Lfs' Are So Useless Its Not Even Funny

[twistedlink]

So theres a "pets at home" in UK, at sittingbourne, and basically in a nutshell, they had the best malawi cichlids ive seen, the usual gold and yellow, but they had these brilliant metallic blue with black markings, 5 of them, however they were in a display tank, which was a 5 gallon tank at most, with around 30 of these malawis in there.

Then i went next time and 3 were there, and assumed they were purchasable, or theyd died, i asked the counter assistant, she said no.

My mother then coming back from work decided to ask management when there were now only 2 left.

He said they were display only for people who had donated fish they could no longer keep due to tank size reasons or money constraints etc, she mentioned how she had seen 5 before and he didnt really come up with an answer.

Went back and the tank was full of dead malawis and no blue ones left.

Seriously what is the point of this? surely they know this kind of overstocking for a permanent (or seemingly according to the manager) housing of fish is recipe for disaster?

Why are LFS' so useless? Seriously a simple 2 hour read on this forum and they could have the cheapest running store ever, no need for dumb products and rubbish, decent advice with no fish deaths to there customers etc, gar drives me insane, them malawis were lovely.

 

[orange shark]

Pets at home is renowned for bad care. They hire people who have no knowledge of fish and really don't care about the fish.

If I were you i'd do some searching for a different independant lfs, thats what I did

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hm i also don't get it why lfs don't take more practical measures to looking after their fish better, surely they would make more money if their fish died less and customers actually came back to buy more fish because the staff didn't tell them all sorts of BS info which caused the customers fish to also die etc?

 

[markandhisfish]

Hm i also don't get it why lfs don't take more practical measures to looking after their fish better, surely they would make more money if their fish died less and customers actually came back to buy more fish because the staff didn't tell them all sorts of BS info which caused the customers fish to also die etc?

im really lucky my lfs is very good ( dolphin aquatics colchester) free plug!!! its a small shop ran by a husband and wife with years of fish keeping experience they give sound honest advice even to the point where i have gone in for a fish not suited to my setup and they steered me away from it at the expense of a sale. all the stock tanks are well kept clean and never heavily stocked and if you buy any fish from them and have problems with it ie being aggressive/bullied they will happily take them back, plus any time i buy fish they give me a free bag of daphnia lol

 

[tenohfive]

The thing about P@H is that they aren't purely an aquatic specialist - they sell all sorts of stuff there. And bear in mind that setting up a tank is where they make most of the money - tank, filter, food, testing kits etc - the fish are for the most part very cheap. So someone new to fishkeeping who doesn't do their research and trusts them may well give up when all their fish die after a month - but P@H have already made their money from them, and the money they'd make in repeat trips for more fish is fairly minimal and as such not a concern.

That said, theres the other side of the coin which is that if someone is given good advice, they get into fishkeeping and start looking for bigger and better (like me - I started in tropical keeping 3 months ago with a 60L tank - I now own 3 tropical, one coldwater and am looking to set up a 4 - 5 foot tank as soon as I can afford it.)

Personally I suspect that the training packages places like P@H prepare are out of date and/or inaccurate.

 

[andywg]

P@H isn't ideal, but it us improving massively. The newer ones that provide marine fish have better training and more knowledgeable staff. I know of many smaller independent lfs that are just as bad, if not worse, than P@H.

To the OP, how will a 2 hour read on a forum give them a cheaper to run store?

 

[shelaghfishface]

pets at home are NOT an lfs, and mine do a great job

 

[Ludwig Venter]

The problem with most pet shops are that they are normally started by an enthusiastic hobbyist who kept reptiles or birds and then suddenly finds him/her-self in the role of being an expert on all topics of pet keeping.

My local pet store (for instance) would not obtain fish locally, as she says that since she gets her water from a borehole on their premises, her pH is not the same as the local residents and their fish would die in her tanks. (LOL).... I asked her if she at least tells the local resident buying from her that her pH is different and fish bought from her will die in their tank.

On another ocassion, I was looking for "Live" bloodworms........ Her husband told me he has'nt got any live ones, but keeps them frozen and they come back to life once I put them into the warmer aquarium water......

 

[geo7x]

Yes Pets at home are a pet shop, not an lfs, it makes a huge difference. It's also best to know what actually happened before jumping to conclusions, there could be any explanation.

 

[Ian H]

P@H in general is a TERRIBLE place to get fish from. Like said by some one before they just emply anyone and dont give any proper training. I alost applied for a manager position at my local one to see if i could turn the fish section around a bit. But then i though whats the point? they have such a bad rep now that anyone who knows anything about fish won't buy from there. Most of their customers are people who just like lots of pretty fish to look at so they trust what a large pet company says. In reality they should be able to, but its far from that

I can't believe they are going into SW fish though, unless they are actually training their staff, but in that case the FW fish should get better care too!