Arg!

[mypapercuthurts]

Well today I went to Petsmart (only option) to purchase some otos and a plant. So after about 15 minutes of waiting for this mom and children getting about 5 fish(platies, tetras, etc) I finally get to get my fishes. Hurray!
Or so I thought.......

Before I go on I should tell you a little bit of something else. An employee working there (fish department I assume) didnt know how to sex livebearers so I told him. Well it doesnt really have to do too much with the story but I thought I would make a point.

The same guy as in the intermission above pops up and "helps" me . So I tell him that I need some otos and I points to the tank (he had no clue) . I tell him I need three. So he sticks his most likely dirty hand into the tank. Not gentle or anything and pulls out this dog toy looking rock. He places this rock on the terribly nasty ground below the tank. He gets a net and gets about four otos. He brings the net over to the table with those small bags that they put fish in and DROPS an oto . A poor little oto. Drops an oto on the nasty floor underneath the table. Ohh my god!!!! That is like falling from a tall building. After this smooth handling of the fish he picks it up like you would a quarter and puts it in the tank!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!! Who am I dealing with?!?!? He picks up the germ filled rock on the floor and puts it back in the tank paying no attention to the fish. After this near fatal happening I got some moneywort.

I wait for the same children and mom to check out for another ten minutes and check out.

The drive home is quite terrifying as some of you may know. Feeling the bumps like a punch in the arm. It is quite nerve-wrecking.


That was my story. Never trust a pet store employee until they have prooven them selves.

Feel free to tell your stories like mine.

EDIT: I didnt mean to be like really mad I just wanted to get it off my chest. Dont be afraid

 

[Jamie87]

I work at petsmart Yeah..I understand your uh..what's the word..maybe frustraion with this employee. I as well work in the fish department..."specialty" meaning I deal with all the animals. I've only been there for about three weeks so i'm still kinda new to a lot of the stuff. But i'm learning a lot..and that's why I came here..to help me learn more. And everyone I work with knows what they are talking about. If I don't know the answer to something I ask someone who I know will know. And on down time I ask the 'fish guy' (he's knows fish the best there) all types of random questions..like sexing and what ever comes to mind that I want to know.

Any ways..

I jus wanted to say not all pet store employees are ignorent..some of em are still learning themselves.

 

[mypapercuthurts]

I have met people who know what they are talking about and I respect that you want to learn to do your job well . But dropping an oto is extraordinary I guess I could say.

 

[wishiwasafish]

ok here is my story about a lfs here in pittsburgh pa. first time i went in i was looking for feeder fish and happend to point at some of the nice coi's they had and a a person that worked there FREAKED "DON'T POINT AT THE FISH IT WILL KILL THEM!" i was like wow you fn crazy and left .... but sence it is probably the best privet ownd lfs left here i went back had a qustion about acidic water and i was told it was the play sand i put in my tank it couldn't have been anything els ..... i was like i don't think its that but ok then i saw the same person the freaked out on me trying to sell some one new to fish keeping a RTC ( red tailed catfish) i was like excuse me ( to the people getting the sales pitch about how peacful and small they stay) do you have a swiming pool at home? they look at me like your fn crazy lol anyway i said well your going to need one for that fish cause they get BIG realy BIG i men like a 80 gal drum big don't buy it then i was asked by someone els if i was going to buy something if not i should leave.... let me tell you how hard it was to keep from at the top of my lungs i'll leave out what i wanted to say but you get the point... anyway this happend about 6 mon. ago and i havn't gone back the point of the story is the bottem line to ANY LFS IS TO MAKE MONEY which is a shame my fav lfs went out of business because of places like the place above


jeff

i think i'm going to order all my fish off the internet cause it seems like most places actuly care about the fish

 

[mypapercuthurts]

Nice story. Thanks for posting. But didnt you mean dont care about fish?

 

[Paradise_Gourami]

I too am a former Petsmart employee in the specialty department so i know all about it. Petsmart is an equal opertunity employer, meaning they will hire pros and experts as well as dumb asses and idiots. so yeah petsmart even though it doesnt seem so some times has people that really know their stuff and what their doing.

 

[wodesorel]

The Petsmart here has some great employees in the fish department. The ladies are all my age, and have been keeping fish much longer than me, but are willing to listen if you know something they don't.

It also really surprised me to learn that don't feed much flake foods. They feed frozen blends to most of their fish, mixed with flake/pellet. If you actually talk to them about the fish, they'll educate you. I think they've learned to keep their mouths shut most of the time, but I have heard them refuse to sell fish to people who don't have the right set up. (Like the person who wants a cute widdle pleco for a 10 gallon, or someone who is buying a small plastic bowl for a goldfish.)

I think it depends on the employees, and not the store.

 

[dasmall1]

wishiwasafish, may I ask which store it was? I'm from Pittsburgh, too (West Mifflin.) Don't worry, I don't work at any fish stores.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Never been to Petsmart (thankfully don't have any around here as far as i know) but mypapercuthurts as to your story about the employee dropping the oto, i have a similar experience although not half as bad as yours about staff handling fish without a care.

I have to say first of all, the lfs i go to (Watermarque) is a very good in general, although when i last went there a couple of weeks ago to buy some female guppys and platys i didn't have the best of experiences there.

Because it was an incredibly hot day that day they had turned off some of the tank lights in their tanks to help cool them down, one of the tanks with lights turned off happened to be the female guppy tank. It was really dark but after about 5 minutes of checking the guppys over they all looked very healthy, so i decided to get some.

It was nearing closing time so everyone was in a hurry, i managed to get one of the staff girls to get the guppys for me after a litte while- because the tank was very dark and there appeared to be a variety of color guppys, i just told her to select 8 female guppys at random instead of spending ages trying to pick individual ones out of the dark for ages.
She got 8 in a bag but one of them was very small and looked like it had just given birth (it was really thin), so i asked if she could put it back and get a larger one of more normal weight- she put her hand in the bag and grabbed the guppy with her hands and dropped it back into the tank ! I couldn't believe she just took the poor fish out with her bare hands and dropped it into the tank !
We had to rush home after that because there was only about 2-3inches of water in the bag with the 8 female guppys in it and the car was teribly hot, the platys were fine though and all 8 of the female guppys in my tank are doing really well and are in great health now .
I think the girl must have been new there as i've never seen her around before, so hopefully it won't happen again if she stays around and learns a bit more about bagging fish.

PS: Handling fish (litterally) is bad because they are cold blooded so a pair of warm human hands feels like burning to them, rough handling either with bare hands or net can also remove chunks off the fishes protective slime coat, leaving it very stressed and more open to desease. If you need to use a net, buy the finest netting posible as that way you are less likely to catch parts of the fish on it.
Never drop fish into water, if you need to put a fish back into your tank after taking it out, put it in a plastic bowl of tank water and gently acclimatise it back to the tank over a period of about 5mins (even if you are just moving fish to and forth from your own tanks, you should still acclimatise them even if the ph and conditions are the same, as it just helps the fish adjust to a different tank environment ).

 

[wodesorel]

I freaked out a girl at Petsmart once. I had been getting ghost shrimp, which can be impossible to catch, and even harder to bag. (They can flick their tails and go sailing up to 5 feet, even out of water.) There was one that decided to go flying, and I picked it up and told her to bag it up for me. She said most people scream that they don't want them. (And proceeded to give him to me for free.)

If they try to sell you a fish that wasn't handled properly, raise the roof. They'll listen most of the time.