Hypocrisy?

[CruX]

So I went in to Pets at Home yesterday. I have never bought livestock from them before but decided on a couple of angels. My tank is mature and cycled. Recently I have been housing a couple of large plecs while the owners set their new tank up, they went 'home' yesterday morning. As I have always been understocked I decided to make use of the already increased bio load on the filter by buying 2 small shoals of silver tip tetras and x-ray tetras as well as 4 angels.
As I waited patiently to be served I heard the staff member advise a new tank owner to fill her tank with water, let it stand for a week and come back for fish the following Tuesday. Then he refused to sell me more than 5 fish. I pointed out that my tank was mature and I had increased the bio load naturally by housing 2 large messy fish until that morning, the increased bio load would be able to take 18 or so tetras and a couple of small angels. He relented and said I could have 15.

I understand they have a company policy to stop people buying more fish than their tank can initially handle, but even if I did get a spike in my stats, lots of water changes would sort that, but anyway if the policy is rigid then fair enough, but I had a bad taste in my mouth after being refused more than 15 fish and yet he was dishing out bad advice on how to mature a tank.

I just wanted to vent my spleen really as the X-ray tetras looked fantastic and I could just imagine them shoaling in my stupidly large trigon 350.

I am off to watch the new arivals to cheer myself up.

 

[The Mighty Boosh]

I've never bought from pets at home, and it seems a strange policy - how do they know what tank or tanks you have at home?!!

 

[Saedcantas]

Obviously the policy is a bit of a sod for you, but I actually think good on them for playing it safe.

The majority of their customers will not have the foggiest about bioloads, maturity and water changing when disaster looms.

What's more of a shame is that the staff member just wasnt confident enough to use the information you were providing to give some leeway.

Nevermind eh!

 

[eldomingo]

to be honest i don't think they have any right to tell people how many fish they can buy when they obviously know what they're doing when the store can't even give correct advise on how to cycle a tank properly.

 

[three-fingers]

While irritating, I think it's great. It's better to be sold too little fish than too many (so long as your not paying more).

At least this guy seems to know what he's talking about, while he may not have the experiance to know what how much waste plecs make, he's at least going for the safer option and giving you less fish.

If he was to let you buy all your fish when he's not sure, then why shouldn't he let the hypothetical customer with the biorb buy silver sharks because he's not sure about the issue of stunting?

 

[CruX]

While irritating, I think it's great. It's better to be sold too little fish than too many (so long as your not paying more).

At least this guy seems to know what he's talking about, while he may not have the experiance to know what how much waste plecs make, he's at least going for the safer option and giving you less fish.

If he was to let you buy all your fish when he's not sure, then why shouldn't he let the hypothetical customer with the biorb buy silver sharks because he's not sure about the issue of stunting?

I agree it is a good thing that they have that rule, but what wasn't clear was whether I could buy 15 tiger oscars under the policy. He also said it was a 5 fish per customer for new tanks. Which if I was new to the hobby, had cycled my tank correctly and was after a shoal of neons I would have gone for 10 at least. Most of their deals on starter fish were for buy ten pay for 8 etc. He agreed I knew what was doing but said it was out of his hands. Its no big deal really, just a little frustrating, sure some of my bacteria will die off but it will always double when I add some more next month.

Tanks (he he) for the replies everyone.

 

[vinylman]

I've never bought from pets at home, and it seems a strange policy - how do they know what tank or tanks you have at home?!!

I'd quite like to know what the assistant thinks leaving a tank for a week before adding fish will do, too.

 

[becca320]

I know this is a little off subject but has anyone seen the latest P@H latest publicity stunt" the Amnesty??"

 

[oddball_lover]

I would doubt that it is policy - probably just the assistant 'playing it safe'.

I have witnessed someone being sold a large number of fish before (this is in one of their specialist aquatics stores) so if it was indeed policy, I would have expected the specialists to have been enforcing it, as it is aquatics specific.

Might be worth sending an email to their customer services and see what they say?

I must admit it seems a little odd that one store would do it, but not another. Which is why I reckon it was the just the assistant having confidence issues - he might have been thinking "uh oh, don't want this person coming back with 10 dead fish in a few days time..."

 

[CruX]

I would doubt that it is policy - probably just the assistant 'playing it safe'.

I have witnessed someone being sold a large number of fish before (this is in one of their specialist aquatics stores) so if it was indeed policy, I would have expected the specialists to have been enforcing it, as it is aquatics specific.

Might be worth sending an email to their customer services and see what they say?

I must admit it seems a little odd that one store would do it, but not another. Which is why I reckon it was the just the assistant having confidence issues - he might have been thinking "uh oh, don't want this person coming back with 10 dead fish in a few days time..."

Which is fair enough, but he had already said they couldn't guarentee them as I lived more than 40 mins away from the store. He did say it was 'policy' although he didn't specify if it was store, company or his own personal policy, he also made reference to my wife coming in and getting the remainder.

If he did think I was clueless he went out of his way to compliment me otherwise.

 

[oddball_lover]

Hmm... I reckon a swift email to customer services - you never know, they might give you the rest free

Ok, maybe not - worth a try anyhoo

 

[SexyFishKeeper]

I've only bought livestock from Pets At Home once and never again to be honest.

At that time, I had just completed fishless cycling and was ready to fully stock my tank.

When I went to buy my tiger barbs, they said that they wouldn't sell me any as I already had danios in (purchased the day previous). Then they'd sell me them but without their guarantee of a refund if they die. Then they wouldn't sell me the 10 that I wanted.

I had a bit of a discussion with the store person and then chatted to the manager after, basically said either I'll buy them here or drive somewhere else to buy them. They relaxed at that point and then let me buy them.

The experience wasn't something that I'd willingly go through again, and as other posters have indicated, their advice on new setup tanks is poor. Its like from one extreme to the other in terms of quality of advice.

However, would clued up fish keepers buy stock from Pets at Home? I certainly wouldn't as you would goto a 'proper' LFS where possible. I would expect that people who goto Pets at Home generally want fish as pets rather than seeing fish keeping as a hobby - if you get my point.

Anyway, in summary Pets at Home = Pants

 

[backtotropical]

Its a bit of a sticky situation with P@H.

I think its really good that they are trying to do something to prevent fish deaths. On that i commend them with no reservation.

On the other hand, what they are doing is pretty crap and half hearted. The one thing P@H needs is good advice to hand out to customers who are setting up a new tank and don't have a clue, as this is probably the vast majority of their customer base. They just aren't doing that which is quite sad.

The 5 fish rule is about as rubbish as they come. As said, a limit of 5 neons is overkill, and a limit of 5 oscars is way off the mark in the other direction for most tanks.

Come on P@H, give your staff a bit of training so they at least know a little bit about cycling, make up some leaflets to give out with each and every tank, and above all, start selling bottled ammonia (that'll be the day i eat my hat ).

Cheers

BTT

 

[kribensis12]

^ our petsmart( American Pets@home, well, i tihnk thier owned by the same people) give out phamplets. But the lady told someone to put a bala in the 10 g tank but let the water sit a day. And she gave her a thing abotu "cycling". I have noticed something though. Petsmarts labels for their fish give info, which is off. They say a Pleco can live in a 20g tank! Others are quite absurd as well. It makes me sick. When i turn 16 i'll apply there just to straiten them up( even though i'd rather go to my fav lfs, but they are great and our petsmart is TERRIBLE!)

 

[CruX]

I've only bought livestock from Pets At Home once and never again to be honest.

At that time, I had just completed fishless cycling and was ready to fully stock my tank.

When I went to buy my tiger barbs, they said that they wouldn't sell me any as I already had danios in (purchased the day previous). Then they'd sell me them but without their guarantee of a refund if they die. Then they wouldn't sell me the 10 that I wanted.

I had a bit of a discussion with the store person and then chatted to the manager after, basically said either I'll buy them here or drive somewhere else to buy them. They relaxed at that point and then let me buy them.

The experience wasn't something that I'd willingly go through again, and as other posters have indicated, their advice on new setup tanks is poor. Its like from one extreme to the other in terms of quality of advice.

However, would clued up fish keepers buy stock from Pets at Home? I certainly wouldn't as you would goto a 'proper' LFS where possible. I would expect that people who goto Pets at Home generally want fish as pets rather than seeing fish keeping as a hobby - if you get my point.

Anyway, in summary Pets at Home = Pants

Apart from the 'discussion' I had with the guy I didn't think they were that bad, actually the fact they placed the fish bags into dark paper bags impressed me as no other shop I have bought from has ever done that. Traditionally I have just placed the bags into a bucket and covered it.

Where we live now the nearest tropical fish shop in 40 mins away. There is a snake and spider shop in the village that sells goldfish too but he won't order anything in. We regularly visit my other halfs parents and they have a local fish shop about 5 mins away, pets at home about 10 mins away and a Maidenhead aquatics about 30 mins away. We have now bought from all three. Maidenhead are really on the ball and impressed me a lot, especially as when I was thinking of buying a figure of 8 puffer and read up on them on the internet and found they prefered brackish conditions the guy went off to write down all the info I had so he could pass it on to potential customers. The LFS were great until I complained about some poor stock they sold, the poor things were riddled with what seemed like an internal parasite, we only complained so they could sort out the problems, we didn't ask for our money back although the woman insisted and gave me a handout that suggested our poor hubandry had let too much 'ammonium' accumilate in the tank, of course they cold sell me something that would get rid of the offending 'ammonium' although the only product I found in their shop converted ammonia to 'ammonium' and they didn't see the funny side when I pointed out the error on their sheet.
I was talking to someone online earlier who warned me that P@H stock doesn't last a week which seemed a little worrying but even though the new arrivals have only been in the tank for a little over 24 hours the white angels we bought have gone a lovely tinge of gold, and the silver tip tetras seem to be really shining especially under the moon light. With any luck these are positive signs.