He was sooo cute, generally the store doesn't twig when they get special fish in and you can get em for like nothing but this time they had him labelled, the price was over $60, oh well he was sooo cute, wish I had that kinda money lying around to buy him.

Sounds interesting! Any chance you can get a picture next time you drop by the store? (if the owner doesn't mind)

Sorry, no chance its a really dingy store that people keep reporting to the RSPCA, they chuck people with cameras out, just in case the persons taking photos to put in another report.

Oh no, really? Doesn't sound like a great place then... It's a shame you can't rescue him - he sounds lovely, but I do know what you mean about spare cash

if that place is as grungy as you say... could it be possible they're actually trying to pass off a dropsied moor as a "pearlscale" moor?

Hmmm... actually, that is a good point Man Yu - I wouldn't put anything past some of these stores Although, a dropsied fish is quite distinctive in relation to a pearlscaled fish in any form that it might be found.

actually, a fish as rare as a genuine pearlscale black moor... only going for $60? Don't you find that a little suspicious in itself?

Well, maybe, but stranger things have happened. Stores mislabel, misprice and mis-identify stock all the time... maybe it was maybe it wasn't - but I'm sure Avalon knows the difference between a fish with pineconed dropsy and one without.

Definitely a pearlscale black moore, they had dropsied black moores, theres a huge difference between the two when you look at them.

This store sells EVEYTHING cheap, ie discus which can go for $100-150 will sell for $30, its self preservation, if they don't move the fish on fast enough they die, so they have super cheap prices.

I would love to rescue him, am going to keep any eye on him, as I've got fish with SBD free from their before, I know it sounds hateful but I hope he does have a floating fit, so I can take him home. I convinced them that SBD is highly contagious LOL, I also tried to make them change their food but that aint gonna happen, so I'll just keep taking in the sbd fishies.

Not really, although we get all sorts of fancy goldfish in oz, we usually get a lot of the rejects imported here, Australia doesn't have a huge goldfish culture so it's really difficult to get show quality fish imported here as there's no real market for it..

Well, I guess you know enough to be able to distinguish... makes me even more curious to see what the fish does look like...