$%*~# Lfs!

[xxBarneyxx]

Its the same situation for a LFS, most resonable sized ones will have thousands of fish and while I would expect them to able to tell me the basics of most of the common livestock they keep you cant honestly expect a LFS employing working on min wage to know the breeding habits and how to visually sex every single fish they keep in stock.

This isn't true, I work at a Petsmart and I know how to sex all the species we carry (except for the ones which cannot be sexed until breeding and even then it may be difficult -such as Angelfish, Oscars and eels.) I know the breeding habits of most fish as I research them. I'm being paid $9.26, and just because it's not a large sum doesn't mean I'm not going to try my best to help the customer as much as I can. Anybody in the customer service field will attempt to help you as much as possible and if the store highers good employees then the staff will be knowledgeable, if they don't higher good employees then don't go to that store (walmart for instance knows jack all about fish).

Sorry I think what I wrote came across in the wrong way I didnt mean it as "the salary is crap for this job so your only ever going to be dealing with people that cant get better work" (which it sorta seems to read that way!). What I meant was that it is a job that most people do not do for the money but because they love the job and its often an extension of their own hobby, they are not marine biologist's. I'm not saying that most LFS employee's dont do everything they can to learn about the livestock they. However in a lot of the big fish stores I have been to carrying more then your regular trop's it would be very difficult to know eaxh species of fish inside, out. You are always going to get some LFS employees that know more about some fish they stock then they do others. I dont work in a LFS but from over 7 years in a hobby there are a lot of fish I could give you a lot of information about and a whole lot more that I could tell you less about.

In short all I was trying to say is that no matter what you are buying never expect the person you are buying it from to know every single thing about it

@LolaLouie Dont take my comments as personal either I know what its like. I'm new to keeping marine tanks and have bought two corals that where mis-identified by the LFS and where bought on their recommendations. Its annoying but it was my fault really for not checking it out myself first and only trusting one source of information

 

[PRW1988]

I guess you work in a LFS

As I said I have only kept cichlids for a month so who am I to argue with someone who's job it is to keep them. Also i wouldn't mind so much but after making sure I could return it if they got the sex wrong they were then really sh*tty with me and at 1st refused to even give me a credit note after much arguing they agreed to give me a partial credit note which i could only use on livestock.

I work at Petsmart and I've been in the aquarium hobby for almost 10 years (10 years in may).

 

[LolaLouie]

Ahh so you're used to having to defend yourself!

Anyway I wasn't talking about a petsmart/pets at home I was talking about a store with nothing but fish which is why you would expect them to KNOW about fish.

Also I wasn't saying every LFS is bad, I have 2 fantastic ones I go to (unfortunately 1 is over an hour away the other has very few cichlids other than lake malawi). I was just blowing off steam about this place because..

1) They sold me a female krib instead of a male and when i called them up on it they insisted it was a male (and as i said who am i to argue)
2) When I then returned the krib they refused to take it back (even though I'd called 1st)
3) When I spoke to the manager about it he was really rude to me and eventually offered me a partial credit note.
4) They then sold me a male cockatoo as a female which is annoying because I wanted 2 females and now don't know where to get another female from
5) They also just sold me a plec that was supposed to get to maximum 11cm and infact it gets to 15/16cm (ok I should of researched but to be honestly all black and white plecs look the same and it has taken 52 responses to a thread to correctly identify him)

You'll probably say it's my fault for keeping going back but 10 times they were good, 4 times they were bad... and this time i'm not going back!

As i see it there would be a hell of a lot less dead fish and a lot less newbies on here saying things like "24 of my fish in my 10 gallon tank have white spot and the other 12 have died. I've had the tank for 2 days and...." if LFS were good.

The fact is everything I know about fish has come from this forum... And whenever I ask stuff at my LFS I check it up on here at 70% of the time it's wrong.

Sorry for the long post but I really don't think i'm unjustified in saying that a very very large number of LFS are crap!

 

[joecoral]

yep, thats an annoying quality in an LFS, insisting they are correct even when they are blatantly wrong
best thing to do IMO is vote with your feet, if you dont like the service, dont go back there
and does 4cm really make that much different in a plec?

EDIT - my terrible spelling

 

[stang1]

There are some bad lfs and there are some good ones too.
When I first got into the hobby, I knew nothing and relied on shops to give me good, honest advice. Unfortunately, I didn't quite get what I was after! After joining this forum and doing my own research, I then went to different stores to see if they were giving me correct information about the fish I'd studied. I found a couple of shops that always seemed to know what they were talking about and decided to only use them ones when buying fish, needing advice etc.
Fortunately for me, a job came up 8 months ago at my lfs and I jumped at the chance. I love the job and spend a lot of time researching and learning so that I can pass on good advice to customers. My kids think I'm a fish nerd as I spend so much time on the computer and reading books but I really enjoy it.
We are not all out to take peoples money and some of us genuinely do want to give good advice and help people enjoy their hobby too!

 

[joecoral]

My kids think I'm a fish nerd

The exact phrase my gf uses to describe me!

 

[CFC]

thats what i get called too

 

[stang1]

thats what i get called too

Glad it's not just me then!!!

 

[PRW1988]

Ahh so you're used to having to defend yourself!

Anyway I wasn't talking about a petsmart/pets at home I was talking about a store with nothing but fish which is why you would expect them to KNOW about fish.

Also I wasn't saying every LFS is bad, I have 2 fantastic ones I go to (unfortunately 1 is over an hour away the other has very few cichlids other than lake malawi). I was just blowing off steam about this place because..

1) They sold me a female krib instead of a male and when i called them up on it they insisted it was a male (and as i said who am i to argue)
2) When I then returned the krib they refused to take it back (even though I'd called 1st)
3) When I spoke to the manager about it he was really rude to me and eventually offered me a partial credit note.
4) They then sold me a male cockatoo as a female which is annoying because I wanted 2 females and now don't know where to get another female from
5) They also just sold me a plec that was supposed to get to maximum 11cm and infact it gets to 15/16cm (ok I should of researched but to be honestly all black and white plecs look the same and it has taken 52 responses to a thread to correctly identify him)

You'll probably say it's my fault for keeping going back but 10 times they were good, 4 times they were bad... and this time i'm not going back!

As i see it there would be a hell of a lot less dead fish and a lot less newbies on here saying things like "24 of my fish in my 10 gallon tank have white spot and the other 12 have died. I've had the tank for 2 days and...." if LFS were good.

The fact is everything I know about fish has come from this forum... And whenever I ask stuff at my LFS I check it up on here at 70% of the time it's wrong.

Sorry for the long post but I really don't think i'm unjustified in saying that a very very large number of LFS are crap!

Well you make a valid point, I wish to point out that I work in the Petcare department and I do take care of the fish, reptiles small animals and birds. Dispite this fact I'm mainly the reptile and fish person in our store. I don't sell things to people if they're not going to be able to take care of them, especially the fish. If the person has bought the tank, brings a water sample in, tells me the specs of their tank (ie. cycling time, size, heater -one or none-, filter type etc.) then if they're ready I will sell them fish that day but only a maximum of 5 as the bioload of their tank is not yet established.

The point I'm trying to make above here is that if a LFS or LPS is reputal in selling fish or not, they should know their information, if the customer gets my manager invloved I stand by what I said. Now, the store in question that you went to may not be "crap" as you so put it, from what you said in one of your other posts they told you that it looked like a male and you thought it was a female. You're at fault there.

Now, I won't disagree that if LFS really gave a hoot about the fish they sell that there'd be less people on here with problems, I'm just saying that most stores I go to know there fair share of information. Some smaller LFS may not care because they're a small store and just want to make money. Unfortunatly not all LFS or LPS higher people that don't care about making the store money (people like me, I could care less how much money the store makes in a year, I'm there to help the customers and educate them properly).

In conclusion I'm pretty much just covering what I've been trying to say all along, most people just need to find a better LFS or LPS, if you don't think that the paticular store you go to is very knowledgable, then go to another one. Yes, I can understand the need to rant, but it's a waste of time when people need to complain on a site that others are trying to learn from.

 

[LolaLouie]

There seems to be a lot of aggression on this forum. People are very quick to attack others who do things differently to themseves. Now as I understand it this is a forum where we can discuss our experiences of fish keeping both good and bad. I had a bad experience with an LFS and felt like ranting about it. The title gave a pretty clear indication of what the topic was about and nobody made you click it. Now if people wish to read it that's fine, if people don't that's also fine but please don't attack me for writing it.

I'm very sorry I wasted people's time in complaining I did not realise I had such power to captivate people and force them to read my thread. As for education it is teaching people not to trust their LFS until they have proved themselves worthy... Fish keeping rule number 1.
I'm not going to waste anymore time on this thread but i really feel some people are too quick to attack others.. in future if you see a thread that you feel is a waste of time just skip right on over it, don't read it and then complain that the writer wasted your time.