How You Know a LFS is Full of Crap

people can really be idiots!!

yeah. i had a friend's friend's friend who has a 15g with 20 2'' feeder goldfish(she replaces 5 per week,says ''i dont know what happens, they were fine at the pet shop!)i try to explain the whole fishkeeping gig. she still insists on the fish+water+food=happy fish. anyways last week she comes up to me all happy and says shes driving 2 hours to go get a ''nemo'' i go berserk on her explaining how that is a saltwater fih nd all. oh my god!!she ends up callings my in the middle on the night to say her fish is ''sick and that i have to help. i gave her a nice little monologue about what a stupid little retarded ***** she i and all that. then i laughed myself to sleep thinking about the 75$ she dished out.poor fish.these people should be banned from pet shops.sorry for the bad language
 
Michael_G said:
yeah. i had a friend's friend's friend who has a 15g with 20 2'' feeder goldfish(she replaces 5 per week,says ''i dont know what happens, they were fine at the pet shop!)i try to explain the whole fishkeeping gig. she still insists on the fish+water+food=happy fish. anyways last week she comes up to me all happy and says shes driving 2 hours to go get a ''nemo'' i go berserk on her explaining how that is a saltwater fih nd all. oh my god!!she ends up callings my in the middle on the night to say her fish is ''sick and that i have to help. i gave her a nice little monologue about what a stupid little retarded ***** she i and all that. then i laughed myself to sleep thinking about the 75$ she dished out.poor fish.these people should be banned from pet shops.sorry for the bad language
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Wholehearted agreement, especially on the penultimate sentence. Fish+Moron=Dead Fish
 
lol. so true. by the way that fish bar thing is absurd. although if they have aroanas for 1.49 id shop there all the time
 
Oh, Michael...that 'Nemo' story breaks my heart! I know it had to be satisfying to tell her how dumb it was for her to get that fish, but man, that poor little thing had to suffer badly. :(
I thank the Lord countless times every week that my store doesn't sell marine fish.
 
Ramirezi said:
it seems like everytime i go to my lfs, some customer is wanting to buy "Nemo" for their kids aquarium...i love the movie, have to admit it, it's one of my favorites...but it didnt cause me to run to my lfs to buy a "Nemo".
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I'm ironically glad my son wanted a "nemo" fish. I have been trying to convince my wife to let me start a marine tank, and she always said no. With him pestering her enough she finally let me start one. I've only had it up about 5 months now. But it is doing well, and after my 2 years or so of reasearch before starting it, it is doing well. So, Yes I agree it is sad to see all those poor clowns suffering :( In my case I'm glad for the movie. :)


Matt
 
Macromatt said:
my 2 years or so of reasearch before starting it
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See, that puts you waaaaaay ahead of 99.99999999999% of the people I come in contact with who ask me, 'Y'all got any Nemo fish?' I can always tell the parents who know it's not as easy to keep a SW tank from the ones who REALLY have no idea and they just want their kid to stop hassling them about it because when I say 'No, we don't carry marine fish' they will turn to the kid and say 'See, they don't have them.' instead of a disappointed 'Oh.' It really makes me sad to see how many people impulse buy a living, feeling creature and abuse it to the point of suffering a horrible death. :sad:
 
My turn to tell a nasty story ^ ^.
The local Petsmart's fish department manager arranged this lovely tank setup as a display:
she took a 1/2 gallon round glass bowl, put 3 albino cory cats, 3 white clouds, and a betta in there, with a banana plant. and some other small plant.
THE FISH MANAGER!!! Jeeze.
Also, another employee there sold some rosy barbs to put in with someone's goldfish.
Other than that, i cant think of anything else. just bad advice. Oh well. what can we do... definatly not save all pet shop shoppers from bad advice. but we can try.
 
My niece said she wanted a Nemo fish and I explained to her what all was needed...she looked at me like I was stupid, as only a 13 yr old can.

The worst fish store here is a locally owned one called Super Pets. I have seen bettas in their cups dead, or worse living with fungus. I'll seperate them out to one side and tell the clerk on the way out. WHen you look at the tanks, there are always multiple dead fish in them, and or fish with ICH. They had stunted discus, they also have a big fish tank, and the pacus had some kind of slime on them. I saw puffers in with freshwater fish...growths on the side of saltwater fish. Just nasty stuff. I hadn't been in the fish section for a while once and went in, and things looked good..and I thought they'd cleaned their act up. Went back looking for a specific betta I saw and it was a mess again. There was a mom, dad and little kids looking at fish and I went up to the dad and told him if he really wants to buy good fish go to Charlies, and he said he knew..was just looking. I had one of my kids with me once and she started loudly saying how disgusting the conditions were in front of staff and other customers :D

The Walmarts around here are the usual crap. My kids will not go in the fish isle because they don't want to see the dead fish.

Petco doesn't have many fish here. Haven't seen dead ones or disease in the tanks, but have seen the tails of other fishes hanging out of the mouths of their larger tankmates. Not a cost effective way to run a fish store. They also have the nicest betta cups...I would say at least 2 cups of water.

Petsmart does a little better, but not much. THere is one or 2 employees there that seem to have half a clue. They do have tags on the tanks that list the mature size of the fish. It is in rather small print tho. I think this must be chain wide, as they are preprinted. You do see the occcasional dead fish, but I've not seen ICH for a long time. And I have seen a tank quarentined. The plants they sell there look ok, and they have some really happy goldfish swimming in the plant tanks. On the other hand, they have a sticker on the pacu tank that says "suitable for desktop aquariums"...

My favorite store is Charlies in Pekin IL. Charlie, his son and at least one other employee I have seen at fish auctions and know they belong to their local fish club. Actually, I think Charlie sponsors it. They are knowledgable about fish and give good info. They will hold fish for an in store quarentine, and will quarentine their tanks if needed. They have some interesting fish there..actually had Boesemani Rainbow fish in stock.
It's farther to drive there, but well worth it.
 
oh panhandle pet supply has boesemani rainbow fish, they're beautiful fish! i love that lfs, they have all sorts of unique fish that you would usually only see online or in a catalog like drs. foster and smith.
i couldnt work in a lfs just because i'd want to strangle every parent who brings their child in for a nemo fish. it's the parent's responsibility to tell the child no and explain to the child that Nemo is happy living in the ocean. and buy the darn kid a stuffed toy nemo!
fortunately, there are some good parents out there...one day i came across a mom with 4 kids who were looking for fish for their 55 gal family tank. the youngest two kids wanted Nemo. the mom pointed them over to a tank full of bright orange platys and said "look sweetie, they're orange like nemo!" and it worked. mom got the kids to pick out a pair of pretty orange platys that were perfect for their community tank. the other two kids got cory cats. my friend, the clerk who was helping them out, sighed in relief! i thought for sure the mom was going to ask him "do you'all have any of them Nemo fish?" but she didnt. and the other two boys wanted sharks...she got them to get cory cats...they're cute and are active. the boys were happy, one of the boys said that he will name his catfish "shark". :D see thats good parenting...and the mom said that the kids take turns in cleaning the tank and making sure the fish are fed. thats a good parent.
but in the same store, another lady asked for 25 goldfish. my friend was helping me out so another clerk asked her what she was planning to do with all those fish? she said she was stocking her 29 gal tank...and the goldfish were about an inch long. the other clerk sold her the 25 goldfish. my friend couldnt believe it. the other clerk said "well it's less than an inch per gallon and they were 2.99 each, we made a great sale!" :thud:
 
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I was actually thinking about getting a summer job at PetSmart or my much better LFS...not anymore! ^_^;

I have a temper as it is, I'd get fired in a heartbeat after chewing out the fist "Nemo"-hunter (are they too dumb to say CLOWNFISH? There's even a joke about the species name more than once in the movie...), or moron who insists on a common pleco over a more sensible species, like a bristle-nose, or one who insists on a "cool" fish, like a gar or bichir (better suited for those who aren't squeamish and know what their doing)...

Although, sometimes the smart fishy salespeople make mistakes...my mother has a pair of young eclipse cats, four barbs, two upside-down cats, and a blue gourami (oh, and my African Butterfly is in there too). She wanted to get another midwater fish, for movement...she was looking for more tiger barbs, but the ones the LFS had were teeny, so the fish lady, worried about my butterfly, reccomended a few giant danios. Which worked: the barbs don't bother them, neither does my butterfly. The mistake? An eclipse ate one. Surprised everyone, especially the danio.
 
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