discusmadness.com — Local services in Union

Unfortunately I had a horrible experience with Discus Madness. When I first came into the store on 4/23, there were many red flags that I ignored because of my excitement over their selection. You have to buzz into the store. There were numerous leaking tanks. Many dead fish and snails, when we asked to purchase a Red Onion Nerite Snail, there were over 20 dead in the tank. The only living creatures were three Zebra Nerites. After getting two snails, the employee fetched out the shells and threw them in the garbage, indicating they did not see the dead snails before. No lids on the tops of tanks. Many fish are jumpers, this just indicates a lack of care. No heaters in the tanks, lack of care. No oxygen for snails once purchased, lack of care. We purchased a bunch of red root floaters that carried many hitchhikers. After my first visit, I recalled seeing Cardinal Tetras that arrived on 4/21 and called to ask for details. I was told they were captive bred, and they would be available on 4/25 after being properly quarantined. I drove an hour to pick up these fish. We wanted captive bred Cardinal Tetras, wild caught tend to be stressed easily, have trouble eating, and get sick faster. When the tetras were being bagged, the employee begins to ask us if our tank is ready for the fish. It had been cycling for four weeks and we had just bought three amano shrimp. She tells us that they may play dead in the bag due to stress. She told me to let her know if any were dead in the bag. After one day, we lose two of our three shrimp. Wild caught cardinal tetras love shrimp. No heads up. Tetras were scared of humans, did not know how to eat pellets. This indicates that they were not accustomed to being fed by humans and were in fact, wild caught. The tetras were the only fish in my tank, snails and shrimp were also purchased at Discus Madness. After four days of barely eating, they would sometimes swim frenzied against the corners of my tank. Two days later (5/1), I woke up to 7 of my 9 tetras dead with the Ick. After discovering that my fish had the ick, I called Discus Madness. She didn’t seem apologetic or surprised. She told me the ick spread because my tank was too cold. My tank is at 79 degrees. When I informed her of this, she told me that their tank was kept at 86 degrees… Cardinals would die at that temperature. Remember there were no heaters in the tank. She told me raising the temperature would kill the Ick, did not even suggest medicating the animals. They all died while I was looking for medication. She told me that there was no warranty or return policy. There is one if you get your fish shipped, but not if you carry them out of the store. This really tells you the quality of this store. Even PETCO has a seven day guarantee that your fish will live. If you give them a water sample, PETCO will refund you up to 30 days after purchase. Our water had been perfect for a month prior to buying from Discus Madness. I told her that it was okay that I didn’t get a warranty, I wanted to tell her that their fish were sick. She said “We still have those fish, the last shipment is going out today, so…” she was planning to continue shipping out fish that she was told are sick. As I write this, we are currently treating our beta fish for the ick, we changed both tanks’ water on the same day and he is beginning to show signs. My 20 gallon tank is COVERED in mystery snail eggs there are over 100. They are hatching like crazy. They gave us hitchhikers on their plants and fish. We had been working on building this planted community tank for over a month. Of course, you should quarantine your plants and animals but we trusted that they said they were quarantining their animals, it increased our trust in them. Our cardinals were the first fish in the tank, and now we have to completely start from scratch because they do not properly quarantine their animals. Save yourself the headache and heartache, try Aquatic Arts online and PickFish Pets...

I recently bought fish from here. Please be advised I have been in this hobby since I am 13 years old. I have treated many fish and saved them from certain death: ick, columnaris, mycobacterium. The fish I bought from this establishment were plump, beautiful fish. The only problem is they had worms. Slowly, likely over the course of a couple months, the worms began infesting my other tank inhabitants. There were no obvious symptoms like sunken bellies. I recently had a mass die off of my fish tank - 25 or so fish - after getting fish from here a second time, which likely put the worm population over the edge. Metronidazole does not work on worms, nor does prazipro. I needed to literally perform an autopsy to determine these fish had worms because there were no symptoms other than labored breathing and then death. The other thing is, the commonly used medications in the USA only paralyze the worms. They do not kill them. So it's very likely all of their tanks have been infested. How else do I know these fish had parasites, you ask? The fish I bought from there consistently stayed small, or grew very very slowly. I simply attributed this to needing more time or food. It was neither, obviously. I am heart broken. I loved their stock. I loved this fish store. I loved my fish. Be advised of what happened to me.

EDIT: It really sucks, because this guy's staff are stellar, and that response to a customer complaint with evidence of the issue is pretty incredible. If the owner paid any attention to his negative reviews, he would see I am not the first person to claim I got internal parasites from this establishment, no less the first person to experience a full tank wipeout. Stop assuming your clients are idiots and maybe you won't blame me for my negative review, and maybe you won't receive any more negative reviews because you'd have addressed the problem. Maybe it's time to change what medicine you're treating fish with, but what would I know, I'm the customer who was dumb enough to support your establishment.

Edit, since he keeps editing his response: my brother in Christ, I didn't get discus, and I drove to the store and physically spoke to 2 employees, one of which was very sympathetic and one of which was not. He immediately followed up every statement with "well it didn't come from us" or something along those lines. Which I do understand as an employee your first instinct is to defend your place of work, but perhaps being dismissive was not the play in this instance. This was the only place I got fish...

I’ll start off by saying that they do have BEAUTIFUL discus. I have never seen such big and healthy looking discus but I never purchased any so I can’t speak to how they do outside the store. However, nothing else in there is that great. I have now bought 2 angelfish from there and 1 of them didn’t even make it an hour into my quarantine tank before dying. Only one survived. There is nothing wrong with my water quality or other 3 mollies I have in that tank. It seems as though they fish aren’t healthy enough to stand the stress of the transfer. When I called to ask what their live/healthy fish warranty is, they said they had none. Nothing. Not 7 days, 3 days, 24 hours…nothing. In the 3 years that i’ve been in this hobby and tons of stores i’ve bought fish from, i’ve never heard of such thing. They’re reasoning was that “they never sell sick fish so if it dies it’s something you did.” Anybody in the hobby knows sometimes fish have underlying or not visible conditions that make them pass away pretty quickly and not always because of water quality issues. They didn’t even ask for a water sample to get proof of this accusation. BUT, I will say they did offer to replace the fish and made it very clear they’d only do it once but unfortunately that fish didn’t make it an hour either. Now it’s 2 dead fish within hours of leaving the establishment. On top of this, in the two times i’ve been in there, only once did I feel comfortable and welcomed in. First off the door to get inside is sometimes locked and to get in you need to ring the doorbell and wait and when you finally get inside the vibes are kinda uncomfortable and awkward and I understand the locking of the door may be for safety reasons but it gives it a very unwelcoming feeling. The staff doesn’t actively ask you if you need help or anything either. Needless to say, I am not going back. edit: If you don’t believe me, look at their other low reviews saying the same kind of things I am and see the owner’s response….i’m sorry but that doesn’t seem very professional despite his constant response to all those reviews (and now mine) stating that he’s never been anything but professional which makes it seem worse. In regards to his staff, he says they’re all professional and backs it up by mentioning the good review he has as that completely dismisses all of the ones...