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For records, this is a small lfs. It went bankrupt so a lot of the fish are on sale. However, I don't think they have been keeping up with the water changes. So I personally won't purchase any of the fish there. Especially when I can see 1-2 dead fish every 3-4 tanks.

iltat I did try the way you word it. But I was a little frustrated typing so I kinda just summarized.

But yes, being persistent pays off. Well I was able to convince and got her to return most of the fish and do the following:
- Tetra my friend and I just took it and put it in my dad's hospital tank for now. Gonna add it to my dad's black skirt collection. We told her it probably jumped and died.
- My friend bought another 10 gallon tank (20 bucks for filter, heater, tank) -_- envious...And the sister got 5 more pandas and so now the 6 pandas are in there. She also got some cardinals for that tank as well.
- The betta was transfered to one of my spare 1 gallons.
- The goldfish was a feeder fish, so he fed it to his turtle.
- Returned Angelfish and Fiddler Crab.

But sigh...she bought more fish....
Her new purchase of fish:
7 Assorted guppies (I have no clue how to identify gender)
2 Platies (red/orange/black ones)
1 Pleco (I have no clue what type)
1 Swordtail (Red)
1 Gourami (blue one)
1 Rosie Red
1 Red Tail Shark (...)
10 Ghost Shrimp (10 for a dollar)
1 Mystery snail.

just....

Anyway I told my friend to take the swordtail and put it in the other tank and I guess the other fishes are going into the first 10 gallon tank. But heh, at least this way they will have a fighting chance. Just kinda worried about the RTS, the gourami, and the pleco.

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-25 01:45][/span]

Dont say anything, just slap them.

Seriously, thats just a person who done absolutely no research at all..

I get customers like this all the time, and for every bad LFS employee blamed, theres 20 bad customers who refuse to listen to the good ones.

Agreed, although there are many LFS employees who are not knowledgable and give bad advise, there are also many good employees. It isnt fair to simply label LFS employees as the problem when many customers refuse to take the good advise that is given to them. I cant tell you how many people go against what they are told not to do, like buying 5 bala sharks for a 10 gallon even though they are told how big they get and how much of a bad idea it is.

Ypu can sex guppies by their tails- males have split tails, females have round tails. Males are also alot more colorful. If she was buying for looks, she probabally bought mostly males. (Guppies breed like MAD, She'll soon get wayyyy too many for that tank)

Wait a minute.....how big is the second tank???

~*~ Caviar? no thanks! ~*~

For the guppies look at the tummy region...if it has a stick type fin there it is male, if the fin there looks like a fan then it is female...

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Well, she is learning now. Let's see.

Her pleco and gourami died. I told her the RTS was probably the cause, it is an semi-agressive to agressive fish. And would do better if it had 30 gallons of floorspace to itself instead of sharing it with the others. She wanted me to take the RTS, but I just told her to take it back to the LFS. We don't know what happened to the rosie red, it kinda just disappeared. =/ I took 3 guppies...hopefully I identified 1 male and 2 females correctly. The others seem fine. So now her second tank is:
4 guppies
2 platies
1 swordtail
10 Ghost Shrimp
1 Mystery Snail

She uses a penguin mini and some heater I have no clue what it is.

Ah well, at least her 2nd tank now has a higher chance of surviving.

My LFS usually takes precautions. One day I bought a blue ram and a yellow lab for two seperate tanks and the person asked if I would be keeping them together because he said they were not compatible (which being a fish geek...I already knew this). Also, at petco one time I saw an associate telling explaining to a customer why a goldfish could not be kept with an angelfish....so they sometimes take precautions.

My advice would be for you to print this thread and have this friend read it. Explain to her how at Fishprofiles.com everyone here is obsessed with fish and we all know what we are talking about.

If she STILL doesn't listen....oh well, she will have to learn the hard, frustrating, expensive way rather than the fun, easy, cheaper way.

~*~ Caviar? no thanks! ~*~

i would sayto her thta she is stupid and inconsiderit of the fish all they fish could'nt even go into a 30 gallon she is stupid()sorry) but i would laugh at her when all her fish die

I hate to say it, but she seems like one of those people who will only listen to advice if its "buy more fish" such as with the pandas. As much as it pains me to say it, don't keep shuffling fish around different tanks to try to make it ok. Last time you did it, she bought more, and the same will likely happen again. Let her watch her fish die off, and explain to her how its not only bad for the fish, but bad for the wallet. The cost of replacing fish due to poor conditions is the only way I've found ppl like this to relent to common sense.

Mike

Hey, at least the LFS is making some money on those fish...

Tell them firmly exactly why they should not do that. If they insist, they're idiots and they'll have to learn the hard way. Hopefully not at the expense of too many fishes' lives.

><>

What do you say to a person who wants to put an angelfish, a goldfish, a betta, a tetra, a panda cory, and a fiddler crab in a 10 gallon together....

I told my friend's sister that they are all incompatible.
I was like the cory needs to be in a school of at least 5-6, the tetra is also a schooling fish, the betta and angelfish might fight each other and if the angelfish gets larger might decide to eat the betta, the goldfish is cold water and has a bioload greater than all those other fish combined and i have no clue on the fiddler crab.

She just gave a *hmph* and ignored me. I was like okay fine, you're gonna be dishing out 40 bucks for a tank of dead/sick fish.

I kinda want to steal her betta and cory though:%).

BUT AHHH!!! !!! ]]:|

Fiddler crabs pose no danger to fish, just so long as they are not small fry or on the bottom dying.

I have three of them and I have not once seen them show any aggression to the fish.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I know my craw will so i would imagine that a fiddler would be able to if the fish was caught by suprise.

Can some crabs actually catch and eat some fish? I heard this before and never had anyone verify it

Most of the employees at large pet retailers, while not completely oblivious, know very little on the proper caretaking of aquariums. Some more so than others. But those that hire teenagers are more obvious...

Woah. Thanks for the sweeping generalization. I happen to work for on of the large pet retailers that your mentioning (and *gasp* am a teenager), and I would highly doubt that the people I work with know any less than yourself.

Before you jump on the "big bad chain store bandwagon", realize that this girl will not listen to advice from a person she knows (even if it is just a brother's friend). What are the chances she is going to want to listen to a person she doesn't know at all? She can just as easily lie about tanksize as tell the truth, and many people seem to "remember" they have larger tanks when they're told they want a fish thats too big for a smaller one. Basically, if she wants to get the fish, she'll get the fish no matter how good the employees at the store.

I get customers like this all the time, and for every bad LFS employee blamed, theres 20 bad customers who refuse to listen to the good ones.

Big retail chains weren't even mentioned before you started dissing them, so please keep broad, negative comments to yourself. I don't know about your LFS, but mine certianly don't offer 14 day guarentees on their fish upfront. With a policy like that, bad advice might hurt the retail chain worse than that of an LFS, which motivates us at least to give they very best advice possible.

Mike

Well, I'm glad you tried to help, but sometimes people are very stubborn when help is offerred in certain manners...

Instead of analyzing the entire setup, I might try to save ONE of the fish instead. Say, the cories...

I might say something along the line of, "Well, instead of getting one cory for this tank, which is going to have bigger fish in it like the angel, betta, and goldfish, why not wait and just get a tank of a BUNCH of these little guys instead?" Then, instead of just thinking you're saying that she's WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, she thinks you're trying to make the whole experience more enjoyable. True, she's still gonna put a goldfish, angel, betta, etc. in that one ten gallon tank, but you can start by saving the life of that one fish and move on to helping the others.

Next, maybe sell the idea that this cool blue/green/red/purple/etc. betta would look REALLY nice in this itty-bitty tank that has TONS of matching gravel and a colorful lid, etc...

Then you can move on to using pictures of beautiful angels with HUGE fins and show her what you just found out that angelfish could look like if she put him in a tall tank...

etc.etc.etc....

Instead of attmepting to right the world, just try selling the better situations to her

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

and the fidler needs to be able to get on land and its brackish!

You could always tell her that she's being a stupid moron, but that probably wouldn't help anything, so as our mother's have always said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." She'll just have to learn the hard way, unfortunately...I'd be willing to take the goldfish

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle