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Beware The LFS!!!

5K views 36 replies 13 participants last post by  Andyandsue 
#1 ·
Not sure if this is the place for this, but has anyone else had really bad advice from their LFS? When i was setting up my first tank, complete newbie that i was, i relied quite a lot on advice from my LFS. I had a couple of Angels and the yoyo's as well as the plec and i wanted to have something in there to add a little mid/surface colour and fancied the idea of a shoal of something. I saw some pretty little flame tailed guppies and thought that they would be perfect. So i asked the fishman if there were any problems putting them in my tank, specifically would my angels bully them. "No mate, they'll be fine! They're good little fish them, you'll have no problems." so armed with this advice 5 pretty little guppies went into the tank. In less than an hour they'd been run ragged and barely had a tail between them! Fortunately i was able to give them to a mate with a less agressive tank and they are all fine, but i wondered if anyone else fell for bad advice at the start ot things... Name and shame folks!
 
#27 ·
I'm coming to the end of my first month of the hobby and already have had a bad experience of my LFS and changed it already.

I bought 6 neons from them to start the cycle off in my tank, to be fair to them they've been great right the way through the cycle and seemed to be happy enough.

When the cycle was complete i bought 6 guppys from them. Afte two days 4 of the 6 had died. I'm now 5 days on and I've got 1 left.

Yesterday, I went into the LFS where i bought the guppys and now the tank that they have had numerous dead ones and a few that were swimming upside down and around in circles. I'm confident that its nothing I've done wrong (except introduce them to my tank!). I asked one of the assistants and she said "guppys have a short life span and also get stressed during transit. would you like 4 more to replace the four that died?" I resisted the urge to verbally bombard her with 4 letter words and declined the offer. Why would I want to add more sick fish to my tank? Anyway, after walking around the shop for a few mins studying the other fish in other tanks it became clear that I shouldn't buy any more fish from them. They had a tank full of black, red tailed sharks. they were all grey and the tails virtually pink! Not one of them was swimming correctly. Puffer fish riddled with some sort of fungus. That was enough for me! I've found another place, the same franchise name but a COMPLETELY different standard. They keep tanks 4m x 4m x 1.5m with large marine fish, there's vast varieties of tropical fish and they all look really healthy. The people there seemed to be a lot more knowledgable too.

The difference was vast, not just with the fish but the plants too believe it or not. In the original LFS the plants were heavily bunch resulting in plants having light green/yellow leaves where they'd be starved of light.

Really happy with the new place, looking forward to buying some fish from them sometime.

Good Post, has been an interesting read :)
 
#28 ·
FishN00b said:
I've found another place, the same franchise name but a COMPLETELY different standard. They keep tanks 4m x 4m x 1.5m with large marine fish, there's vast varieties of tropical fish and they all look really healthy. The people there seemed to be a lot more knowledgable too.
Is it Petco or Petsmart, etc? Or some other store local store that we have never heard of?
 
#29 ·
Trishfish said:
I certainly wasn't singling you out Susan, and I doubt a smaller store surfs the web much. But there was an issue with a large company. I just don't want my fishie friends to tank. :)
I know... I just plain ol' don't care about this guy. He was so rude to us. I know plenty of lawyers, I'm sure there is something to counter-sue him for after our experience. :wink:
 
#30 ·
the lfs workers also have a problem with the ppl who come in and have an opinion already and nothing will change ther mind.

i had this 1 guy come in and he wanted germans rams. i started asking him the usual questins. how big is ur aquarium? 55gal.
is it heated? yes.

this is wer it gets bad

how long has it been set up? just set it up this after noon.

the guy wanted to put german rams into a band new, unconditioned, uncycled tank, and he wanted 12 of them just to through in ther. nothing i suggested would change his mind so finally i just sold the to him and voided his guarantee. the next day he came back and sed all but 1 died. i told him that i was suprised the 1 did. so these bad stories rnt all our fault, actually im sure alot of the r stretched to make them sound worse
 
#32 ·
I agree, and disagree with everyone here. I think some employees give really bad advice, and some give really good advice. Some just want to make money, and some are in it for the love of the hpbby. There can't be any generalisation here really.

One thing I will say though. is that I sometimes think that fish store employees are put in awkward positions. One time I was in one of the lfs's in my area a woman came in with ehr 2 kids and wanted an oranda, a black moor, and a small fish bowl. The guy obviously put 2 and 2 together and figured she was putting these 2 fish (which btw were about 3-4" at the time of buying them, so not even tiny fish to start with) and he advised her against it. He told her they'd get too big. He told her you can't just fire fish into a brand new bowl, he told her they'd probably die because of amonnia posioning etc etc and then in the very end he just couldn't talk her out of it. He then said "at least buy some Cycle and water conditioner for the bowl which doesn't guarantee they'll survive but will give them a better chance at least". At which point she then went on a rant that he was just trying to get more money out of her! I could hardly believe it!!! Many an employee would just have sold her the fish and bowl, and he tries to talk her out of it and gets accused of manipulating her into spending more money...

The one good thing that came of this situation however, was that the guy had had enough by this point and told her she wasn't getting the Cycle, she wasn't getting the water conditioner and she wasn't getting any bowl, or any fish either.
 
#35 ·
i had someone come up and ask me wat they needed for the "nemo" fish (i knew right then that didnt have the setup) i was gona walk away but my manager made me go through wat they needed with them. it took 30 min cuz they wer so stupid. it turns out that the didnt evem know that they needed sw. they ended up not getting anything cuz they didnt want to do the work. in that time a could hav help atleast 5 other compident customers. thers was a guy who only works with me waiting thewhole time ... i felt so bad cuz he just waited, so i spent so extra time making sure i got it right with him
 
#36 ·
I'm not stretching when I talk about the guy who bent over in the LFS- that was all his doing! LOL
Susan, This episode with the bum crack has clearly affected you deeply and i'm a bit afeared for both you and your daughter's mental health after such an experience. especially as it seems to be weighing on your mind somewhat... My brother is a very competant therapist and i'm sure he'd be willing to take your case on por bono as a favour to a fellow fishie person. In any case, try to let this horrible incedent slide into your past. :wink:
 
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