The Lamest fish store advice you've gotten was....

[Sorrell]

I have a book that tells how to do aquarium maintenance on marine and fresh tanks in a little chart. It has some basic things like check temperature everyday for both it says water changes for salt once a week and fresh once a month. Then it has "test water" marine: as needed fresh: N/A

 

[BirdofPray]

I just got some bad advice today. I bought another female betta and I knew it might be around an hour before I would get home so I asked the guy how long I could keep the betta in the bag before it might get sick or whatever. He told me 8-12 hours it could be kept in there. It was just a normal plastic bag you always get from the LFS. Am I the wrong one? I always just thought it should be around 30 minutes to an hour, not 8-12 hours.

 

[Sorrell]

Depends on how they are bagged, packed, what temp they are kept at in the bag. They can be in a bag for a couple days if done properly, but probably not the way it was done in the store.

 

[CFC]

If they are double bagged and oxygen is added to the bag before it is sealed then providing the fish is kept warm 8 to 12 hours in a bag is no big deal, when i recieve fish by mail order the fish have been in the bags for between 16 and 20 hours depending on what time they were collected the day before and what time they finally arive on my doorstep.

 

[Max]

I had a tank with 2 angels, about 5" at that time and was looking for some smaller fish that would go with them. Had no experience with small fish at that point.

Me: will these neons go OK with my angels
LFS Guy: yeah, the angel will really enjoy their company.
Me: they look kinda small
LFS Guy: They will grow a bit more and Angels dont attack other fish anyway.
Me: Ok then ill take ten

That was at 5PM
Next morning at 7AM
2 neons left, angels tummies bulging, huge smiles on their faces and that "have you got any more of those" look in their eyes.

I guess the angels truly did enjoy the company of the tiny little neons. Anyhow the rest of the story involved litigation so i wont go there.

i think neons are natraly eaten in the wild by angle fish (im probably wrong but... thats what i read does any one know if this is right?)

 

[Max]

at one of my lfs's i trust two people and two people only... one because he goes to my church and i know him so i know he wont sell me things just to make money, and he knows alot about fish... at my other lfs i trust one guy... because he has been keeping fish for year (he says) and they only hire people who have a great knolage of fish, I KNOW...

 

[NinjaSmurf]

I used to live about an hour away from this huge fish store called That Fish Place. It was like a warehouse dedicated to fish (and other pets) They have at least one Marine biologist working there and they have care sheets they hand out (For FREE!) plus most of the employees that work there know what they are talking about, not to mention they have a huge selection of fish. I could spend a whole day in there easily. Then I moved Since then my shopping choices have been limited to nice lady who sells almost nothing but community fish (with slightly high prices because it's out of her home), lunatic women who sells anything she can get her hands on no matter what tank you have for it, *coughOscarcanfitinthirtygallonfoevercough* and bless their evil smilie faced little hearts, Wal-mart. So I've become one of the lottery fish players, reduced to spending twenty to thirty-five minutes sorting through the tanks to find a fish that doesn't have anything wrong with it and I can afford, (if I'm shopping at Wal-mart I can usually get the poor clerk to just give me the net and I catch my own fish) cringing at the cash register, and then taking it home and hoping that little fishy I just bought doesn't croak.

 

[Oddball]

Yea of course this lil oscar will be fine with your two pangasius cats provided tht they are bigger. This of course was stupid if the pangs were a lot bigger......but they were just an ich longer.
For a week they were fine with lil albino oscar hiding, then one eye from pang A was lost and the belly of pang B..........
ah well the shop the shop was lumbered with an ill tempered oscar, a one eyed catfish and a corpse on the desk, not good considering the shop was full at the time!

 

[Guppylover]

I never had a bad experiance with the fish store I got to but I've seen one in another store called Pets Parade.

Mother: Excuse me but my son has a tank with 3 black moors inside, I'm just wondering if anyother fish can fit inside?
Store Girl: How big is your tank?
Mother: I don't know, but it looks a bit like this one (points to a small plastic 8 gallon tank).
Store Girl: Yep, you can fit more fish in there. What do you want?
Little Boy: Mummy, I want that one (points to penguin tetra) and that one too!!! (points to a fantail goldfish).
Mother: Ok, could I have those?
Store Girl: Yes you could get those, but you should keep that tetra in groups of six. The goldfish will be ok with the other ones you have!
Mother: Ok, I will get six of those tetra and that goldfish please.

I was just staring that the Store Girl thinking "What the hell?!" over and over again! I couldn't believe what I was hearing...This was my first experience of a really bad fish store. I still go there but I never buy anything.

 

[drunkenmonkey]

I was buying my fish after my cycle had just completed

lfs person: the water quality in your tank is going to deteriorate quickly
me: but i just did a fishless cycle and water change...
lp: it doesn't matter. you'll probably need to start doing 50% water changes to bring down your nitrite levels.
me: but thats what a fishless cycle does...

now she's acusing me of poor water quality for my two otos getting sick. i have no ammonia, no nitrites, and low nitrates. sheesh

 

[Grams]

me:hey what are those little white dots all over there body

Idioth those are there eggs

mek so there not for sale

idiot:no there going to cost a dollar more for the eggs,so are you going to buy one

meah, cough, cough, ick,cough,(clearing throat)

the guy was annoying and was a jerk i hate the unknowledgable in a lfs

 

[Becca]

Oooh I could go on and on here.

Let's see, the WORST advice I've heard in an LFS was:

The guy is in the process of buying a second tank to house fish that aren't working out well in his main tank, for whatever reason. I don't remember most of the conversation - but I do remember, quite vividly, this dialog:

Guy: Ok, is there anything else I need to add to the tank besides my filter?
LFS: You should have an airstone and airpump. That gives the fish oxygen, without it they won't be able to breathe.
Guy: Ok. Do I have to let the tank sit for a while first?
LFS: Nah, I never cyle any of my tanks and my fish do just fine. Just add water, and in 10-12 hours, move your fish.

They never cylce their tanks, but the longest they have their fish for is a day. The store is always super busy...they're normal prices are cheap, and they're also "Buy 2, get 1 free" every day. Plus, on Sunday - in addition to the "Buy 2, get 1 free", your fish total is 1/2 off.

Someone posted in here something about this post made it seem like you couldn't trust any LFS. Just for the record, I've been on a LFS finding spree. I've found about 1/2 dozen, all within an hours drive of my house that I'm just in love with. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and the fish selection is healthy and pretty wide. Prices are a bit steeper than normal, but you're getting nice quality fish.

 

[Katie]

my toddler liked the look of some small frogs when we just got our tank so i asked the local fish guy if the'd be okay in the 10uk gal tank we had (bearing in mind we got 2 silver dollors and 5 platies)

okay so that's not too bad until i did some research at home and found out we had bought 2 albino clawd frogs!!! they're in with the gold fish now that are a fair size bigger that the frog but things will have to be changed again when they grow.

also, no one said anything about cycling and let us get the dollars Dollars

 

[csr mel]

well my first expierence with fish was to buy 3 platy's. the fish store guy said i need to wash the fish with soapy water once a day or so to keep them clean. not knowing any better i did some innernet researching and asked about fish washing here. and you people told me not to do this!
this fish guy also did not know what any of the fish were. none of them had signs so he told me to just pick out whatever i wanted.

i have sence went back to the fish store to buy some brine shrimp, flakes and a breeder trap because one of my platy's had fry and the other 2 are preggers. the kid was fired (i asked). but the fish still do not have any signs on them telling what they are.
i think i pissed some people off when i typed that out before, about the soap thing. but its really true.

i have to say thanks to the people on this website for filling me in to fish keeping. i didnt know anything about fish except how to catch them with a hook before i came to this website. all of the info here really helps alot because now i feel confident in keeping my fish and their fry.

 

[Teelie]

i think neons are natraly eaten in the wild by angle fish (im probably wrong but... thats what i read does any one know if this is right?)

No, that's correct. I didn't know it myself until a few months ago but even before that I could put two and two together that medium sized, somewhat predatory Angels would eat smaller Tetras if given the chance.