The Puffer Forum

Forgive me, I'm goin on my soap box for a minute, just a rant you have heard before. I have been reminded of the Iies I have been told and I wish to rant

I caught a good deal on a 55 on craigslist yesterday, only problem was that they wanted us to take everything...including the coffee table the tank sat on seriously a coffee table , not a stand..in the ad it did not mention a coffee table. But anyway it was still a good deal.

I sent my husband to get the tank and what he was to find out to be our new coffee table. When he came home he was all excited, "Honey they threw in hundreds of dollars worth of chemicals!"

2 FULL boxes of chemicals, with price tags still attatched. I thought, "Sweet, I can use some melefix or an extra test kit"

But oh no what was in the box...bottle after bottle of ammonia blockers, ph products, ick cures more ammonia blockers, some more ammonia blockers....and some ammonia blockers. Like 60 bottles

When I say ammonia blockers, I mean a every single type of product on the market that promises a maintence free tank.

2 things were weird about that.

#1. Most of the bottles were empty. These people sold the tank because they needed the space......why didn't they throw away their gigantic collection of empty bottles

#2. All of the bottles had price stickers from the same store

What his tells me is that the tank owners kept going in that store saying, "my fish keep dying and getting ick". And they were told over and over again to buy some useless product...instead of being told "you need to do a water change".

Why??? Because the pet store makes no money if you do a water change

Eventually, the tank owners gave up and let all the fish die, and then let the water evaporate, I know cause I can see the water stains.

That store sold them some cheap goldfish (I found the goldfish food) and then proceeded to sell them about $300 worth of junk.

I guess the pet store could be innocent in all of this, maybe the tank owners enjoyed wasting their money. But, if the store was innocent, you would think that the 20th time the tank owners went in there one of the employees would say , "Hey man, have you tried removing the ammonia by taking it out of the tank?"

$20 worth of fish equals an extra $300 dollars...and that is how a bad pet store stays in business.

Yup the Lfs was probably the guilty party but most people have Internet access now, they choose not use it. On a plus note it resulted in an experienced and caring owner acquiring another tank, thus giving some more fish good homes. It's always good to highlight the plus side, I have got tons of free or dirt cheap stuff from people who have given up. Dont get me wrong I feel sorry for the fish and what they have gone through

bertie 83 wrote:Yup the Lfs was probably the guilty party but most people have Internet access now, they choose not use it. On a plus note it resulted in an experienced and caring owner acquiring another tank, thus giving some more fish good homes. It's always good to highlight the plus side, I have got tons of free or dirt cheap stuff from people who have given up. Dont get me wrong I feel sorry for the fish and what they have gone through

True, I love when people call me or show up trying to rehome fish I don't want....then they beg...then say, "alright, I'll think of something"....then I take the fish to the lfs and exchange for blood worms or rabbit food

bertie 83 wrote:...but most people have Internet access now, they choose not use it...

In the past several years there is no excuse for being a bad fishkeeper. And on the flip side, to the clerks that sell the fish and depend solely on the store training, they have no excuse either. If I sold fish and knew little about them I would spend atleast some minimal time online to learn some basics.

Lots of people buy fish and tanks. Only a percentage of those are in the hobby as such. The others may not be as they have no interest in learning. They woukld be better off with a video. Or perhaps one of the magnetic tanks w/plastic fish.

Actually, most pet store personal should have at least some knowledge of keeping fish properly, but they are not schools. They are retail shops and are there to make money. The staff is not really qualified on the whole to be teachers and trainers. They are there to make sales. It would be nice if they could know and teach, but it would take more time and training for them to gain enough knowledge to be useful. That is unlikely to happen in the real world, especially in chain stores. Most of their customers do not want to be bothered. Craig's list would not be such a good source otherwise.

Pufferghoti and I have only been back into fishkeeping for a couple of months but already some of our LFS are treating us a resource and talking to us as equals or even better wanting our knowledge...

Yup...we've come across some petshops with a few small tanks who think that makes them fish experts and they've been rejected by us. We don't want to deal with that kinda attitude..

Other shops have asked a few questions.."you have a marine tank? okay I'll sell you these.'" And others who are intereasted in your whole set-ups and water quality. I'm lucky cos I can go mid-week and on less busy times so I do get a lot of personal attention. It's nice walking into a shop where most of the staff know your name for the right reasons and treat you as a partner in fish keeping rather than a bothersome irritant who can be sold any damn thing to make you happy.