The "rant about the crap you witness at the LFS" thread.

echoofformless

echoofformless

Peat Advocate & Defender Of Snails
Oct 1, 2005
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Phil Uh Del Feeya
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Almost every time I go to a fish shop, I either watch totally uneducated idiot customers buying all manner of incompatible fish that are going to be overcrowded in a tank that has most likely never seen a water change, with no protests from the fish bagger. Or I overhear (often purposely) ridiculously incorrect or incomplete advice being offered to those same idiot aquarium owning types that are dumb enough to ask questions of an LFS character who may or may not know a thing about real aquarium keeping.

I guess it's just been upsetting me a lot recently, so I want to vent and share and maybe we can have a few laughs too. Even if a lot of this thread will find us with our mouths wide open in disbelief, or our heads shaking back and forth as we stare at the ground in amazement.

First I want to say that it agitates me how few people that I see in local pet shops buying fish actually know the basics of aquarium keeping. They mostly seem to think that you just put in some water, a few decorations, run a filter and then fill it with whatever fish they think are cool to look at. It blows my mind how in this day and age of easily accessed information, people can't take the time to know what they want before they arrive at the store, and will have no need to ask any questions of the clerk (who likely doesn't know as much as they should) because they would know already that they shouldn't put five clown loaches and two mbuna cichlids in a 20g aquarium that is already housing a blue gourami and a goldfish.


So here are some of the greatest LFS clerk hits I've heard so far:

"All of the fish on the wall labelled 'community' can be put together in a tank."

"Don't put a gourami in your community tank because it's semi-aggressive and can only be put in a tank with other semi-aggressives." (Wow!!! Is that not disaster waiting to happen?)


"You can keep a betta in tap water if you let it sit out for a few days." (This was said to someone here in Philadelphia where our tap water contains chloramine; which does not evaporate like plain chlorine and must be neutralized with Amquel or what not.)

"Oh yeah bettas live in puddles, they're perfectly fine in a small vase or bowl."

"You can have any of these plants in your tank as long as you have a fluorescent light." (In reference to a question regarding which of the many and varied plants that are carried at a local Petsmart. These include bright lighters like banana plant and water sprite.)

Me: "Is there any chance that you could special order me some Siamese algae eaters?"
LFS Guy: "We have algae eaters right there." (Points to crappy old Chinese algae eaters.)
Me: "No, I want the Siamese ones."
LFS Guy: "What's the difference if they both eat algae?"
Me: "Well, unlike the CAE, the SAE will eat my hair algae, won't viciously attack the other fish when it gets older, and will not stop eating algae at any point in its life."
LFS Guy: "Wow, really? The Chinese ones get nasty and stop eating algae??"
Me: "Um, yeah."
He then goes on to tell the other guy working at the place, and they both have these blank looks of amazement.


After some water testing, a clerk says, "You have really high nitrite. Here put this stuff (Amquel) into the water that will take care of it." (Um...nothing about how you should not have any nitrite in a tank that has fish living in it? No lecture about cycling the aquarium?)

Another water test moment: "Yeah, see, you have a low pH. See how it's 6.5? It has to be 7. That's why your fish died." (referencing a dead tiger barb!)

"Yeah, you can put dwarf puffers in with guppies."

"Oh sure they can all go in together, just as long as they're all Africans." (Regarding cichlids.)

"You can put any cichlids in together; they just can't go with other fish." (Dolly the Discus says: "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM hard water!" before being ripped to shreds by a vicious auratus.)

"What can I put in my tank with mollies?" Answer from LFS guy: "Try this parrot fish." She left with it. Painted rainbow fish. Sigh.

"Oh you have to get the bacteria going in the tank. Toss in some giant danios and wait a few weeks, then you can add the African cichlids." (He was told also that the danios could just stay in the tank with the Africans.)

"Painted tetras are born like that."




Petsmart's little ID cards on the tanks that tell you about the fish, are often incorrect in their instructions. If you followed them, you'd feel fine putting a clown loach in a 20g tank, and you'd think that gouramis, angels, sharks, and hatchets "require" aquarium salt. (Require? How about "will do much better without it??")


Genius customers:

The couple a few weeks ago who, by the time we arrived at the store, already had so many bags of fish they were filling the bottom of a shopping cart. They were still picking out more, all the while just pointing and saying, in an obviously ignorant and thoughtless manner, "Oh those are pretty. Are they community? Yeah we'll take X# of those." Geekrockgirl took a peek at their cart contents:
1 albino ADF
3 dwarf puffers
2 albino senegal birchirs
2 tiger barbs
3 blue gouramis
3 pictus cats
2 common pl*cs
3 bala sharks
3 bamboo shrimp
7 neons
2 botia kubotai
3 oscars
3 mollies
3 platys
3 swordtails
2 eclipse catfish
*45 fish, many of which are going to be huge, and/or mean. Now of course they could have had a room of 180g tanks that have just finished a fishless cycle, but I seriously doubt it.


LFS Guy: "Dude, your nitrites are high. Are you doing water changes?"
Idiot Customer: "Watchyu talkin' bout 'water change?' My tank only been setup a month."

Customer is buying a crap load of huge fish, LFS clerk asks what size tank they're all going in. Answer: 20g.

Idiot Customer: "Two oscars, two common pl*cs."
LFS Guy: "How big is your tank?"
Idiot Customer: "29g."




Do share more!!!
 
My All-Time Favorite has to be the LFS Clerk...from a Chain Store, that told someone a Pacu would be fine in a 20 Gallon Tank!
 
For the time being, I'm pretty fortunate with my PetSmart fishpeople. It's a relatively new store, and they hired 4 women who are all fishkeepers themselves, stay in the fishy section, and have years of good knowledge between them. I tested them on a little baby pacu, said I'd heard they're great fish and I had a 20 gallon for him--huge, as he was @1.5 inches. They jumped on me in a very considerate way, so I let them know it was "just a test." They do better on recommendations to newbies than the LFS!! I've overheard them tell folks, "no, the goldfish are pretty with the gourami, but they have very different water needs, including temp--high stress, and at least one group will die." They will actually refuse to sell fish--I'm just waiting for them to get in trouble with the store manager. So far so good, crossing my fingers!! Renee :dance:
It's the Walmart thing that gets me. Tanks and tanks of fish with the same water cycling through all, more dead ones getting eaten by survivors, employees rotated from section to section so they know nothing about the fish, their needs, tanks, communities, cycling, pwc, NOTHING!!!
Most of the fish that aren't already diseased (I've seen them with ich and tell the person working--"Oh, thanks, I'll get some medicine in there") will die a slow death growing too big for their tank, no water changes, no cycling to begin tank--but they DO have tons of chemicals!! "Oh, yeah, I think the 5/test strip is the best way to test your water, tests for everything!! And just throw in some of these tablets, some of this chemical, they'll be covered." Bala and iridescent sharks, 3 inches long, "Oh sure, it'll be perfect to have a couple in your 10g," along with all the other fish! Geez. :thud: I may still be fairly new, but I research, and I'm not afraid to ask questions.
 
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Im completely new to fish keeping and have had some pretty bad experiences so far. Luckily Ive found 3 places where the folks there are more than geniune and willing to give some time to help me out.
Anyway, back to the crappy places.....

One place Ive been to a few times the really really need to work on their customer relations skills. Its the kind of place where you don't even get a "bye" when you're leaving. I was laughed at by a few of them when I was explaining that I had been doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia. They hadnt heard of this, was told not to believe everyhting I read on the internet and that I would kill my fish and plants if I put them in the tank. Of course, they didnt hesitate to sell me 4 blue rams which I obviously planned on taking home to kill.

They told me a flounder which grows to 9 inches would be fine in my 34" x 13" despite there being very little open substrate left because of bogwood and plants.

Dont seem to know how to catch fish in a net without squashing them up against the glass.
 
Walmart is the worst in our area for bad advice. Once, I saw them sell a woman a tiger barb for one of those tiny tiny little betta hex's. The ones that dont even have a half gallon of water. I told the lady she might as well flush the fish right down the toilet. Another time, at the same walmart I might add, A guy asked if a fan tailed goldfish would be okay in a 1 gallon tank. The saleswoman said yes, I said NO NO NO...he will get wayyyyy too big for that tank. So he bought a smaller one!!! GRRRRRRR......I get ticked off everytime I go in there!! Once, there were several dead fish in the tanks and we informed a sales clerk that was getting fish for someone about it. He said okay...then when he was done getting them their fish, did he take this dead ones out? Nope. Did you expect him to? Nope. And the next salesperson left them in there also. Man that is pure laziness. Takes 2 seconds to scoop out a dead fish. I could go on forever about this crap lol.
 
I have a 9-5 job, but I work weekends at a LFS (to support my hobby). It's an uphill battle to try and educate everyone we come across, and take it from a 'fish bagger', we don't get paid much. Many LFS/PS employees are highschool or college students making minimum wage, and there's no training - we're hired based on the knowledge we already have, and how much we choose to pass on to customers is up to us. I find it exhausting to explain the nitrogen cycle 50 times in a day, and frankly, many times customers just don't want to hear it. I can't tell you how many times I've refused a sale based on the customer's tank size or inhabitantss - we do try to do what's best for the fish, and believe me, I've been called every name in the book for doing so. That said, there ARE a lot of employees who could be trying harder and don't - there's not much motivation to learn or teach in a minimum wage job.
I've heard fellow employees recommending three goldfish for a 5g tank, saying plecs are great for 10-20g tanks, selling neons and African cichlids for the same tank and worse. I've also heard customers giving bad advice to other customers. I do my best, but you can't change everyone's mind; I'm happy enough helping one at a time :)
 
how many of these threads have i seen on here?they should make a sticky out of this. anyways we cant really do much to change idiotic lfs employees we can only rely on our own intelligence .ive actually seen walmarts that look pretty decent and have hired knoledgeable people but they are pretty rare. in my last trip to wal-mart i got 3 fem bettas and 4 ottos. surprising thing is that none of them are diseased of show signs of weakness. i know i will get blasted for buying fish from wal-mart but at 1$ a pop whats the worst that can happen. the females are gorgeous by the way (i cambodian style, i wild type with red fins and a solid blue)and the ottos are doing great so i guess its only luck. my local lfs has diseased ottos for 5$ a pop anyways . the walmart had a few java ferns and onion plant in there so im sure it helped a lot. i still had to tell the clerk to use water from the tank but who can blame an ignorant teenager for being an ignorant teenager?
 
rosita said:
For the time being, I'm pretty fortunate with my PetSmart fishpeople. It's a relatively new store, and they hired 4 women who are all fishkeepers themselves, stay in the fishy section, and have years of good knowledge between them. I tested them on a little baby pacu, said I'd heard they're great fish and I had a 20 gallon for him--huge, as he was @1.5 inches. They jumped on me in a very considerate way, so I let them know it was "just a test." They do better on recommendations to newbies than the LFS!! I've overheard them tell folks, "no, the goldfish are pretty with the gourami, but they have very different water needs, including temp--high stress, and at least one group will die." They will actually refuse to sell fish--I'm just waiting for them to get in trouble with the store manager. So far so good, crossing my fingers!! Renee :dance:
It's the Walmart thing that gets me. Tanks and tanks of fish with the same water cycling through all, more dead ones getting eaten by survivors, employees rotated from section to section so they know nothing about the fish, their needs, tanks, communities, cycling, pwc, NOTHING!!!
Most of the fish that aren't already diseased (I've seen them with ich and tell the person working--"Oh, thanks, I'll get some medicine in there") will die a slow death growing too big for their tank, no water changes, no cycling to begin tank--but they DO have tons of chemicals!! "Oh, yeah, I think the 5/test strip is the best way to test your water, tests for everything!! And just throw in some of these tablets, some of this chemical, they'll be covered." Bala and iridescent sharks, 3 inches long, "Oh sure, it'll be perfect to have a couple in your 10g," along with all the other fish! Geez. :thud: I may still be fairly new, but I research, and I'm not afraid to ask questions.
Click to expand...
Is it bad to use the 5 in 1 test strips?
 
thefirethief said:
I was laughed at by a few of them when I was explaining that I had been doing a fishless cycle with pure ammonia.
Click to expand...
This is the only one that comes to mind for me. He didn't laugh at me, but he gave me a 'what the heck did you just suggest' look. I can't even remember some of the moronic suggestions the fish section manager of the same store was giving me for my planted tank. I don't buy anything from them anymore.
 
trigoudarammi said:
Is it bad to use the 5 in 1 test strips?
Click to expand...
They just arent very accurate. You would be much better off with the Aquarium Pharmecuticals(yes I know that i spelled wrong) Freshwater Master Test Kit. Much more reliable results.
 
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