Just Wanted To Share...

[fishwatcher]

I was at WalMart yesterday, picking up some fish food. Well, I hear this lady talking to the fellow working there. She's picked out 2 dwarf gouramis, 1 paradise fish, 5 WCMMs, and 1 plec. As he's bagging them up, he's asking about her tanks. She's says, "oh, I only have 1. It's a 5-gallon that has 2 gold gouramis in it. It had 4, but 2 died recently, so I'm replacing them with these." The guy, who I don't believe knew much about fish, since she had to point out which fish were what, just stared at a her a minute like WTF?!? He just said, " a 5-gallon, huh?" And kind of shook his head.
I have a tendency to overstock, but I make sure the types of fish get along well (ie, slow-moving with slow-moving, no nippers, etc), and I keep them heavily planted, keep up on the water changes, etc. But all of these fish in a 5-gal!?!?! All I could think of was how quickly a bunch of these are going to die, too.
Sometimes people just don't use common sense.

 

[Gankutsuou]

honestly, the 2 gourmari's aren't suited to a 5.....

If they were bagged, I guess it was too late... and usually people will tell you off when you try to help...

 

[fishwatcher]

yeah, I know some may think I'm a wimp or something, but in general I let people do what they want when it comes to fish unless they ask my opinion. I figure it'd just make them mad anyway, and they'll do what they wanted to do in the first place.

 

[Torrean]

I disagree. Think about your first tank. It was probably too small overfed and overstocked. Don't you wish someone had come up to you when you were buying your fish and said hey those two won't go well together or hey that fish gets 2 feet long and need 75 gallons of water atleast.

Whenever I'm in walmart I go into the fish section and just stand around for a few minutes looking at fish. Almost every time some comes back there and starts looking at fish. I notice them looking at the common plecs or the clown loaches and I strike up a conversation. I've done this dozens of times. Every single time I get a heart felt thank you...(and a good oppurtunity to hand out a business card) I think people really appreciate it when you save them money.

 

[fishwatcher]

I may should have said something, but this lady acted as though she knew all about the fish. She even acted a little miffed at the guy for not knowing exactly what fish were what.

 

[woogrl]

Since I work at a fish store I always make sure I tell people how it is really going to be when they are buying any fish, and why they cant put this with that and how big they will really get and so on and so forth. Sometimes I even refuse a sell because the people are just being a**holes and dont care about the fish at all and just want a fish to eat other fish and stuff like that. But for the most part if people do what I tell tham not to do anyways then I make so to tell them that their fish are not guaranteed and they cannot return them. I dont know what else to do except guide them the best I can.

 

[xJake]

I used to like the people who ran the pet department at my local walmart until they fired the manager (who was very friendly, knowledgeable, and generally knew what she was doing) for costing them too much money. They brought in this new guy who knows nothing about fish whatsoever and has been stocking the tanks with Pacus, Bichirs, Oscars, and DYED fish. I've forced myself to never buy from there again, not to mention the conditions they keep their fish in are horrendous. They have a shared filtration system now and they keep african cichlids with south americans on the SAME filtration system. I was bold enough to reach in and test their pH last weekend and it was 7.9.