Things LFS employees told you that you knew weren't true

Not really fish specific and this will probably make me the scurge of this forum . . .

A new hobbyist and I are in W*****t and I spot a couple nice melon swords. While his tank is going through the cycling process, I'd encouraged him to add more live plants. With the prices at this place (and the likelihood of discount by misidentification from the staff), I encouraged him to buy a few.

I asked the worker who helped us not to put water in the bag--they usually destroy the plants this way . . . she says, "oh, this plant is REAL!? I NEVER KNEW you could keep live plants with fish. I thought it'd kill them."

We purchased the plants (thus, I'm sure, saving their lives) and I left without too much discussion. Although it's tempting to ridicule, it's really just amazing that people's trades in life no longer have anything to do with their fund of knowledge.
 
Oh god! This just happened.
A couple months back I took home a bunch of fry from the back room of a big box chain, and the girl that helped me was very smart, well-versed, and well, not dumb.
I go back today to ask for more. This time the Gary Busey lookalike that headed the fish department helped me. He wouldn't let me take any home, telling me that the girl could be fired for what she did.
...Seriously? You're going to fire a smart employee who broke some nonexistent rule? SERIOUSLY?
 
mine wasnt funny but I cant dogg them to much for trying

I asked how much some acans* (coral) frags were they told me 125 each, I then mentioned an email that they sent me and they said oh yeah the sale 89each so i asked are you sure I think they were less....49 each reg 89each..... they said nope so I went home with out any and sent a friend to see how much they were and he go them for 49 each so yeah funny but not :)
 
A little background info is needed here. I grew up in Minnes-Oh-ta, and moved to Arkan-sawww when I graduated college.

I went into a LFS to buy some guppies, and was talking with the employee when she was bagging up the fish, she asked me if I had an accent. This was a very reasonable question since I had just moved there and the new "language" was fresh to me. I explained that I had just moved there and that I grew up in Minnesota. She said "Oh, I thought you were Irish or something"... What?!? Irish?!?! I will give her the benifit of the doubt since she is a knowldegeable employee.

At the same store a few months later I was looking at bettas, the new employee was changing the water in the little cup things with blue toilet water in them. I said, you know, some of these bettas are dead, they really shouldnt be for sale. The employee asked me how I knew they were dead. They were clearly dead, they had the clouded dead look and they were floating on their side. I had explained this to the employee, and she said that she would have to ask her manager...
 
The guys at my reptile shop have a small aquarium section. They don't believe me when I tell them they keep losing their stock because they have no bio-filtration and replace their filter pads daily. The tanks are constantly cloudy. They don't beliveve it's a bacterial bloom. I have pointed out that they should not sell the fish that have Ich ( which is usually most of them ). They routinely bring in Rams and Tanganyikans and I get to watch them whither and die within a week. They know I shop at my LFS for this reason, I just don't get why they don't listen to me. I've even run into people I've rehomed fry to there; they know I breed, and still won't listen. I can't even get them to pick up a book.
 
I was just a witness to this- A man told LFS employee that he had a 55 gal set up two days ago- can he put fish in now? LFS employee- Sure, and she proceeded to sell him 55 inches of immature fish including 2 male bettas! I had to leave or risk being banned from the store. I just hoped that the person checking him out had more sense and convinced him to cycle his tank first and cut down on the number of fish.
 
Lots of fish store employees don't know what they're talking about, it's true. The unfortunate part is that when ones that do (me, for instance) try to convince a couple not to put 3 malawi cichlids in an 8 gallon tank, or trying to tell somebody goldfish aren't suitable for bowls, they just look at me like I'm an idiot. "I've done it before, they just grow to the size of the tank, pet store employee of questionable mental fortitude!" Me: *sigh,* don't try to return these, I won't take them back. (they will anyway, and say the fish were unhealthy, and the manager will give them new ones in all likelihood).
 
caseyface said:
She was saying that they only breed for males, and they don't get females in anymore.
Click to expand...
No, she said "THEY ONLY BREED MALES NOW"- direct quote.

Actually what they really do is breed them, then cull all the females they don't want for breeding stock. I am well aware of this practice, but when I asked the pet person if they could order me a female she said "They only BREED MALES now" -direct quote. I refuse to speculate on what she meant because it seemed pretty obvious by her answer to me she had no idea.
 
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