Fish Store Employees Around the World

Just wondering about something:
We experienced aquarists in the US tend to shun the advice of our fish store employees, and especially employees of chain pet stores. What about those of you in other countries? How solid is the information your pet stores and fish stores give? Do the employees tell you about the nitrogen cycle and explain how to complete it? Do they tell you that plecos and oscars don't fit in small tanks? Or do you have the same horror stories that we have?

I ask this because I know that these kinds of things are not universal. Even within a single industry in a given country, the types of salespeople can vary wildly. I generally dislike the advice given by the employees of Best Buy, but will listen to employees of locally-owned stores (make the comparison between Petsmart and an LFS). Further, some countries have vastly different ideas of customer service. In some places, "Let the buyer beware" is an apt description of customer service, and in others, a store that is not sure about the quality of an item will not suggest it.

 

In Halifax, Nova Scotia they seem to only hire teenagers in need of jobs not for their experience in fish keeping. We only have one fish shop the rest are chain pet stores and Walmarts. You just tell them what fish how many and they get it for you...no advice at all. There are the odd fish keeper who work at some of these places, but their species experiecne is limited. Betta no one knows anything about them here at all. It's sad really.
We had a guy who ran is own shop sort MTS gone wild...he had the best advice ever....I wish he didn't close down.

 

We had a guy who ran is own shop sort MTS gone wild...he had the best advice ever

Sounds like the place I go: Armchair SafarI Pet Store. All his tanks are run on individual biowheel filters with crystal clear water and healthy fish. He sells me fish right out of his display saltwater tanks. When I got my German Blue Rams, he kept them in pairs in individual 10 gallon tanks. 2 fish ($15 worth) got their own tank which became empty after I bought them, they weren't crammed in there like at PetCo. I've never seen a dead fish in any tank and most salty fish are kept 1, 2 max, to a tank, and never mixed species.

 

Sounds like the place I go: Armchair SafarI Pet Store. All his tanks are run on individual biowheel filters with crystal clear water and healthy fish. He sells me fish right out of his display saltwater tanks. When I got my German Blue Rams, he kept them in pairs in individual 10 gallon tanks. 2 fish ($15 worth) got their own tank which became empty after I bought them, they weren't crammed in there like at PetCo. I've never seen a dead fish in any tank and most salty fish are kept 1, 2 max, to a tank, and never mixed species.

Sounds like this guy,Toms Tropicals. He had tanks of all sizes running in the basement of another business. All his tank were on individual filtration systems too. He had mostly cichlids, but every type imaginable. He got a lot of his fish thru trading with other people in the hobby. You could go and just sit and hang with him if you wanted to. Bring him a coffee and chat.

 

Hi,

I have only been at it a few weeks now, but have already learnt to doubt the advice I get. I am now qualifying what I hear with info I get from this site or books.

There aren't many large franchised stores here in Sydney, Australia. I have only come across two. Petbarn, a general "Pet store", where I was shocked to find about 20% of fish in the tanks were already dead, and the fish were picking at the corpses - Disgusting! Upon hailing somebody to ask a few questions and point out the terrible state of their tanks, I got shrugged shoulders. Needless to say I bought nothing from them. The other is "Strictly Aquariums", which a franchised Aquarium store. Their tanks are clean, and they stock a wide range of fish, but again, you are lucky to find someone who really knows their stuff! But they are very over priced, so again I don't shop there.

There are a few independant stores scattered around, at which I mostly shop. The advice however, is really a gamble, and sometimes conflicting.

Thank God I found this site. I am thankful for the pool of knowledge available here.

Regards

Ed

 

Here in Perth, Australia my LFS hires based on fish knowledge and customer service. I am getting a job there within the next 6 months. I know that is a long time but I am really excited about my first day

The advice here is generally good except here is an incident where it wasn't so good: I was at my friends house and I had just sold him my old small tank so we where going to get a few 1-sex guppies at the pet-shop closest to him so we walked in and I caught the guppies for him then we went and looked at foods and a employee walked up to us and says "hI can I help you?" so I said yes just to see what he recommended then he picked up a container of REALLY EXPENSIVE fish food and said "this is the best we have and it is extremely good for guppies" but that guy was so stupid he didnt even realise that it said in bold letters "SALTWATER FISH FOOD". I stared at him for a second then opened my big fat mouth and started laughing my head off and I said "sir that is for saltwater fish only and guppies are not even close to saltwater" so I picked up some food specificly for guppies then I went to the counter with my mate and we walked out. The man just stood there looking absolutely shocked.



-Matt

 

Sounds like the place I go: Armchair SafarI Pet Store. All his tanks are run on individual biowheel filters with crystal clear water and healthy fish. He sells me fish right out of his display saltwater tanks. When I got my German Blue Rams, he kept them in pairs in individual 10 gallon tanks. 2 fish ($15 worth) got their own tank which became empty after I bought them, they weren't crammed in there like at PetCo. I've never seen a dead fish in any tank and most salty fish are kept 1, 2 max, to a tank, and never mixed species.

Well, I would go there if there would be one there. They seem very stressed out in those tanks. That seems like a great store to go to.

 

Here in Perth, Australia my LFS hires based on fish knowledge and customer service. I am getting a job there within the next 6 months. I know that is a long time but I am really excited about my first day

The advice here is generally good except here is an incident where it wasn't so good: I was at my friends house and I had just sold him my old small tank so we where going to get a few 1-sex guppies at the pet-shop closest to him so we walked in and I caught the guppies for him then we went and looked at foods and a employee walked up to us and says "hI can I help you?" so I said yes just to see what he recommended then he picked up a container of REALLY EXPENSIVE fish food and said "this is the best we have and it is extremely good for guppies" but that guy was so stupid he didnt even realise that it said in bold letters "SALTWATER FISH FOOD". I stared at him for a second then opened my big fat mouth and started laughing my head off and I said "sir that is for saltwater fish only and guppies are not even close to saltwater" so I picked up some food specificly for guppies then I went to the counter with my mate and we walked out. The man just stood there looking absolutely shocked.



-Matt

Wow! I cannot believe that! I guess pet store employees will do anything to sell there most expensive products to make tons of money. But if they do that, everyone that listens to them will kill their fish, then everyone will know it won't be a coincidence and then they will sue the store and then everyone will be fired and then they'll lose their home! So I guess it is better to tell the truth.

 

Wow! I cannot believe that! I guess pet store employees will do anything to sell there most expensive products to make tons of money. But if they do that, everyone that listens to them will kill their fish, then everyone will know it won't be a coincidence and then they will sue the store and then everyone will be fired and then they'll lose their home! So I guess it is better to tell the truth.

 

I have to say that there is one lfs here in the US that I don't go running and screaming from their advice. There is one employee in paticular that personally keeps sw fish at home, studies fish stuff at college presently, and will give great advice, I can actually go home research the fish she gave us advice about and it was very good advice. There are a couple others at this fish store that give wonderful advice as well, in fact they do tell you about the nitrogen cycle and how you shouldn't ad fish until its complete. I have walked out of there after getting some back up water test and seeing that I had something going on (in my sw tank) w/o buying something, aside from chemicals/food.