I Want To Apply For A Job At An Lfs... What Would I Be Doing In The Jo

[Camad727]

I am 16, I live in Scotland and am currently working Sundays at a cafe as a waiter. Understaffed and underpaid and I hate my job. I have a lot of knowledge of fish, not so much of saltwater fish, as I have never kept them.

There is an lfs 10 minutes from my house called Waterworld Aberdeen and I was thinking of applying for a job there.

My question is, working at an lfs, what kind of jobs would I be expected to do? Its a reasonable sized lfs, that holds many marine and freshwater tanks.

-thanks.

p.s
Id probably be working on a saturday or sunday

 

[Ace Of Spades]

You could go in and ask them I guess, but my presumption would be general mantinence of the tanks, watching the water quality maybe and serving customers and answering customers questions. This is if the job is in the Aquatic department....Good Luck

 

[FeroX]

At first, honestly, probably all the ***** jobs. Sweeping fish room, (in my lfs I work at we have fish room and a dry good section), mopping fish room, squeegeeing tanks, misc small jobs not pertaining too much to fish.

After that, you can be expected to:

• Catch fish with net, bag fish, tie bag
• Move fish from Tank A to Tank B for various reasons
• Do water changes (usually many)
• Do gravel washes
• Algae tanks (scrub/razor off the algae)
• Do various cleaning jobs of tanks (i.e. fix decor, rearrange decor, add decor, siphon uneaten food, slope gravel to back, etc)
• Help customers with whatever they need, this includes:
• Answering basic and advanced questions about fish
• being an expert on all your store's fish, all their habits, sizes, feeding habits, requirements, etc
• Answer questions about their tank/fish (why are they dying, how do I ____, my fish is doing _____ why?, My ___fish is beating up my _____fish why? What fish can I put in ____ tank? etc
• Answer really stupid questions
• Know all your dry goods (food [dry, frozen, live], filters, filter media, lighting, protein skimmers, decor, heaters)
• Receive stock and put them in appropriate tanks and acclimate them to best of your ability
• Feed the store's fish (fun part )
• Check for dead fish and remove as necessary
• Check for sick fish (usually manager does a sweep of fish room and writes down which need treatment, water changes, etc) and treat accordingly, while putting fish listed as NFS
• Maintaning overall tank health and doing regular maintainence on any filters, decor as listed before, etc.
• Various opening duties of store (check dead fish, turn on all lights, depends on store)
• Various closing duties (as above)
• Answer more stupid questions
• Go insane
• Have fun

ranted, sorry. Every LFS is different though, obviously. You'll learn A LOT working in one, and don't be afraid to ask for help! Nothing is worse than giving some customer false info on a fish you don't know (marine in your case) and have them come back starking mad. Ask your co-workers or managers for help, I do it all the time still, I don't know ANYTHING about corals, so if a customer has a question about one, I still go ask my manager. Try to shadow a co-worker helping a customer with marine, it's the easiest way to learn.

Here are 2 threads that are great examples of the assortment of questions you get:

http/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...ys-Wanted-One-/
http/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...ae-Eating-Fish/

I get those questions a LOT. "Can I have a suckermouth" and "Can I put _____ in _____ tank"

 

[Camad727]

At first, honestly, probably all the ***** jobs. Sweeping fish room, (in my lfs I work at we have fish room and a dry good section), mopping fish room, squeegeeing tanks, misc small jobs not pertaining too much to fish.

After that, you can be expected to:

• Catch fish with net, bag fish, tie bag
• Move fish from Tank A to Tank B for various reasons
• Do water changes (usually many)
• Do gravel washes
• Algae tanks (scrub/razor off the algae)
• Do various cleaning jobs of tanks (i.e. fix decor, rearrange decor, add decor, siphon uneaten food, slope gravel to back, etc)
• Help customers with whatever they need, this includes:
• Answering basic and advanced questions about fish
• being an expert on all your store's fish, all their habits, sizes, feeding habits, requirements, etc
• Answer questions about their tank/fish (why are they dying, how do I ____, my fish is doing _____ why?, My ___fish is beating up my _____fish why? What fish can I put in ____ tank? etc
• Answer really stupid questions
• Know all your dry goods (food [dry, frozen, live], filters, filter media, lighting, protein skimmers, decor, heaters)
• Receive stock and put them in appropriate tanks and acclimate them to best of your ability
• Feed the store's fish (fun part )
• Check for dead fish and remove as necessary
• Check for sick fish (usually manager does a sweep of fish room and writes down which need treatment, water changes, etc) and treat accordingly, while putting fish listed as NFS
• Maintaning overall tank health and doing regular maintainence on any filters, decor as listed before, etc.
• Various opening duties of store (check dead fish, turn on all lights, depends on store)
• Various closing duties (as above)
• Answer more stupid questions
• Go insane
• Have fun

ranted, sorry. Every LFS is different though, obviously. You'll learn A LOT working in one, and don't be afraid to ask for help! Nothing is worse than giving some customer false info on a fish you don't know (marine in your case) and have them come back starking mad. Ask your co-workers or managers for help, I do it all the time still, I don't know ANYTHING about corals, so if a customer has a question about one, I still go ask my manager. Try to shadow a co-worker helping a customer with marine, it's the easiest way to learn.

thanks that was a really great help, Im sure ill enjoy it, its just some parts of the job are probably a lot more demanding than say waiting tables. Did you find that you were able to answer customers questions straight away? or did you get the ***** jobs for a few months?

 

[FeroX]

Got the ***** jobs for a couple weeks, then I started learning a lot more. When I started my knowledge was very limited, but I had (still have) excellent co-workers, and I'm a fast learner, so I learned mighty fast. At first yeah I could answer all basic questions and some intermediate but the advanced questions NO WAY. I had loads of trouble with African cichlids, didn't know a thing about em, and everyone seemed to want them that week.

You mentioned you're already knowledgeable, that'll help a lot. You should be able to answer the questions w/o problems. If you're unsure, just ask. And remember to be patient with the idiot customers and the extremely annoying fish-enthusiasts who want that specific african out of the tank or specific bala shark, then meticulously inspect them in the bag after yanking it out of your hand. They're so under-socialized they don't realize what's appropriate and what's not anymore