Termato
Board of Directors
I checked with Frank he is out of stock at the moment, will take a look at that website you listed though. I have actually not had bad luck at all with the majority of fish purchased through LFS and Petco. My angel for example came from Petco.
I would definitely prefer to buy from a breeder though, not only because of the overall health but I suspect they could help out with M/F as well.
If you want a definitely mated pair, check out that website. I've gotten 5 total mated pair from them. True mated pair, beautiful and healthy fish.
Batfish regularly has them in his pre-order list. The pre-order that ended yesterday has four kinds of German Blue Rams in it. He does not gurantee sex on Rams though. You can, however, buy mated pairs of Apisto's from Batfish.
I used to say the same thing about my LFS and PetCo, but then I started getting more fish from there and that's when I saw the problem. They will definitely have healthy fish, but I find that rare. Just about as rare as a well kept PetCo fish section. Especially with how their filtration systems are set up, etc. etc. I could write you a paper on it. Anyways....I'm just not ever willing to go back there and take the risk on something I've invested so much time and money into. Especially considering the health of my existing fish. If you go, at least now you know .
PetCo sells fish online from LiveAquaria. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of their stores stocking came from them too. My experiences with LiveAquaria have been that about 30% of the fish I got from them were healthy. 25% died before arriving. The remaining 45% came sick or developed illnesses within a week of QT. I will NEVER buy fish from them again.
I've lost a lot of fish because of it. Both gotten from the store and because I introduced sickly fish into community tanks. I QT now, but I also like to get healthy fish. They live longer, look better, and they wont get my other fish sick if it's an asymptomatic carrier, etc.