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and pure gold like "It's not dead... just resting."

Oh GOD! That's awful! Come to think of it, I remember poin ting out a couple of dead guppies at a LFS once, and the guy looked around all shifty eyed and was like, "Oh, we got a sleeper do we???"

I think people expect too much from LFSs. If you want a true fish expert, don't look for them at LFSs. If someone was a true fish expert, they would probably not be working at a LFS for low wages. If you already consider yourself a fish expert, how could you possibly expect to find a fish master who will answer all of your questions?

However, LFS employees should NEVER make up answers to questions.

Speaking of "sleeping" fish, I pulled a dead koi out of the tank once and this little kid saw it (six or seven years old). I didn't see the kid, and I was mumbling something about "not another dead one" and well the kid caught on and his parents spent the next ten minutes trying to get the kid to say it was sleeping. The kid wasn't upset or anything, you'd think "dead" was a four-letter word in more than one way...

Someday that kid is going to lose a grandparent or something like that and not know how to deal with it... He'll just keep expecting them to wake up...

EDIT: Oh, and on that note, sometimes it's not wise to let on to customers that something has died. One of the rats died the other day, and one of my co-workers had to get me to go over, discretely gesture toward it, and whisper "the rat's dead, take care of it" so he could continue with a customer. Apparently the rats and mice we get aren't necessarily healthy (the hampsters and guinea pigs are all fine though or we notice and quarantine them)... I've heard we've had shipments with missing feet...

[span class="edited"][Edited by superlion 2004-07-30 00:53][/span]

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Now before i share my story, i just want everyone to know that the lady at the fish store is a sweetheart, and she is great, however when it comes to brackish water tanks, she is the devil. i told her i wanted to get a puffer, and that i would need to convert a tank to brackish water. i asked if she had any marine salt, and she told me that i didnt need any and that regular aquirium salt would be best for brackish water tanks. She tried selling me some and i told her that i already had some. The next day i made the drive to another pet store in grand rapids and picked up my marine salt, and my puffer is happy that i did.

I wouldn't say it takes too much time to find a good LFS- within 2 months i found the best 2 in town. Personaly I think the best rule is just to avoid chain stores unless they have someone unusualy knowledgable, or if they have a sale on some sort of hardwear you're looking for (and at that, never in-store brand) The funny thing is the two lfs's i found i thought would be complete dives because they were both in sort of strip mall areas a ways away from the core of the city/town i live in. Maybe the secret is to look in every small and non-chain store; scan the phone book through and skip over the big ad's basicaly.

Finding LFS that are good takes time and experience that you pick up as you go. Unfortunately, you (or the inital fish) may have to suffer so that you can work out good shops from the bad. Once you find 2 or 3 good ones, you seldomly venture further than them.

Some lfs visits remind me of that monty python skit with the dead parrot. [/font]

When i first got into aquariums i suffered from bad LFS advice but as someone who knew nothing about keeping fish who else do you goto to ask??? And ofcourse i believed that all i had to do was fill my tank leave it for a week and valla i could keep fish, the result was really heartbreaking and i nearly packed it all up and gave up at that point.......thank god for FP

the worse i've heard (i'm not that experienced afterall ) was a shopkeper trying to push some inadequate fish to my aquarium asking "do you want to see something special? this one is a relative of the sea bass!"
and i thought to myself "noone could tell, as this is a freshwater catfish, and i wouldn't want it to grow that much in 25L tank".

although it is fun once you know this is BS, it is sad to see the fish in such stores (ever noticed the wonderful "community tanks" some stores populate?) and it is very alarming to hear those at all. very hard to find good supplier.

My Krib just loves bloodworms. On that matter so does my Angels.

talking to my friend today, she just had to share this exciting little tidbit with me!!!

"did you know that ALL cichlids are HERBIVORES and all tetras are CARNIVORES? ISn't that ironic?"

of course at that point I was like, what the heck are you talking about? Apparently the "cichlid guy" at her LFS told her that little jewel.



[span class="edited"][Edited by guppylove1985 2004-07-28 01:00][/span]

I think it's entertaining to spend some time in a LFS like the one;s you're all describing and just listen to the advice offered... PURE GOLD! My favourite comments range from "you can't breed any fish in a tank".. to "No, they just grow to size of the tank..." and pure gold like "It's not dead... just resting." It's always fun on a rainy Sunday to spend just a few minutes picking up the fruits of knowledge falling from the branches that are the staff at some of the LFS's around

Hmmm... yes, some people will do that... and many have no clue about plants... Lucky for the store I work at that I know a little about plants... at least more than anyone else there... Too bad I've only got a couple more weeks before I go back to school.

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when i mentioned Oscars, Red Devils, Wolf cichlids and so on and so forth, she replied, "Oh, it's the big ones that like meat. the small ones, like the blue and yellow ones are herbivorous."

I explained to her that everyone talks out of their rear sometimes, and you have to take everything with just a *teensy* grain of salt!

They also told her today that cabomba is a low light plant perfectly suited for betta bowls.

i think the tetra/cichlid BS thing comes it with the fact that some south american cichlids will supplement their diet with plant matter, while tetras despite their small size, like meat. I think the other point of confusion is the family piranah's are in.

Oh gosh... maybe that's why so many people buy feeder goldfish for their neon tetras and feed cucumbers to their oscars... :%)

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]] I loved the fish master joke.

Hehe, on the same topic i had the fun of seeing people crowding around a piranah tank waiting for them to viciously rip appart a small cichlid that was very capable of taking care of its self. Now that LFS was a great one, i love the place, a very knowledgable guy who makes his real money taking care of marine tanks for offices runs the place, it was a matter of bonehead customers. The next place i went had dead plants everywhere, plants mixed with plecos (stubs more like), dead frogs all over the bottoms of the tanks, and so on. Can someone please explain to me who would keep dead any other dead animal in its cage at a pet store? Anyhow, I'm seriously considering working for a pet store full of incompitent staff in the fish department because it would be an easy job to get, and I'm tired of seeing all but 2 stores in my entire city treat their fish like crap.

Petstores are definitely not exempt from having their share of boneheads. I went to a pet store the other day and got into a conversation with the owner...he knows a guy that will custom make canopies for a decent price, but then the subject got on plants and c02 injection. The guy with 3/4 dead plants in his tanks, plants covered with algae, and tanks with fields of algae growing on it, goes on to tell me that if I keep 1 ppm iron in the tanks I can grow anything...free unsolicited plant advice from the plant growing master himself,, wow, I'm honored. I can now put away my potassium sulfate, potassium nitrate, magnesium sulfate, mono potassium phosphate, plantex, tropica mastergrow, homemade fert tablets, pressurized co2 system and everything else and just add iron and grow hair algae, bga, bba, staghorn, and the other algaes just like the masters! Maybe if I ask real nice, he'd share his secrets on how to keep fish with dropsy, bacterial skin infections, popeye, and ich as well.

While I was there, a couple asked if he had any snakeheads for sale...they were stocking a 20 gallon. No shortage of bonehead customers either.