Just For Fun - What's The Biggest Whopper A Lfs Has Told You?

[TooManyChoices]

What aquarium in melbourne has juvenile RTC's!? Sure it was a red tailed shark?

 

[TallTree01]

The place in Melbourne was a small li'l corner shop. Can remember the name unfortunately. There's an adult RTC in ballarat's aquarium and pet centre in their display tank. It's maybe 1 + 1/2 foot long and it beautiful. They have sting rays there too.

 

[Flute]

Going with MBOU's idea of funny things customers say, I got asked the other day as to where our freshwater starfish were >.< 

 

[tunagirll]

I went into one recently to see if they might have some ammonia for a fishless cycle (long shot I know)
 
"What's a fishless cycle?"
 
oh you know, to cycle your tank and get it ready for the fish
 
"What do you mean, cycle the tank?"
 
You know, to get the bacteria into it
 
"Oh we have quick start for that, it's instant."
 

 

[daizeUK]

 
For example... on a daily basis... we get from at least 2-4 people "so whats the difference between salt water and freshwater?" or alternatively "whats the difference between tropical and coldwater? which one is the nemos?".....

 
To be fair, I used to walk into fish shops just to have a look around, long before I had thoughts of buying any and I was totally mystified by the different types of fish.  They didn't label coldwater or tropical or marine sections so I always wondered which was which.  It seems obvious now but I genuinely just didn't know anything about fish, apart from goldfish were coldwater and the clownfish lived in the sea and everything else was a complete mystery.  I remember wondering how people were supposed to know what fish to buy as there just seemed to be very little information about them!

 

[PrairieSunflower]

We need that person to come and tell the story about how snails mate again... that was hysterically bad info from their LFS.
 
Mine has only really been the classic LFS bad advice of buying a tank too small and suggesting fish that would be entirely too big as well as all you needed to do was run the tank for 2 days before adding fish.... my fish keeping didn't start off well as a result.

 

[Dskize]

Those fish are fast enough to keep away from your Oscars , they wont get eaten.


Wrong.

 

[Nikki77D]

My lfs has a rule of when you have a new tank you need to set it up and run it for 40 days, then you can come get fish and get there guarantee - That if the fish dies in a month then you can get a new fish. But you can still get fish the same day you buy the tank, you just don't get that guarantee. Poor fish are doomed. Lol

 

[MBOU]

DaizeUK, I'd have been less amused/stumped at customers stupidity if the fish weren't clearly labled as 'fancy goldfish', 'coldwater', 'tropical' and 'marine' etc... the customers are genuinely asking what the difference between saltwater and freshwater is... not anything to do with the fish!!

 

[ReiRei]

4 year old: Do fish sleep?
Employee: No, they dont.
 
I actually went up and corrected her.

 

[8511swann]

About 20 years ago, when I first started in the hobby, I had a 2.5ft, 120 litre tank. The LFS were more than happy to sell me some (6) cute and tiny tin foil barbs, and a few (4) Bala sharks. Unfortunately, t'internet hadn't really caught on then, and good advice was hard to come by.

I'm glad to see that these days the internet is indeed becoming popular. It will be overtaking the fax machine in popularity soon.

 

[daizeUK]

 the customers are genuinely asking what the difference between saltwater and freshwater is... not anything to do with the fish!!

 
Maybe I'm being especially dense but this doesn't sound like a stupid question to me.  If I walked into a shop and asked what is the difference between freshwater and saltwater, I'd want to know what sort of salt needs to be added and whether there is anything else you need to add to emulate a sea water environment.  I'd also want to know what sort of extra effort, difficulty and cost factors are involved in a saltwater setup. 
 
What I know about marine fishkeeping is extremely limited (or just plain wrong!) but this is the sort of sort of answer I'd try to give if somebody asked me:
"Saltwater systems require a concentration of marine salt at a salinity of around 1.0 to emulate seawater.  Marine salt is a mix of lots of different types of salt, you can't use ordinary table salt.  Saltwater systems are more sensitive to water parameters such as ammonia, hardness and phosphates than freshwater systems so there is a greater chance that your tap water might be unsuitable for a marine system and you might need to use RO water.  You also might need more specialised equipment such as a protein skimmer and UV sterilizer."
 
I'm sure that somebody else can correct my misunderstandings and provide a much better explanation of saltwater vs freshwater - I would be very interested to hear it!

 

[ShinySideUp]

"I've never heard of zebra loaches."
 
Time for a new job then!

 

[MBOU]

Maybe I'm being especially dense but this doesn't sound like a stupid question to me.  If I walked into a shop and asked what is the difference between freshwater and saltwater, I'd want to know what sort of salt needs to be added and whether there is anything else you need to add to emulate a sea water environment.  I'd also want to know what sort of extra effort, difficulty and cost factors are involved in a saltwater setup. 

 
There are of course customers who are genuinely asking because they are considering the varieties of fish they can keep and the work involved. And of ourse they get good answers tailored to the customers need and the likelihood of them wanting to spend a fortune on a marine tank having never kept fish before etc... mostly we advise people to go with tropical community tanks.
 
But for every 4-5 customers in a shop, 2-3 are 'tourists' using the shop as a cheep child amusement park. If I start going into detail, they stare blankly and then I have to clarifiy "saltwater is sea water and so has salt in it... yes.. yes like where nemo comes from.... and freshwater has no salt in it and is from rivers, lakes and streams". They leave looking like they have learnt something amazing and I feel I have done my bit

 

[Ch4rlie]

 
But for every 4-5 customers in a shop, 2-3 are 'tourists' using the shop as a cheep child amusement park. If I start going into detail, they stare blankly and then I have to clarifiy "saltwater is sea water and so has salt in it... yes.. yes like where nemo comes from.... and freshwater has no salt in it and is from rivers, lakes and streams". They leave looking like they have learnt something amazing and I feel I have done my bit