Subj : Re: The Mystery Almost Solved To : mark lewis From : Jeff Snyder Date : Fri May 22 2009 09:55 pm ml> ewww... i only have two words for something like that... reputable ml> dealer... in other words, the one you buy from... someone upstream from you ml> wasn't "playing fair"... i've never had problems like that and generally ml> end up with at least one goldfish in most of my tank setups... they're not ml> that "dirty" if you take care of the tank properly ;) When you are a hobbyist who is on the end of the chain, you really don't have any say in who your local pet store chooses to purchase their fish stock from. If you happen to live in a small town where there may only be one or two pet stores at best, that limits your selection even further. When I managed a local pet store years ago, we made a conscious effort to never sell sick or diseased fish. We would medicate the tanks and mark them with stickers so that our customers would know that the fish were off limits for the time being. We also had hospital tanks in the back room where we treated a lot of our sick fish. Concerning goldfish, they eat a lot, and they crap a lot. While I find some of them pretty and interesting, I am just not a goldfish fan, I guess. I am more captivated by cichlids, such as the African cichlids that I now have -- five Electric Blue Johannis. They are always interesting to watch; especially today as the dominant male has been lighting up like a neon lightbulb all day chasing the females, and sparring with the other males in the tank. These little guys are quite aggressive, just like the Copadichromis Borleyi that I had several years ago. Those guys spawned like rabbits, and I suspect that these ones will too once the females reach maturity. Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Download Center 4 Mac BBS Software & Christian Files. We Use Hermes II --- Hermes Web Tosser 1.1 * Origin: Armageddon BBS -- Guam, Mariana Islands (1:345/3777.0) .