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

[appleblossom]

the fish store guy said i need to wash the fish with soapy water once a day or so to keep them clean.

What the hell???

 

[Teelie]

They posted a thread last week making that claim but I think it's just a bad joke that's suckered a lot of people into believing it's real.

 

[Auratus]

Sunbleached wrinkly old mom trying to be hot: Hi there.
Naive young teenager: Hi, can I help you?
SWOMH: ya I just got back from hawaii and saw some fish so now I want some.
NYT: Ok
SWOMH: ya my son has this bowl with this fish (points at some random goldfish)
This goes back and forth and the old wrinkly lady keeps trying to flirt with the guy. I wait for 20 minutes for someone to come help me get some fish... (almost bagged them myself like that time at wal-mart but that's a different story). meanwhile the guy is just chatting with the lady about her trip to hawaii. The lady ends up buying three more bubble eyed goldfish for this tiny .5 gallon tank.

So... my mom isn't a very patient lady. She bursts into the little room and asks for the manager after asking someone at the register 3 times. This being Petsmart there are managers for every section so the "manager" comes out with her stupid gold name plate thingy on her chest.

I ask for the last two killifish they had. The only other fish in there were pygmy gourami which look nothing like the long skinny yellow killis. She keeps getting me pygmy gourami! So I practically break my finger stabbing the little fish tag saying "This fish! I want this fish! There are only two types of fish in the tank. THIS FISH!" I then proceed to go F-I-S-H. I felt I needed to spell it out to her. This is her response.

I'm sorry I don't really know much about the individual types of fish so I didn't know what you were talking about and then proceeded to write down the code for the gourami (which were a dollar cheaper). You are the fish department manager!?!?!?!? The freaking manager?!?!??!!? And you don't know what fish that is?!?!?!!?!?!? It then took her about 10 minutes to catch a freaking rubbernose. There were like 25 in the tank too. Didn't think it would be that hard.

Ok... so it's not really advice. But that lady was stupid. Which is why I feel pretty darn confident that I could get a job there if they hire those type of people. I'll be applying soon. The people are stupid but the fish are healthy...

 

[Eve]

Me: Oh my those are neat fish,what are they called.
Him: um..there a type of gobie
me: hmm interesting, could you maybe find out what 'type'?
Him: yeah Ill go ask

This makes you wonder...

Him: um we are not to sure
me: okay,
Him: how many do you want?
Me: are the fresh or brackish?
Him: brackish?
Me: as in brackish water type
Him: whats that?
Me: is there someone here that know fish?
Him: let me get my boss

Boss: yes?
Me: these freshwater?
Boss: we only sell freshwater
me: ahh so they are not brackish
Boss: there is no such thing, its all about getting you to buy more unnecessary things for your tank
Me: riiighhht..


This is roughly paraphrased and not precisly of course. but the gist is there.

 

[Becca]

...snip...
Boss: yes?
Me: these freshwater?
Boss: we only sell freshwater
me: ahh so they are not brackish
Boss: there is no such thing, its all about getting you to buy more unnecessary things for your tank
Me: riiighhht..
...snip...

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Fiddlesticks]

Maybe fish stores recruit there staff from used car lots. Oh yeah sir this cars a real beaut. Then the transmission blow before you even get it home.

 

[leslie123]

Okay, not quite lame fish advise, but close:

I came into the petstore, noticed 14 newborn baby Jackson's chameleons in the tank with 2 female adults... bad, because the adults will eat them, & the very delicate babies need TINY food, like fruitflies and newborn "pinhead" crickets.(Jacksons' chameleons are live-bearers.)

Me: "Hey, you've got baby chameleons in here. Do you know how to take care of them?"

Store worker: "Oh, we don't have to do anything. The mother will produce milk for the babies."

(The story has a happy ending. I ran home, printed everything I could find on newborn Jackson's chameleons, returned to the store, and was met at the door by the concerned employee, who'd been doing some research of his own. He gave them to me, and I passed them on to an expert who could care for them properly. I actually raised 2 myself - soooo cool!)

 

[wrs]

those arent fish, right?

 

[Teelie]

No, those are a kind of lizard.

 

[rykitten]

Good job Leslie! How cool that they gave them to you

No bad advice here. Never asked for any!

 

[SnowyzMom]

I am very glad fish can't talk because if I tried catching mine and giving them a soapy bath once a day, what they'd say would be unprintable! Just want to say a big THANK YOU for everybody posting on this thread. These have made me laugh my sox off!

It is right scary though how many ignorant people are out there. I sure don't know everything or even close about fish but I sure the heck didn't start keeping fish until I'd watched and helped my daughter for about a year plus asked tons of questions plus read some books. The minute she moved I bought the best book I could find on fish keeping.

I can say there is a pamphlet on fish care given out at Walmart for free by a fish food company, mainly to push their fish food products, and their advice is NOT exactly accurate either. Do be careful what you listen to and read. They claim a guppy's main food is bloodworms! I sure never knew THAT! Wouldn't you get awfully FAT guppies that way? Isn't that too much protein for them daily?

Thanks again for a lot of laughs and some incredulous gulps.

SnowyZMom

 

[sumer_kay]

well, my closest thing to bad advice was when my good lfs was really busy, the reptile lady was helping with fish.


Me-- what kinds of live rock do you sell?
Her-- theres only one kind of live rock.
other customer--How do i cycle my tanks?
Her--add some goldfish
me--why not do fishless cycling, its cheaper, more efficient, and less cruel, you use household amonia

HER--BLANK STARE "can't you see I'm trying to count fish"
*as she counts out 100 feeders*

 

[steppy104]

EVERY single time i mention having betta's in tanks with other fish, this girl that works at the pet departmant where my bf works immediatly says "oh you can't keep betta's with ANYTHING!" as if theres no exception! she allways says stuff as if she knows what she's talkin about. i hate it.

i don't think i've told her yet that i have a HAPPY betta in a 5gal tank with 3 HAPPY minnows and one HAPPY octo-somethin algae eater.

but i guess if people didn't at least ACT like they were right when selling pets, then the people who know nothing and are buying something believe them because they don't know any better.....oohhh....she just pisses me off...

 

[fish_r_great]

I work at my lps and we won't just sell people fish because we have a 10 day warantee and their fish would just die therefore we would lose money. This is kinda off topic a little bit but we have people come in and they ignore everything you say to them like how neons need to be in schools and goldfish get very big and are very messy fish this drives me crazy.

 

[snowyangel]

You people have made my day, my gut hurts so much form laughing right now! Wew, funny stuff!
K here's mine, but not quite funny:
Owner : Sure we'll buy your guppies off you
me: great, I'll bring some more for you
NEXT DAY
owner: beautiful colours, just need to let them float in the tank for abit
me: *browsing at their guppy tank and notices a betta swimming in the back!*

Fortunately the betta was removed and no guppies were hurt in the telling of this story. Next story was something I saw in Walmart.
*happy young couple strolls by the fish tanks with 2 gallon tank setup in their cart*

Couple: hmmmm, such Nice fish. We'll take two of those!
Walmart worker: sure! *as she bags 2 lion cove cichlids*
here's the link to that cichlid incase you don't know it: http/www.elmersaquarium.com/10afcichlid_lionscove.htm