Lets Make An Lfs Encounters Thread

So at my lfs they prefer you to bring in a water sample with dead fish so they can make sure the tank is cycled, but you can also just bring it if you want. Well they've been pushing the first half of that a lot more recently and some guy didn't bring any in with his fish the employee asks "Sir do you have a water sample for me to test?"
"No, what for?" "I need to make sure your tank is cycled before I give you a refund. To do that I need some water to test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates."
"Why's that so important?" "You really shouldn't put fish in un-cycled tanks, they have ammonia and nitrites in the water, which can be deadly to the fish."
"Well I don't bother testing that , they're either swimming or they're not"
She then turned white, then bright red, asked another employee to explain cycling some more, then went to help someone else. Unfortunately the guy got his refund/exchange since he started causing a scene with the other employee. I heard them say they'll have the manager deal with him next time he brings in a dead fish after he left

My heart goes out to those who deal with the public.

 

Good Story- I've gotten 99% of my fish from my local Petco and Petsmart. The employes have all been great and knowledgable. Just wish Petsmart would have a dedicated plant tank and either store would give u store credit cuz i've given about 150guppy fry to petco in the past 3 years to put in their donation/rehoming plant tank. Even if they just gave a gift card to be able to be used there in the future.
Good but bad story- Went to a privately owned lfs after contacting them to see if they had true SEA. Which they did and they were. So I got 2 at about 3/4" to have as tank mate and to help me combat my BBA issue which has since been resolved and as I was checking out I said will these two "guys" be ok in a 55 seeing they can get to about 4-5" and the young person there said yes u could put a big school of them seeing that she goes by the dreaded...wait for it... yup u guessed it 1" per gallon rule... So I asked her if I could put 10 in my 10 gallon and of course the answer was yes!!! then I kindly explained to her that rule shouldn't apply to any fish then the owner who I was emailing back and forth that day kindly chimed in and said I was right and it should never be a reference for anyone buying a single fish or a school of them... Thankfully they learned that valuable lesson that day and hope they didn't misinform too many people before I decided to let them in on the facts. That is all

 

That Fish Place in Lancaster

I just went there for the first time on Wednesday! That is a great place

 

I just went there for the first time on Wednesday! That is a great place

I’m going to stick to weekdays from now on. It was insane today!
I’ll go back up when they get the Platinum green Tiger barbs back in stock. They ran out this morning of course. But I did get the Brilliant rasboras I wanted.

 

Too many LFS stories come to mind, but one sticks out in particular.

Some guy wanted to stock his tank with tetras. He was talking to an employee about schooling fish - obviously, the shopper was clueless, and this LFS is fantastic but this one employee avoids talking in full sentences like the plague. The shopper was under the impression that all tetra species will school together with other species. He was going around going "Do these school? What about these?" and the worker just keeps going "Yep, yep" thinking he meant if they would school within their own species. The guy comes to serpae tetras and goes "Do these school?" "Yep" "Alright I'll have one of those." Made me cringe. Serpaes are the worst tetras to get without a school; they can be incredibly mean. I walked away before I heard the rest of the conversation.

Extremely good experience:
On one of my many trips from Maine to PA, I stopped in one local fish store that I had heard excellent things about online, I think it was in Connecticut. The employees treated me like family and all really knew what they were talking about. All the freshwater tanks were heavily planted and all the tanks in general looked like permanent display tanks, stunning arrangements and stunning fish. I ended up talking to the manager for a good half hour while he went around feeding the saltwater fish (something I know very little about) and he drew out a lot of really neat rare fish from behind live rock that most customers don't get to see, including a black tang, and from what I understand these are really rare. He also fed some sting rays, which was super neat. I thought the tank was empty until they rose up out of the sand when they smelled the food.

 

I actually had some good experiences at petsmart surprisingly.

-I was getting an oto and the person working asked how long my tank has been cycling and if I have the food for the oto (because so many people think algae eaters can survive without being fed).

-Today when I went to petsmart for some fish and plants, I overheard a worker talking to a guy about tankmates, cycling, etc for like 10 minutes. Unfortunately, I had to awkwardly wait by the fish section for a while until they finished talking.

 

I live within commuting distance of several stores, and I also have a gig at one so lots of stories

Here’s the most painful.

So a family come into the store while I’m on shift; Dad, mum and two little kids. For anyone who’s worked in a fish store, you’ll know that young families are a huge proportion of customers, but they’re usually the most ignorant too.

Anyway, I ask if they need help picking things and they say yes, so we go up to the fish room which is at the back of the store. I show them the tanks (very expensive here) and eventually steer them away from the <1litre tanks. They choose a 20 litre tank. We then take a look at heaters and filters, but then the mum just said they “weren’t interested”! I told them that they were vital for sustaining life in a contained area and she then said that her friend had some goldfish without a heater or a filter and they had survived “a few weeks already”! During this , one of the kids had run off to look at the nemos and somehow opened one of the lids and stuck his hand in. He must’ve been stung by an anemone or something because he ran back to us, crying and saying “nemo Bit me!” The dad glared at me and said I must be training them to bite children and that I was a scam artist! They then left (and had shoplifted some gravel on the way out). What a nerve.

 

The last couple times an employee tried to do the "right thing" I became royally annoyed. One instance, the employee refused a sale because she didn't like my stocking plan. Differences of opinion doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's been a couple years now, but I still feel bad about this, as I haven't seen her since; but at the same time, if the job stresses you out this much and you're going to cry and try to micromanage every sale, then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it. Another time, an employee tried to explain the entire shabang, tank size, water change, nitrogen cycle, etc., to an ignorant customer. It was a stressful commute, I was tired, and all I wanted was one little fish, and there were a bunch of customers waiting. And the employee was so invested in this one person, everyone else was forgotten about.

 

I was in Petco recently, just looking around, and saw an employee in the final stages of bagging up a fantail and a black moor goldfish. She closed the bags up, handed them over, asked if there was anything else she could help them with, and the mother said, "Yeah we were just wondering, like, how to take care of them and what size tank we should buy and what to feed them and that sort of thing..." I just had to shake my head and walk away.

Then the next time I was in Petsmart, again just looking, and a woman asked the worker to net a goldfish for her. The employee asked her what size tank she had (ten gallon) and told her that was a little small so she should plan on upgrading soon, and asked her how long it was set up for (two days) and that it was really too soon, and started to explain cycling etc. the woman put her hand up, said "I KNOW ALL THAT" and then turned around and practically RAN out of the store. That time the employee and I shared the eye roll. I guess she should have gone to Petco.

Good story: Fintastic Aquariums of Wake County - two summers ago I left my RO filter running and overflowed my collection tank upstairs, resulting in what amounted to a remodel of my house (all new floors and paint upstairs and down). Those guys there came and loaded my fully stocked 75 gallon reef tank up, took it back to their shop, housed and cared for it for three weeks, cleaned all the glass free of coralline algae, replaced all my sand because I'd hit the dreaded two year mark, then brought it back and set it all up again. The only loss was a deformed blenny and a blue-green chromis that jumped out at the store. Everything else lived...snails, shrimp, all the coral... They did an amazing job. My clowns were breeding again two weeks after they got home.

 

I live within commuting distance of several stores, and I also have a gig at one so lots of stories

Here’s the most painful.

So a family come into the store while I’m on shift; Dad, mum and two little kids. For anyone who’s worked in a fish store, you’ll know that young families are a huge proportion of customers, but they’re usually the most ignorant too.

Anyway, I ask if they need help picking things and they say yes, so we go up to the fish room which is at the back of the store. I show them the tanks (very expensive here) and eventually steer them away from the <1litre tanks. They choose a 20 litre tank. We then take a look at heaters and filters, but then the mum just said they “weren’t interested”! I told them that they were vital for sustaining life in a contained area and she then said that her friend had some goldfish without a heater or a filter and they had survived “a few weeks already”! During this , one of the kids had run off to look at the nemos and somehow opened one of the lids and stuck his hand in. He must’ve been stung by an anemone or something because he ran back to us, crying and saying “nemo Bit me!” The dad glared at me and said I must be training them to bite children and that I was a scam artist! They then left (and had shoplifted some gravel on the way out). What a nerve.

Yowza! I keep forgetting I'll have to deal with that stuff if I want to work in aquatics at petco.

The last couple times an employee tried to do the "right thing" I became royally annoyed. One instance, the employee refused a sale because she didn't like my stocking plan. Differences of opinion doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's been a couple years now, but I still feel bad about this, as I haven't seen her since; but at the same time, if the job stresses you out this much and you're going to cry and try to micromanage every sale, then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it. Another time, an employee tried to explain the entire shabang, tank size, water change, nitrogen cycle, etc., to an ignorant customer. It was a stressful commute, I was tired, and all I wanted was one little fish, and there were a bunch of customers waiting. And the employee was so invested in this one person, everyone else was forgotten about.

What was the stocking plan you speak of?
I agree they should've helped more than the one person, or at least called someone else back, but at least they tried letting them know

I was in Petco recently, just looking around, and saw an employee in the final stages of bagging up a fantail and a black moor goldfish. She closed the bags up, handed them over, asked if there was anything else she could help them with, and the mother said, "Yeah we were just wondering, like, how to take care of them and what size tank we should buy and what to feed them and that sort of thing..." I just had to shake my head and walk away.

Then the next time I was in Petsmart, again just looking, and a woman asked the worker to net a goldfish for her. The employee asked her what size tank she had (ten gallon) and told her that was a little small so she should plan on upgrading soon, and asked her how long it was set up for (two days) and that it was really too soon, and started to explain cycling etc. the woman put her hand up, said "I KNOW ALL THAT" and then turned around and practically RAN out of the store. That time the employee and I shared the eye roll. I guess she should have gone to Petco.

Good story: Fintastic Aquariums of Wake County - two summers ago I left my RO filter running and overflowed my collection tank upstairs, resulting in what amounted to a remodel of my house (all new floors and paint upstairs and down). Those guys there came and loaded my fully stocked 75 gallon reef tank up, took it back to their shop, housed and cared for it for three weeks, cleaned all the glass free of coralline algae, replaced all my sand because I'd hit the dreaded two year mark, then brought it back and set it all up again. The only loss was a deformed blenny and a blue-green chromis that jumped out at the store. Everything else lived...snails, shrimp, all the coral... They did an amazing job. My clowns were breeding again two weeks after they got home.

Well, to some people it's "just a little fish", so they don't need to spend a second looking them up. But oh, if they were getting anything else: dog, cat, bird, reptile, ferret, turtle, chinchilla etc. and tried to buy it before having everything ready for it, there would be uproar
Did it cost you anything for them to watch your tank? Either way, that's awesome!

 

my favs are forest lake pets and new wave aquaria those are great joe at new wave has educated me on shrimp, aquascapeing and even gave me some good deals forest lake pets has a wide selection and is a really big store with great quality

 

Well, to some people it's "just a little fish", so they don't need to spend a second looking them up. But oh, if they were getting anything else: dog, cat, bird, reptile, ferret, turtle, chinchilla etc. and tried to buy it before having everything ready for it, there would be uproar
Did it cost you anything for them to watch your tank? Either way, that's awesome!

Well not directly...since the flood was covered by my homeowner's insurance, and the tank was part of my home, my insurance paid for it. But they really did a fantastic job any way you cut it.

 

Got a new story from just a few hours ago.

I was visiting a LFS that I don't visit that often. It's alright, nothing special. I saw they had cherry shrimp for half the price of the stores I normally go to, so I figured I'd finally pick some up after planning on it for a long time. They had a nice little colony going with lots of babies in a tank half full with Christmas moss, so they had to be doing pretty good. I get a lady to come over, she nets them out and puts them in one of those little hang-on-the-side boxes with a tad bit of water. Realizing there wasn't much water in there and they should get some more before going into the bag, she goes around filling it with water from other tanks... Don't ask me why... But by the end, the little shrimps had water from a 10 gallon with 15 or so balloon mollies, a glofish danio tank, and last but not least, the feeder guppy tank. Oof. Gonna be super careful to not get any of that water into my tank.

 

Got a new story from just a few hours ago.

I was visiting a LFS that I don't visit that often. It's alright, nothing special. I saw they had cherry shrimp for half the price of the stores I normally go to, so I figured I'd finally pick some up after planning on it for a long time. They had a nice little colony going with lots of babies in a tank half full with Christmas moss, so they had to be doing pretty good. I get a lady to come over, she nets them out and puts them in one of those little hang-on-the-side boxes with a tad bit of water. Realizing there wasn't much water in there and they should get some more before going into the bag, she goes around filling it with water from other tanks... Don't ask me why... But by the end, the little shrimps had water from a 10 gallon with 15 or so balloon mollies, a glofish danio tank, and last but not least, the feeder guppy tank. Oof. Gonna be super careful to not get any of that water into my tank.

Lots of stores use one giant community sump, so, six one way...

 

Lots of stores use one giant community sump, so, six one way...

This place isn't quite as organized as most chain fish stores so they have HOBs on most of their tanks with independent systems.

 

The Bad:
1) There's a place that's around a half hour drive from me, their aquarium centre is nice to look at but I swear their fish aren't kept in good conditions. Cramped, dead and infected. I got a batch of fish from there which caused my very first white spot outbreak (at least I'm still convinced it was that). I did try them again recently for the whole "2nd chances" vibe and all the fish I got died. Again. So yeah. They also have a habit in the trade of selling fish and refusing to take them back when they get too large to rehome.

2) We shopped around and found somewhere new. I was sold Emperor Tetras as "Golden Pencilfish" so got them cheap. Not really bad for me, but I was a little uneasy that he didn't know the species he was selling! The pleco my parents bought from him was also sold to them as an "Orange Spot" at around £8.99 but I don't think he was, he looked more Gibbiceps to me. He only lasted around 4 days before he died, we got a second opinion and his belly was sunken, it was put down to internal parasites which was most likely sold already infected! That shop was weird...it looked like a construction site indoors with terrible lighting and a weird backdoor entrance. Felt like a black market for fishkeeping.

The Good:
1) Pets At Home (UK version of Petco) has really pulled its socks up compared to when we visited last year. My Glowlight Tetras are still going strong, despite me assuming most commercial stores not bothering to keep their standards high. With new UK regulations, they have to do more for pet welfare and I was surprised when the staff lady asked me about my tank conditions for these 4 new little guys (who have since joined my existing school) so that was a nice surprise.

2) My favourite place on earth, currently. A revamped local shop which is literally 5 minutes down the road from me. It went under new management after the previous owner pretty much lost his passion for it and...Wow. I can honestly sing the new manager's praises for so long it's not even funny. He's helped my parents kit out their tank, taught me so much about fish, and pretty much reignited my passion for the hobby all over again. I could talk shop with him for ages and usually do, we spend a good 2 hours out of the weekend chatting to him, or showing each other videos of our tanks, or fish we like, or things he recommends. From food, to plants, to fish, to medicine. Boom, you got it.

Granted I did lose some fish from there but has mainly been down to either: my conditions, bringing possible conditions to his attention to make him aware, or his suppliers messing up (he lost his entire stock of neon tetras in 24 hours, twice, and so scrapped his supplier). We even ended up taking a couple of the corpses down for him to dissect and look at, just in case. He's just as devastated as we are when we lose them e.g. Dwarf Gourami getting stuck in an ornament.

Case in point is that this guy cares about the welfare of his fish, and it shows. His tanks are always clean, and there's nothing dead left to rot in any of them either.

Example: My dad purchased some Rosy Tetra from the shop at the weekend and noticed 3 of the 6 looking really skinny and struggling to swim, he took them back, got them replaced for free (a few lovely males in the mix) and the guy was super apologetic. He even quarantined the 3 sick ones, turns out they are malnourished from being pushed out of the way at feeding time. Hopefully they recover.

I also want to add that we seem to meet so many wonderful people at this place! It's like your local bar but for fishkeepers! My dad and I have even talked shop with new people who are looking into starting the hobby, giving them recommendations and such. The manager just laughs and loves the enthusiasm!

It's nice to find some nice wholesome places to enjoy the hobby! I can't stand commercial shops and much prefer to go local or hobbyist, I know you still get the odd bad egg, but with people raising fish as a hobby I like to think they know more and have a better understanding of their needs.

 

This place isn't quite as organized as most chain fish stores so they have HOBs on most of their tanks with independent systems.

Well then at least you only got water from most of the tanks, and not quite all of them.

 

Good story: Fintastic Aquariums of Wake County - two summers ago I left my RO filter running and overflowed my collection tank upstairs, resulting in what amounted to a remodel of my house (all new floors and paint upstairs and down). Those guys there came and loaded my fully stocked 75 gallon reef tank up, took it back to their shop, housed and cared for it for three weeks, cleaned all the glass free of coralline algae, replaced all my sand because I'd hit the dreaded two year mark, then brought it back and set it all up again. The only loss was a deformed blenny and a blue-green chromis that jumped out at the store. Everything else lived...snails, shrimp, all the coral... They did an amazing job. My clowns were breeding again two weeks after they got home.

I live really close to Fintastic, I've always wanted to go check it out but never had a reason because they're all saltwater. Awesome that there's another good LFS nearby, even if I don't keep saltwater!

 

The last couple times an employee tried to do the "right thing" I became royally annoyed. One instance, the employee refused a sale because she didn't like my stocking plan. Differences of opinion doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's been a couple years now, but I still feel bad about this, as I haven't seen her since; but at the same time, if the job stresses you out this much and you're going to cry and try to micromanage every sale, then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it. Another time, an employee tried to explain the entire shabang, tank size, water change, nitrogen cycle, etc., to an ignorant customer. It was a stressful commute, I was tired, and all I wanted was one little fish, and there were a bunch of customers waiting. And the employee was so invested in this one person, everyone else was forgotten about.

Same thing happened to me at petco. The employee was explaining everything to some guy and all I wanted was 1 fish, plus my ride wanted to leave already. Had to call in another employee across the store to help me out lol

 

I tried to step out of my shell the other day by asking an employee what the question was that she couldn't answer......she was asked if they can cut the tank backgrounds in the store....