.

I believe you are correct that PETA only wants to kill animals because of the large amounts of money involved. I've personally seen the PETA protesters arrive in limos before.

It all makes perfect sense.

well, at least that thats all cleared up.. lol

chorine is one of the easiest thing to remove from the water. Prime is good for freshwater and saltwater and it neutralize chlorine in seconds. one cap treat 50 gallons so if you drop a full bottle in the system it would treat quite a lot, especialy a 2 liter bottle.

What is more disturbing about this story is the lack of action taken to save the animals.

I find it interesting that we all jump to the conclusion that it was the owners that did it, or that they haven't taken corrective actions to try to save the fish.

Here's the timeline, as I see it. Bleach gets dumped in the system. Fish start dying. Customer notifies owner that fish are dying in the tanks. Owner investigates, notices chlorine smell. Tests positive for chlorine. Adds Prime or other water conditioner to try to combat the chlorine - but the fish have already been poisoned by the bleach. They will continue to die. Not only that, but the directions for prime are meant for the trace chlorine in drinking water - who knows what the concentration actually was in their system. It may have taken two or three rounds of dosing and testing to get the levels down to zero.

You can't expect them to find new homes for hundreds of new fish in a matter of minutes. Not feasible.

Someone nuked the tanks at the LFS that I go to in Boca...they had to completely redo the whole system. They think someone poured something into the tanks but they do not know what (no smell)
also a LFS in Broward that was just getting started (now gone) was also nuked the second week he was open...he did not know what it was as well (no smell) In both cases it killed 100's of fish and corals.
I think this happens more than we think....it's hard out on the streets for a pimp.

Competing LFS's maybe Haterz

Competing petstores do this to each other all the time.

I am inclined to believe it was either a random act of vandalism, or it was an unscrupulous competitor.

No names here, but I've had a fish store in toronto not only bash their competition about 1km away, but tell me that they do horrible things to their fish, then offer me a "deal" on some overpriced zoa frags just to try and keep me there. This is not something that I would see as out of bounds for some LFS owners up there.

That being said, everybody assumes that they didn't try to save the fish.

Think about it. There's 500-1000g or so in a system in a cascade style setup (their setup looks similar to the DAP wholesale setup). How much damage would a single sandwitch baggie worth of powdered chlorine do? The answer is one helluva lot. Even Ultra (2-3x concentrate bleach) would be enough to kill off a significant ammount of fish, because it's not just the total dilution in the system, its how it spreads. 250ml of Ultra bleach or 1C of powedered pool bleach in one tank... especially in a cascade system... how many tanks is that going to utterly nuke before it reaches full dilution?

Then you have to consider damage done. Even if they dumped in a 1L bottle of prime at the source just a minute after the initial poisoning, much of the damage is already done. Chlorine burns the gills, just like it burns lungs in humans. It would only take a minute to sentence fish to death, even if they got immediate treatment, they'd be swimming dead.

Secondly, even if this was an insurance scam, they would still have to make a decent effort to save what fish they can and have some sort of proof that they did. If they did nothing to try and save what animals they could, the insurance company would be able to say "too bad, you didn't make best-effort, no cheque for you". It's much like being at home and seeing a grease fire in the kitchen - you try to smother it and if you can't. you call the fire dept; you can't wait for your house to burn down and then call your insurance company. If you don't show that you lived up to your duty of care, they're legally able to refuse to cut you a check.

I seriously doubt this was an insurance scam and if it was, they (owners) are up chit creek. You see, if the insurance company think anything is out of the ordinary or suspect possible fraud, they conduct lie detector tests on all involved. Heck, even my home insurance can do this if I claim something stupid!!

Polygraph, are you kidding... Those aren't admissible.

+1

this is just sad.

That is terrible. And the crazy thing about it is that there isnt a way a fish store to prevent that from happening. All the tanks are open and so accessible. Sad


Bruce

Depending on the setup - the canopies could be locked, preventing easy access. Not 100%, but it's better than having no security.

That and a surveillance system covering the area as well as the front door (for good face shots). Staff milling about would also be a good deterrent.

I am always paranoid about this type of crap, since a "friend" nuked my cichlid tank with a handful of change many years ago.

Tried to report someone threw what looked like a credit card into the SPS tank at my LFS.. They said, the store did it on purpose, put gift cards in there to remind people they had them