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My advise is if you have the option, go to a breeder not the store, especially if you don't know that much about the fish you are purchasing. If you do, then more power to you!


PS I work at *edited* (handed in my two weeks notice but I still work there for now) Basically, they are instructed to kill any small snails they find in the tank because they cannot sell them, and it clogs thier filters. Also, if you return a fish while its still alive, they have to flush it.

Last edited by Lindy at 28-Dec-2005 22:42

Inky

I think that we should all take our collective knowledge of stuff and make a "Fish Salesperson's Bible" so that they can study and actually know stuff.

LOL, the thing is, that is part of the problem. What I mean is, many of them have learned over the years, and/or from older persons that have learned over the years. Many and I mean maaannny books have been changed or corrected with much of the info. As our technology advances, so does our knowlege. We are learning new things all the time. And many things in the books are changing all the time. Look at some of the more well known books out there, you will find that there are several versions, and a few have versions numbering up in the teens.

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There is always a bigger fish...

I am new at the fish stuff so in my limited experience (!), even after identifying myself as a newbie and asking for advice, I got blown off and given bad advice. I feel this was just to get rid of me because they gave me the quickest thing they could to "get me out of their face"!]:| This was in one lfs. I went to another one and identified myself as needing beginner advice and they were MUCH more helpful (too bad it was too late for my initial fish), even though they were much busier than the first lfs. Needless to say, I will continue going to the second lfs, even though it's farther away. I think it just depends on the store.

OK, now for something to really make your head spin. No names here. But there is a chain store, very expensive, and very nice looking. Custom tanks, high end fish, large library and such, sounds like the place to go right? Well yes and no. This chain store is a nice place to visit, and sometimes make a purchase. The staff is always anxious to help as many people as they can. Now it is really starting to sound like a great place huh? Well, just don't ask any questions there. Because even if they don't know the answer, many will make it up, and some have been known to blatently lie about it to get the sale. The thing is, at this store, everytime an employee makes a sale, they ring out there customers, or at least put in their personal code at the time of check out. Why? Because this is how they get their work. Those employees that make the most sales, get to fill the schedule first, and many times not only get their full time hours, but get to choose the days they want to work. So, those makeing less sales, may be apt to lie or make up stuff to get your sales. So they may work more next week.

This is a true post. Don't ask me the name of the place as I won't even PM you. But there are several people on this website that do know this store, and know how they opperate. So, just use some caution and some common sense when talking with store employees about things.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Hello there,

nice little topic, i feel like im gonna say something.

Teenagers, well its not always there fault. youve gotta think whos telling them all these little fishy facts to be getting it so wrong, because not everything is an assumption.

Besides most of the staff at my lfs are late teens and they get a lot of things right. apart from when i went to pick up some swordtails and was told correctly to get a few more females than males (already knew this), but then took them home to realise the member of staff had got the males and females mixed up. which was nice.

But in my experiance if the teens dont know they will tell you. But if you ask a more mature (shall we say) member of staff a question that they dont know then they will make it up.

Last edited by Lindy at 30-Dec-2005 19:19

Last edited by pos51 at 30-Dec-2005 20:20

HA! i'm sure this topic really brought a storm of people commenting!

My experience with big store chains, is terrible! the people don't know ANYTHING about fish.. One kid told me that lyretail mollies are the males and the others without lyretails are females... uuuhh... no.

i've also overheard a fish manager tell a lady it was okay to purchase a 5 gallon minitank and to add three or four comet goldfish.. Does that sound like someone who cares about the well-being of the fish?

Now my experiences in local shops have always been good, despite one lady telling me a corydora was the bright blue fish on Finding Nemo, and they dont have them. i just laughed and turned around..


mostly i find local people care more about the fish and would let you know if you were doing something that would be bad for the fish... also.. they're not dumb enough to sell dyed fish because "they're pretty and should sell well"

*Chelle*
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I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

The LFS here is owned by a marine biologist and he knows his fish really well what he says goes for me. He always gives advice never shooting to make a sale only to make sure I was educated. I teach petsmart employees something every time I go in there. In fact I am constantly giving them documentation on there plants. I think that we should all take our collective knowledge of stuff and make a "Fish Salesperson's Bible" so that they can study and actually know stuff.

soclosetome: You are partially right on that. Now I have no idea how much you know about puppies and while most vets are great at performing all types of surgery's and treatments, a vast majority of them do not know everything there is to know about dogs. Some vets give out just as bad/incorrect information as that little snotty kid who works at the fish store.
Basically each person has to take it into their own hands to find the help they need, and to find out the truth to a problem, be it for fish or for a dog, cat etc.
Blindly taking the advice of one vet, or one book about your dog, is just the same as believing any line that a fish store employee tells you.
This problem exists every where.

I always think it's kind of funny, when I can go to a random message board, and have the members know more about something health related to animals then a paid professional does.

I don't bother arguing with the employees anymore. They will never listen. I either lie and agree I'm doing what they said or just don't say anything.
The one time I asked if they had food for a dwarf puffer and the guy asked if I had salt in the tank. I explained to him these puffers are freshwater, come from inland bodies of water, and everyone that keeps and breeds them has them in freshwater. He started lecturing me on how no puffers are truly freshwater and that's a complete myth. They all require at least brackish water. After 15mins I gave up and came back the next day. He was trying to convince me my tiny baby dwarf puffer was going to eat adult frozen brineshrimp that are nearly the size of what the puffer was at the time and that it wouldn't possibly eat those pest snails they have in the plant tank.

The bottom line is to just do the research yourself. The internet is a wonderful tool. I have learned more on the internet through sites like this than most any single person could have taught me.

Last edited by firecontrol at 14-Dec-2005 15:57

PS I work at *edit* (handed in my two weeks notice but I still work there for now) Basically, they are instructed to kill any small snails they find in the tank because they cannot sell them, and it clogs thier filters. Also, if you return a fish while its still alive, they have to flush it.

My *edit* here is doing the same thing thats how i got free snails from them got as many as i could save and now i have a breeder snail tank and use some to feed my brothers oscars thats only when i get to many, and the flushing the fish thing is just WRONG, I dont blame much on the workers there in the pet department because they are hired and placed in the store where ever but what i do hate is when the try to give a customer info on a fish that they know nothing about like for an example telling a customer that is was ok to put African dwarf frogs in with a puffer in the same bag and to add more putting those in a tank with oscars <<Thats just murder<< Well the guy came back to the department no more than 10 mins later and said that his frogs where not in the bag Well i know what happened to them and tryed to tell the employer back there not to put them in together that, that would happen, he looked at me in daze I said the puffer had a snack, and that puffer probly will be dinner for that guys oscars d, personally they should put only the people that know what they are doing back, back there,... my personal experience there was when i wanted to get some guppys there and there had the most beautiful yellow spoted one i had ever seem well the clerk back there scoped him out and i said well i want 2 more and thats it will when the clerk was done she counted the fish and there was only 2 in there and the one i wanted was gone we looked in the tank and other tanks near it no success and i chose another well i was looking at the tanks at the bottom and noticed something on the store floor and it was smushed and IT WAS MY FISH THAT I WANTED ERRRRRRR I was mad ]:| and upset because it was the only one in there that looked like that, it looked just like the guppy on this site

Last edited by Lindy at 28-Dec-2005 22:50

We have to remember that the hobby if fish keeping is not exactly the easiest hobby in the world. If you get a puppy, it lets you know when something is wrong and their are thousands of vets you can take it to. It isn't hard to sex a puppy, feed a puppy, and make sure that it has the right environment. Fish keeping in my opinion requires a lot of experience in order to fully understand what is going on in your tank and even then our fish always suprise us with things that we have never heard of. All in all, fish are designed to be kept in the ocean, rivers, and lakes. They were never designed to be kept in a tank full of water. Because of this reason, we are constantly struggling, trying to find ways of keeping our fish alive and happy.

My whole point is that it is a hobby that you personally need to research and learn about and can't expect others to help you out. If you want professional help with your fish and want somebody that really knows what they are talking about then honestly, you simply need to pay the extreme high prices that it would cost to contact someone that was a true expert, a scienist of some sort perhaps.

We pay hundreds of dollars to take our puppy to a profession to find out what is wrong yet we expect an underpaid chain pet store employee to give us exact answers for free. hmmmmm.

Last edited by soclosetome at 17-Dec-2005 19:17

banana, lol. I used to hear that all the time... wait, no I still hear it! Because they work for "so and so" they must be right.
Whenever I would hear bad advice given I would "one up them". Hey if people are susceptible to their stupid influence then they should be more willing to listen to me right? I'd walk up with my scrubs on introduce myself as working at such and such vet and I could feed the customer pretty much any line I wanted and they would believe me.

I could tell them bubble gum works well for hot spots on their dog and they would listen. ]

However the zillion and one house hold myths there are about fish makes a little more difficult to combat. Unless someone ASKS me about fish I just keep quiet, because "discussing" it with an ignorant fool has gotten me no where.
I remember once at some pet store, I saw a woman and her son walk up to a counter with 2 gold fish, a packet of gold fish food, and a small bowl.
I just smiled at her and said "those are some pretty gold fish you picked out, I have a bunch of different fish at home myself... do you have a 50G tank at home already so you can watch them grow up healthy and happy?" (or some other various cheesy line) and I had her smiling back at me and talking to me up until that last comment, then she just kind of scowled at me and walked away, so... whatever.

Hey, at least the Walmart person asked about the snail..

I've asked about the price of snails in their tanks and had employees get completely freaked and try to take the snails out and kill them. "I don't know how these got in here!" Smush, smush.. "Err.. I wanted to -buy- that snail.. They're supposed to be in with the fish"

I've seen Petco employees suggest a five gallon hex for two koi and then tell the customer that the koi will only grow as large as the tank will let them. Then, when I told the customer how big the koi actually get, the Petco person almost started -yelling- at me and said that I must not know as much about fish as he does because he -works for Petco-. (Yes, I did wait until the employee had moved a few feet away before talking with the other customer.)

I've also had some good experiences with chain stores. One girl who works with the fish at the Walmart near me gets really excited whenever I come in because she always has a ton of questions for me. One time she even had a -list- of things customers asked her that she she wanted help with. She said she was going to get some books about fishkeeping because she's tired of seeing fish die and hearing aout how they don't live very long after they're bought. Hopefully she actually hops on this site and looks around. And I heard her convincing a customer not to buy a goldfish for his fishbowl last time I went in, too. Happy day!

My current local fish store has some of the nicest, most helpful fish people I've ever bought fish from. One of the managers has been able to answer almost every question I've had about his stock and plans for my tanks, and what he doesn't know, he looks up in one of the books he keeps behind the counter. Most of the people who work in the fish department have been there for a while. I trust all but one of them to give me good info. The one person I don't trust is pretty sad. I don't even want him netting my fish for me. One time he actually put a half-dead fish in my bag and tried to convince me it was healthy. The new people they've gotten don't know a whole lot, but at least they're honest about it. If they don't know something, they'll look it up or ask one of the other people for help. I know this store trains its employees. New people clean tanks and listen when people are being helped. From what I've seen, they're encouraged to ask other fish employees questions. If the manager remembers some info he hasn't already told them, he'll run over and talk with them and make sure they understand... even if he's in the middle of bagging my plants. This is also the guy who throws wet fish towels at me when I come into his department..

I really think the quality of the help depends on the quality of their training, their interest in the hobby, and how much they're payed. I don't think employees with no fishekeeping experience who are getting $6.75 an hour to 'sell some fish stuff' and keep the department clean are really going to feel like doing much more than the bare minimum to get payed every week so they can go out and pursue their hobbies.

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Cake or death?

Tainted Glory,

I will say this, Big Fish is great for us employees. On his last visit to the store, he schooled me and another customer about plants. I appreciate that!

Hm, that would be LITTLE_FISH, not Big Fish

Except if you know another guy on the site here that talked to you about plants the other day .

But to be honest, I am most certain that a few employees have no interest and/or patience to be “educated” by a customer. Somehow their ego gets in the way and they just simply cannot accept the fact that someone else might know more about a particular subject then they do, as they are the experts after all. And this can be easily applied to any interpersonal relationship of customer – employee, subordinate – boss, etc.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I try not to take pet store advise unless it is from an aquarium store with knowledgeable staff. (In fact Im doing a report on misinformation/abuse in pet stores for my ENG 201 class final) You wouldn't believe the stories!

Hey, if you know alot about fish, go to a chain store and check out the sighns. They drive me nuts. According to one sign I saw, Dragon Fish are great with livebearers and only grow to 10" and Male Bettas prefer those little cups they sell um in size tanks! For shame....

*edit* signs are really bad in perticullar, and I have had mixed experiences there. One employee asked me if he should put water in the bag with my snail or just dump it in! Ugh, its sad at some of these places! Of coarse at *edit* I have also gotten fish from some very knowledgeable people who had obviosly done thier homework.... Chains are a mixed experience as far as fish go for me.

Last edited by Lindy at 28-Dec-2005 22:51

Inky

do you want the honest answer or the foofoo answer? foofoo answer, they are great helpful people. real answer? i have met one clerk who knew what he was talking about and what he said corresponded with what i have read,learned,and seen posted here. every other pet store employee/owner i have run across has known less than i did it seems. following their advice has in the past, cost many poor fish their lives do to my lack of experience and trusting that the owners or clerks knew what they were talking about.

lets put it this way, last night i went to get my water tested. they had those wonderfull new test strips. the clerk puzzled with it for 15 minutes, and finally said it wasnt giving an accurate reading and walked off. i spent two minutes staring at the chart to realise she was holding the test strip upside down.

i have had many episodes like that. it has resulted in alot of cheap fish. a south american bumblebee cat sold as a talking catfish to me for 2 bucks, 3 juliis sold as one false leapord catfish for 3 bucks,albino barbs sold as regular barbs for 2 bucks....gotta love it...as long as i have fishprofiles and all you helpfull people, ill stcik with the screwup clerks that give me cheap stuff due to lack of intelligence.

FACT: I personally dislike at least 50% of the customers I come across. I remember distinctly having one indivdual take a swipe at me last week for sweeping an L-128 into a blind cave then picking it out of the water and placing it in the bag; something about how nets are much less stressful on the animal and that I must not know what I'm doing. You can kiss my ***, you stupid bald piece of excrement.

In other news, don't discredit young employees so fast. The most well versed employees where I work are quite young. The super is only in his late twenties.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 12-Dec-2005 22:40

A very nice display of opinions here.

I do feel that I should say a few things in an employee's defense. First of all, there is usually no training whatsoever. Even if a new hiree is enthusiastic about learning the ropes of aquaria, they will have to do it on their own time. Customers are rarely any help, other employees can get irritated with a constant stream of questions and may not give correct answers, and there often is little time for anything but work. In a busy large store and/or a shop that is understaffed (quite common), everyone is kept occupied most of the time with either customers or maintenance. Customers are and should be a shop's number one priority, followed by the upkeep of the equipment and animals. In some places, fish "room" employees have to work other sections of the store as well. A person will not be able to put much time into the fish department if they have to clean out guinea pig cages and feed all the reptiles before closing. Stores with few employees often can't spare the people or time to do less "essential" tasks such as algae scrubbing, doing water changes, or simply observing the fish stock. This can lead to lower quality fish.

As well, there often is little incentive for a person to want to learn as much as they can. Unless they're accelerating their knowledge to help with their own tanks at home, many fish store workers just let their aquarium i.q. stagnate and don't bother to keep learning. There is rarely any reward (like a raise or promotion) for knowledge, and people that know what they're doing just experience more pain than those who are blissfully ignorant. 85% of customers in an average shop know little about how to keep a successful tank running, and a large number of those folks are just blindingly stupid. It hurts to work day after day with loads of people who need to be told the basics, need to be talked out of buying certain fish, need to be told how to help their sick fish, and even refuse to heed well-meaning advice. Who wants to explain about the cycle and the general requirements of schooling fish dozens of times a week? Who wants to tell bunches of people what "aggressive" fish they can put with their oscar? I sure don't. It makes you think- If someone is this dumb on matters of fish life and death, how dumb might they be regarding everything that "counts", like the welfare of fellow humans? It hurts to think about.

While your average pet shop denizen may not be as responsible for as much as is typically thought, they still should strive to "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." as Teddy Roosevelt put it. There is no excuse for laziness on the job, indifference when helping customers, or a lack of willpower to know about animals whose lives they touch every day. I don't see more than a few fairly knowledgeable folks employed at any one pet store, which is always a shame. There are definitely exceptions, but they come around only once in a blue moon. I personally like to test people to see how much they know. I'll ask questions I know the answer to, to gauge both the knowledge and the helpfulness of a worker. It may seem unfair, but there is really no way to trust what someone says regarding an animal just because they work in a pet shop.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

The main purpose of the people in the fish department is to help guide the newbies into the hobby.
"No this Oscar doesn't grow to fit the tank"etc.
If you are looking to get anything more complicated than a 20 gallon with tetras you should do your own research first. And don't hold it against someone if they go to get someone else to answer a question they can't. Its better than:
"Um, Yea, you can put a Goldfish in a bowl."

20 Gallon Long:
Aquaclear 300
2 Bolivian Rams, Mikrogeophagus altispinosus: Gumby and Pokey