My 5 gallon bucket of Instant Ocean salt is running low so I decided to do some price shopping. I went to Petsmart and they had it for $48.99. I then went to Petco just down the street and had it for $62.99. What a rip off on salt. However, Petco does have a limited selection of saltwater fish so I decided to look around. Their fish are always much cheaper than the fish at the independent fish stores. I've always worried about the quality. Indeed, one of their yellow tangs looked absolutely awful.
They did have a small blue tang that looked remarkably healthy and was a very rich deep blue. For some reason these fish usually look absolutely terrible in the local fish stores. They are usually very pale with a white cast over the blue. For this reason I always told my kids we can't get one because they never look good. Rumor is these tend to be frequently caught using cyanide. I decided this one may be good enough to bring home. The only problem was the price wasn't marked anywhere. In fact they had lots of fish that didn't have prices. When I asked for assistance from the girl with no less than 8 piercings on her lips and nose she had to go get her boss. Her boss then came over and yelled to someone else and asked "How much is the Dory Fish?" It doesn't bother me when kids refer to species of fish as Dory and Nemo. It doesn't bother me when adults use these as the species names when talking to their kids. However, I draw the line at adult employees using these names when speaking to other adult employees at a pet store. They should know better. Call it a Blue Tang, call it a Regal Tang, call it a Blue Surgeonfish or Paracanthurus hepatus. But whatever you do, don't call it Dory. OK, my rant is over.
Whatever you want to call it I bought it for $34.99 and it's in my tank getting along with all of its tank mates. It's interesting to note that my yellow tang ignores it. Usually similar species will fight but the yellow tang isn't interested in the blue tang. He's much rather harass the fire fish which aren't tangs at all. Go figure.
So you may be thinking what did your kids say when they saw your new Blue Tang? You know the answer. "Dad you bought a Dory! Yeah."
