Stay away from the big chain stores

The petsmart in our area has a decent manager and the employees seem to know a thing or two. Decent selection of relatively healthy looking fish (nothing fancy as a rule but sometimes you find the odd oddball). The other petchain store (see thread "LFS Hilarity") seems to specialize in incompetence and high prices. While I was there researching my material for my lfs hilarity thread I heard one of the saleskids advising a 10 year old girl and her mother that "Tiger Oscars make a great addition to a community tank as small as 10 gallons because of their beautiful colouring"

But I would agree wholeheartedly that the quality of a chain store is determined by the people working there and not necessarily the name above the door!
 
Slick Fork said:
...I heard one of the saleskids advising a 10 year old girl and her mother that "Tiger Oscars make a great addition to a community tank as small as 10 gallons because of their beautiful colouring"
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That's hilarious!

Slick Fork said:
But I would agree wholeheartedly that the quality of a chain store is determined by the people working there and not necessarily the name above the door!
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True. True.
 
pwrflpills said:
, but what do expect from the local high school kid working to pay for the next pair of top of the line Nikes or making a car payment? They're worried more about their next cigarette than any sale they make that day.
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I totally resent that statement and am discusted that you would even say that. I dont know what kind of teenagers you know but they arent all like that. I am a teenager and I know as much if not more than a lot of people on the forum and I could name quite a few teenagers on this forum who could school almost everyone on this forum. You really need to keep thoughts like that to yourself... you dont hear us talking about old farts who have never heard of RO units, UV steralizers, or PC lighting... how about CO2, those things didnt all used to used in aquariums but this generation has pretty much been raised with them. Just dont put a total stereotype on teenagers, after all... these "kids who are worried about their next cigarette" are going to be taking care of you when your old and helpless, just something to think about, have a little bit of class
 
wwildcats04 said:
I totally resent that statement and am discusted that you would even say that. I dont know what kind of teenagers you know but they arent all like that. I am a teenager and I know as much if not more than a lot of people on the forum and I could name quite a few teenagers on this forum who could school almost everyone on this forum. You really need to keep thoughts like that to yourself... you dont hear us talking about old farts who have never heard of RO units, UV steralizers, or PC lighting... how about CO2, those things didnt all used to used in aquariums but this generation has pretty much been raised with them. Just dont put a total stereotype on teenagers, after all... these "kids who are worried about their next cigarette" are going to be taking care of you when your old and helpless, just something to think about, have a little bit of class
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The problem with teenagers is they are not all as educated and concientious as you are.

Where I live it's everyone who works in the store. They don't know what they're doing and they don't care about what they're doing either. It's the same in any job. If you don't have any interest in anything other than the paycheque, you're not going to give everything to your job that it requires. This is more than an attitude problem, it all depends on the individual.
 
spoonsofspinach said:
But I'm nervous about travelling that far with the little fishies.
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I obviously can't guarentee success, but if you take a cooler and put the fish in that when you bring them home from a long drive they should be ok. If you can get fish through the mail that are shipped in unheated/uncooled cargo holds of planes, I am sure that a 2 hour drive in a cooler would be fine.

Maybe its just the 4 or so chain stores I have been too.
 
regarding large chains,
I purchased my black ghost knife(5 months ago) and royal pleco(last friday) from Petland discounts. both are beautifull healthy specimens . I paid 9.99 and 12.99 respectively for them!! oh yeah and a spotted gar(2 years ago)which i raised from 5" to 10 1/2". It should be known and stated that the staffs in these places suck and know hardly nothing but, it is up to us as intellegent and caring individuals to plan and research what we purchase from them! they're imbecils they can't help it!!! :read: :clap: :look: :cool: :cool2:
 
The fish I bought at my petsmart were very healthy disease free specimens. The fish I saw at petland discounts were in terrible shape containing every known parasite disease you can think of (ich, velvet ...) and even some mouthrot and bacterial infections. I ended up only buying some basic supplies like a new thermometer there. Every single fish I bought at my local wholesaler came down with ich. Every fish I bought at my local mom and pap fish shop including the feeder goldfish were in the best of health and disease free. Not only that but the owner of this LFS knows his stuff and refused to sell a customer some waste control chemicals until he did a few waterchanges to get his cycling tank ammonia under control. Stuff like that makes me rather spend an extra dollar or two to support his shop vs the cheaper chain stores.
 
ok my .02

No matter where you buy or who you buy from there is always a risk of disease. Healthy, unstressed specimines can usually ward off most common diseases and parasites HOWEVER, stressed fish are subceptible to this...Shipping is stressful for fish. They are bagged and packed at some fish farm God only knows where, put on a truck and possibly a plane...Jostled all over the place and finally make it to their destination, where they are dumped in a new tank and a totally different environment.

Even the cleanest and most reputable places are bound to have a problem from time to time. Respectible places quarantine all fish for atleast 7 days then put them up for sale if not showing any sign of illness. The biggest complaint seems to be that some stores donot do this...Probably because they would need twice the number of tanks and that eats up expensive floor space.
 
My biggest problem with a lot of the big box stores is what they tell customers and how many fish die while at the store. I was killing time at a Wal-Mart yesterday while getting my car's oil changed. I went by the fish tanks just to see what they had. I was shocked. This is not my nearest Wal-Mart, and it was the worst set up I've ever seen. Over half of the fish were dead. They had a dozen unidentified knife fish for sale and some pacus. The sign on the pacu tank said they would become 8-10" long. I can't imagine how many little tanks those fish will end up busting out. I know some Wal-Marts have fantastic informative employees, but that seems very rare.
 
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