Barbrella

Pet store employees should know what species of fish you ask for, without you having to lead them over and point it out.

They should know how to catch fish without smashing them against the tank walls.

There should not be dead and dying fish lying on the FLOOR!

COBettaCouple

lol, yea - that would be nice. Then we wouldn't need to bag our fish ourselves.

armadillo

Oh, and they should know how to euthanase a fish humanely. Most will freeze them.

And it would be nice to have a suggestion box in the stores for customers to say what information they would have liked, or what equipment.

0morrokh

Good ideas. I shudder to think how most places euthanize their fish. Although on second thought, most of them probably never do. Hence all the dead fish in their tanks.

COBettaCouple

yea, i'm guessing that many of the big chain stores flush sick fish if they don't just let them die in the tanks. It would be good if they knew to remove dead fish too - we often see fuzzy fish in tanks.

Rbacchiega

Being a former employee of a major LFS here, I can honestly say that that didn't go on in my store. I was fish manager and we did hourly dead runs, we had weekly "quizes" on new animals coming in and I would write alot of tidbits on the tanks in terms of final size, water requirements, compatable species etc. Infact, up until the time I left the store, I had people who would drive in from out of town to come in on days that I was in. The city manager even had me set up his tank for him (a nice 240 gallon frontosa tank). I know its sad, but because alot of us were on the commission, you'd have alot of people selling whatever they could otherwise, not a word of a lie, you would get "written up" and risked losing your job.

So now you run into the problem of inconsistant retailers who don't care about long term customers, just about the quick sale. I was written up numerous times because I would take "too long" making a sale. We were told what products to push, because Hagen was the majority supplier (and still is) for that chain. So if I"m telling someone the proper way to cycle a tank through, why it'd be better to have live plants, yadda yadda....my boss at the time was writing my dismissal slip....It wasn't until the head hauncho stepped in that my job was saved....

So I guess after all the long winded crap, the responsiblity for proper fish care should really be held on three parts. One, the lfs chain, which will probably never happen because they need to make a profit, Two the actual fish employees who need to be responsible enough to do the extra work to learn about the fish and the products that they are selling, and Three, on us as consumers because, lets face it....ninety percent of the time we keep going back to the stores, be it from lack of any other resource or just because they have the most selection.

done and done.

COBettaCouple

that's why about 90-95% of our "fish budget" is spent online. if a chain would adopt a policy like that, they'd gain our business. That's what I wish the big shots at the top of the chains would understand.

manjil

The lfs should atleast know the symptoms of different disease.

Angel man

I was out raged when i walked into Walmart the fish graveyard of the world! When i saw columbian sharks for sale. I thought "Hopefully the correct info is on its tag because it is a brackish fish. That means it lives in freskwater until adult hood then it needs salt water! IT read exactly this on the tag "A great freshwater fish for a 20-38 allon tank, it is not aggresive and is best kept in shoals." And that made me tick! Where in **** did they get that information they certainly didn't go on fishlore. But lickily i don't have to put up with there BS because i have the best local pet store in my are. They have wonderful staff who are experieced and are veryyyy picky on who they hire! They won't let you buy any animal unless you have the proper setup. That is why i still am going to their store!

Allie

Columbian sharks get huge. Stupid, stupid Walmart!!!

COBettaCouple

that's wally-world for you -- today we saw a tank of red belly pacu with a label saying they grow to 10", nothing about the tank size or number of pacu needed.

Kevin

hey guys...since i might be getting a job at a petco or lps, i decided to read every post here...hopefully i will be able to influenece my coworkers and have people come see me just to talk about fish or ask me a difficult question that they trust i will give them a truthful response!
thanks guys!

i think everyone covered my major concerns

mike, maybe, since fishlore is partnering with petsmart for the fish/aquarium of the month, you could send this to a high-ranking person in that chain...who could send the article to employees across the country to read and memorize

Drea

they should know to add stress coat to the take home bag, and just how many fish should go home in the bag.

COBettaCouple

lol, i'm happy when they manage to get the fish IN the bag rather than on the floor or in the sink or on the counter...

armadillo

Good point, that!

armadillo

They should know to ask people if they have bottom dwellers before giving them medication with copper in it.

0morrokh

Hmm, that may be asking a little too much of them. I'm just happy if they can get the fish out of the tank at all, especially if they actually happen to get the fish you want.

I thought of another thing, they should be able to sex their fish (I don't remember if someone else said that already). I get really irritated when I say "I want that female Platy" and they catch me a random male.

COBettaCouple

lol.. true.. when we were about a week into fish keeping, we went in for some female platys and they didn't have a clue how to tell which ones were female so we had to tell them.. i think an employee at a pet store should know more than someone who was 1 week into the hobby.