Bullying

There are times when I wonder why people would even think to call a pet store with the questions they have.
Out of all the places they could call...a pet store.

I suppose, it makes sense in some cases.
Like today.
When I had a customer call just after the store opened for the day.
With a question about the fish she'd bought yesterday.

As she had a Tetra that had been by itself for a while because the people didn't know that the Tetras were a schooling fish. And when they found out they decided to get this fish some buddies.

I believe it was three others.

Only in the new group of tetras that they bought.
The littlest one was being a bit of a bully. Constantly chasing the other fish around the tank and causing mayhem.
But this new group was also causing trouble...in that they wouldn't let the other tetra school with them. They would chase the original one away whenever it tried to join them.

So the customer basically wanted to know what to do.

Uhh.....

It's one of those problems....where there probably isn't a real answer.

It's not like I can say "Do a quarter water change and add in 10ml of water condition and lessen the amount of time your lights are on."

Because this is about the fish themselves. Their personalities.
And when it comes to personalities with fish....what works for one fish won't work for another.

So I ended up suggesting a couple of different options for her to try out.
One was to rearrange some of the decorations in the tank, to basically 'mix up ' the territories.
Another was to catch the little bully fish and bring it back to the store (since they can do that)
To see if that would solve the problem.
Or else come and get another tetra anyways to bring the total number of tetras in the tank up to five.

As I noticed with my own tank that the schooling fish don't seem to like fours.
I had four danios and one was always left out.
But three of them would be together just fine.
And five of my own rosy tetras...they prefer to school in twos and threes.

So I suggested adding in another tetra just to give the old tetra a buddy.

The customer could have ended up doing all three options above lol.
From the way they spoke they definitely were planning to bring the tetra back to the store to get a different one.
Who knows if the customer ended up buying other fish....but hey.

I did what I could to help them solve their fish problems. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi