Totally Irresponsible Lfs

[crazychris]

I saw a group of teenage girls in the LFS yesterday and one bought a small plastic fish bowl and 6 common small goldfish to immediately put in it! He did ask how old they were and they said "16" so he served them and said they could add 6 small goldfish easily. No filtration and no aeration. When I was asking for my live food I said "Isn't 6 too many" and he said "yes but the more fish I sell means more money" How many times a day must this happen up and down the country? Around the world in fact! Just irresponsible. Oh the girl said "if they die I'll be back" so the owner said "I'll call a priest then". Treated it as a big joke!!

 

[matchstickman47]

many lfs will do this .. its quite competitive and some just have this attitude... main stream fish shops such as maiden head aquatics will give out good advice

 

[meguro]

50% stores fault
50% buyers fault

and that's being generous

 

[crazychris]

50% stores fault
50% buyers fault

and that's being generous

Yes but these girls knew absolutely nothing about fish. She wanted "Nemo" in the bowl at first or if not, neons! Most people don't research on the Net like I do if I want to try a fish that I haven't kept before. So it's up to the LFS not to sell 6 goldfish but one or no more than two. Preferably none for a bowl. She'd have been better with a small shoal of White Clouds but even they need filtration.

 

[WILDER]

I would never let by children have a pet on a whim.
They had to read up on them first.
I blame the lfs and parents.

 

[crazychris]

I would never let by children have a pet on a whim.
They had to read up on them first.
I blame the lfs and parents.

They can buy fish at 16 though I believe and he did ask them their age.

 

[dave_oddballs]

my lfs is quite good like that, i always hear him telling people 'no you can't have that' or questioning tem how long their tanks been set up, asking them to bring in water to test before he will sell them fish etc. many sell fish purely to make as much money as they can out of it!

 

[WILDER]

They can buy fish at 16 though I believe and he did ask them their age.

It just makes me mad as the fish will end up suffering. Not many seem to care as there only goldfish. There one of the sweetest fish I have ever kept.

 

[matchstickman47]

I would never let by children have a pet on a whim.
They had to read up on them first.
I blame the lfs and parents.

can you tell my mum ive researched leopard geckos and red tail catfs for ages now
haha

 

[Inchyally]

edit: posted on wrong topic, sorry

 

[Gill]

When I was asking for my live food I said "Isn't 6 too many" and he said "yes but the more fish I sell means more money"

That is the Main reason I quit from Dobbies, they wanted to sell the 5G Algarde Tanks with up to 6 goldfish on the day they bought it.

 

[Wills]

One thing I can never ever understand about LFS that want to make money - Why not push heaters? Even a small 25 watt for a 5g is like £15 your looking at around £10-£15 a filter and then £3 for a betta (maybe more in some places). So thats £30 from one sale + tank or 6 goldfish at probably 50p - £2 so thats potentially £12 + tank per sale.

And if you explain to people that they can spend £12 on fish now and then an other £12 in a week or two or they can spend £30 now and have a pet that they want. And if they really want a "gold" fish sell them some platies?

The main problem with goldfish is that they have been around for so so long they were literally the first fish of the hobby, so the rules that stuck them stick now. Even though they are wrong its kind of like saying we should have just stuck with MS dos or a horse and cart or wind powered ships. I think a lot of the same issues stem with the same reasons the first fish into the hobby were the hardiest that you could get and these are still the staple sales in fish even though now there are tons of new fish that are starting to be imported in greater numbers yet people still insist on selling fish from the 70s. Or in the goldfishes case the 1870s

 

[Gr44]

Although it's terrible of any store to do this, all shops exist to make money.

If you're keeping a pet you should do some research before you buy them, if you're naive enough to trust everything the person who is selling you says... well, part of the blame must rest on their shoulders too.

If you buy a car radio from the market, or a camera from some dodgy shop in Turkey... do you really believe it's 'state of the art technology' etc etc... ? It's obviously not as bad because animals don't suffer, but the principles are painfully similar. Worryingly people care more about buying a camera of car radio than fish as the cost for fish is (can be) very low...

That said, it's pretty bad you can buy an animal when you're 16 without parental permission. Imagine the number of arguments when 16 year old kids come home with a cat/dog/fish/rabbit etc every day and the parents have to foot the bill for however long!

 

[matchstickman47]

yeh you cant completely blame the fish shop

they are just doing what businesses do.

 

[wilchil64]

One thing I can never ever understand about LFS that want to make money - Why not push heaters? Even a small 25 watt for a 5g is like £15 your looking at around £10-£15 a filter and then £3 for a betta (maybe more in some places). So thats £30 from one sale + tank or 6 goldfish at probably 50p - £2 so thats potentially £12 + tank per sale.

I think the problem is the customers never want to spend that much money, they want a bowl and a goldfish and that's all they're prepared to buy. If the shop owner told them they need heater and filter they would just leave and go somewhere where the shop keeper isn't as scrupulous.

I have friends like this - one has hamsters in cages that are falling to bits and far too small but they aren't even prepared to buy another tank, although one hamster constantly gets out and they kept suspecting it was dead, until they caught it 4 days later. See if that was me I'd just buy another cage - you can get one for £20 or so surely - and they spend that on wine in a week! In the end I got one for free that someone didn't want anymore and took it round for them because I was worried about the hamster!

Likewise another friend goes through goldfish like anything. They die because she changes all the water each time, she knows she shouldn't but she "forgets". And people don't read up on these things, it's "just" a goldfish to them.

It's sad and the correct thing to do would be to stop pet shops selling goldfish and only allow good tropical fish tanks to sell them with instructions on how to keep them.