Pets @ Home In Wrexham

[stang1]

As inconvenient as it would be to sales and customers, I would personaly like to see a form that has a random set of questions that require you to give answers to fish care, like. How long must you cycle a tank before adding fish and how many at a time may be added, or a fish shows this disease( add a pic of diseased fish) what is this disease and what steps should you take.

If you cant answer at least 75% of them right you get shown the door.

In a perfect world then i would love that, but i would say 90% of fish keepers are clueless, have no idea about even the basic principles we take for granted. But will this change, no. I doubt it, there fish after all

That's why you can make a difference though.
I have come across many customers who haven't got a clue about fishkeeping but several months on have successful tanks that they are really happy with.
One of the jobs of an lfs employee is to help customers give the best home they can to the fish they purchase and I know this isn't always easy.
I've lost count at how many people have been rude to me when I ask all the necessary questions about their tank. It doesn't deter me, in fact, it makes me more detemined to help people learn.
If you can help educate at least one person a week, then that's 52 more knowledgeable people into the hobby every year. May not sound a lot but with enough good employees doing this, yes, it can make a difference.

 

[hensonc4098]

Been Reading this thread with great interest. Our P@H is ok, sometimes diseased/dead fish but nothing overly bad. We don't buy fish from them though as we get them from someone my dad knows. I had to smile one time though, they had endlers listed as "forktail guppies" lol. Otherwise, they are ok but I don't know how knowledgable the staff are or about the form thingys as we don't buy fish.
Just wanted to add my 10p worth

C

 

[keenonfish]

The staff question anyone wishing to buy fish quite thoroughly which is more than can be said about the other shops.

Yeah sussed this out though. They don't question people so much to 'test' them or follow with advice, but more to fill in the forms so that should you bring dead fish back they can go over the form and find a reason why it died other than it being their fault!

I agree they have better plants than most (if not all) of my local LFS's and we have some fantastic lfs's in the North West P@H possibly have the healthiest plants second to Abyss, which have only just started stocking anyway.

Accessories also reasonable (I think). I also saw some gorgeous marbled hatchets recently which you just don't see very often at all and if I knew they had been properly quarantined (along with all the other fish in that bank) I would have definitely purchased them!

 

[keenonfish]

As inconvenient as it would be to sales and customers, I would personaly like to see a form that has a random set of questions that require you to give answers to fish care, like. How long must you cycle a tank before adding fish and how many at a time may be added, or a fish shows this disease( add a pic of diseased fish) what is this disease and what steps should you take.

If you cant answer at least 75% of them right you get shown the door.

and 90% of fish shops would go bust mate this it is completely unworkable in the real world. I think if I owned a fish shop I would try to spark a casual conversation with the customer without making them feel like they were being questioned but at the end of the day I would also be aware that there were bills to pay and would never 'send 'em packing' so to speak.

I would take personal responsibility for fish that I sold and would take every effort to make sure my customers took home healthy fish though, along with good advice!

 

[momo33]

Yeah we are only talking about fish not people, yep I understand some people would think me a kook, but nope Im not a member of any "mother earth" group, I understand some would think my parallel is way to far out there, but I wouldnt care if shops went bust, its like sending a kid out with a gun telling them to fire it untill they learn not to shoot someone, or giving a kid the controls of a 747 and telling them not to worry about how many times they crash cos one day they may get it right and the surviving passengers will be happy even if the dead ones arent. or even sending your kids to a social worker without training and hoping they dont get emotionally damaged!. We are playing with our environment ( nope I dont follow that camp either) daily and species are dying out as I type, how much of that is due to the who cares its only "x" and we will get it right one day, train. Are we going to be next when someone says to the new atomic powers "go ahead and use it, your gonna get it right one day".

Having said that, I see I lost that argument when eyes glazed over and the fingers were doing the loopy bit to the head at me, so I think I will shuddup before I lose some other one.