Whats the nastiest thing u have ever seen in a LFS

[Raechal]

I used to work at Incredible Pets and they were selling sick ferrets that sneezed out green and bright yellow goo. They also had assorted large african cichlids for sale whose scales were white and all pine-coning. I pointed it out to the manager and told him he should treat them or get them away from the other fish...the next day I came into work all of the beautiful cichlids were dead and covered in white pine-cone scales. I quit shortly after that. I only worked there a week or so, I couldn't stand it.

 

[DannyBoy17]

I know Im goin to take some flak for this, but I dont mind seeing sick fish. A little ich or fin rot isnt going to make me not buy a fish. A 80% increase in price because of services keeping them perfect will. I want the fish, so I will make sure it stays healthy. Now to just let the fish die, and to ignore when these become serious problems, then I think the store owners should step in. I bought my Oscar with a little bit of fin rot, 3$ CDN later, he was fin-rot-free.

Now look, Im not saying I think it's right to let the fish get sick and die, but I'd much rather have 3 half decent fish stores close by than 0.

*Tired*


DB

 

[Mr Miagi]

I agree with danny. Whilst having a healthy pet is a good thing. Simply raising the prices would have a huge effect, and not just on the local scale either. It would just be near impossible to run a vaible buisiness.

Whilst i refuse to buy anything from anystore which i think has poor habits, i would buy a fish with fin rot. Like danny, my gouramis had whitespot and so did my goldies, but i treatd thenm myself. It aint all from the petstore. They recieve what they get!

Oh, and back on track.....ive seen a little half decomposed skeleton of a poor little bottum feeder. And one that stil sticks to mind is the time i saw a shop worker selling a child a set for a "marine tank" wich hadnt been set up yet, with two LIVE clowns!!! So i went over and told the mother, and she wasnt impressed and i think thet took it back.......but the owner was gonna keep selling it.

 

[Gill]

I suppose the Worst Ever Incident within a LFS has to be When Petsmart was in the Uk Before they were Bought by Pets@Home.

The Cold Water Koi Section were housed in Rectangular Basins, They had no Nets to Prevent Jumping and there was Atleast 20 Dead or Dying Koi that had jumped out and Landed Behind the Display. But Could still be seen by Customers In full View.

And the Iguanas that Were In poor Conditions.

 

[loopy]

I have to admit, i've never to been to a LFS that has been really bad. Although there is a "World of water" near me that is nicknamed "World of slaughter" or "World of whitespot". I've never been impressed with the quality of the fish and the staff don't seem very knowledgeable.

 

[BettaMomma]

I posted this in another topic, but thought i'd throw it in here, since this IS about nasty stuff seen at a store selling fish. Today, this is what I saw at my handy dandy local WalMart:

- 1 tank of beautiful (probably 12 or so in the tank) silver tetras COVERED in ich, every single one of them
- 1 tank where one pleco was dead & upside down - another one had latched onto him and had eaten a good bit of him
- 1 tank where a fish (so decayed & eaten that i couldn't identify) was laying upside down and was being feasted on
- 1 tank w/a ghostly white dead pleco bobbing around the bottom as other fish swam by
- 1 tank where a beautiful fish (not sure what it was) but it was the shape of a cichlid, but a little taller, and kind of a seafoam green/black/orange spotty color with feelers hanging down was laying on his side dead
- 1 tank where a poor little goldfish was struggling to get off the bottom of the tank
- 1 betta cup with a betta in it that had some sort of parasite so bad it looked like his gills were 2 large scabs
- 2 betta cups (each containing a female betta) with pretty little gals in them, but both of them were floating in there nose down, tail up

FYI - I did call the store when I got home cuz it was bothering me so much. The manager claimed they take "very good care of" their fish and their tanks were clean every day. I gave her a few suggestions, including the fact that whoever cleaned the tank that day must have inadvertently "missed" all the dead ones, and forgot to clean the betta cups.

UUGH

all of this was going on within about 15 tanks.

I was disGUSTED.
I STILL firmly believe that there is NOOOOOOOOOO REASON whatsoever to have animals (whether they're horses, dogs, fish or feeder crickets, makes no diff) that are in so sick and/or in so much pain that it's pretty obvious that they would rather be dead. That's part of being in business- it is just part of the responsibility. Restaurants would go out of business if they didn't want to sell fresh food cuz it costs too much.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

in my walmart, you never see any dead fish...i think. it's hard to really tell when you have 50 to 100 gouramis in a 10 gallon.

does anyone know how you can report these sorts of things? i could feed PETA some really spectacular photos.

 

[penguinpimp1990]

I dont know about every one else and their petco problems but the one I go to isnt bad at all..... If they have a sick fish they quarintine them, the tanks arent crowded, if they see a sick fish they wont sell you it, they ask you what type of fish/tank you have and tell you if the fish you are purchasing are compatable.... But one time I saw a dwarf gourami with a bad case of ick...other than that I really like they petco I go to

 

[Idolz]

I came across a 5 gal bucket 1/8 full of dead goldfish at an lfs... It didn't smell too good.
I still wonder why they would leave it out in the open. Something like that really promotes sales.

 

[FrAnK3333]

The most horrible thing I've seen at a lfs was at walmart. Three kids were shaking the betta little tubs and pounding on the tanks. Makes my stomach turn.

 

[BettaMomma]

I was hot on the trail of some freaks in the Toronto, Ontario area - wanted to turn them in to (someone) for regularly holding nasty betta fights, and making a profit from it. I contacted the SPCA in that area, and they said they fully carry out investigations on ANY animal, including fish. I gave them all the info I had and they're currently working the case.

I guess the best suggestion I can share is that if you see somewhere that's obviously mistreating (ANY) kind of animal, find the nearest SPCA to you contact them to see if they can do something about it.

 

[Balloon_molly]

I went to 219-7145 my mom was doing some shopping. So I decided to look at some fish. In almost every tank there were at lese 2 fish dead.

 

[greyko]

I guess i've been lucky, I've never seen any of these horror stories. I was down the LFS today, it's a short walk, so nice and handy, and, I didn't see one dead fish in any tank, certainly nothing I could spot wrong with any of them. Plenty of fish I wanted to bring home though!

Probably the feeder gold fish tank was the only thing I didn't like. In amongst the dull coloured fish were some brighter ones, including a nice looking red cap (my first fish were rad caps, cute little buggers!), I guess the sick get tossed in there too.

I can't imagine live feeder fish would do a lot for your fish other than introduce illness.

 

[littlefishie]

I was hot on the trail of some freaks in the Toronto, Ontario area - wanted to turn them in to (someone) for regularly holding nasty betta fights, and making a profit from it. I contacted the SPCA in that area, and they said they fully carry out investigations on ANY animal, including fish. I gave them all the info I had and they're currently working the case.

I guess the best suggestion I can share is that if you see somewhere that's obviously mistreating (ANY) kind of animal, find the nearest SPCA to you contact them to see if they can do something about it.

Speaking of... that reminds me.

The WalMart in my hometown, not where I am now [uni] is terrible.
I called the SPCA on them last month. A friend of mine works there and couldn't do it for fear of losing her job.

They had left two betta cups on the shelf. These cups were dry, the water had evaporated.

But still in the cups were two poor dead bettas, who had died when the water dried up. They were stuck to the side of the cup.
And the cups were left there for a week.

Not to mention the actual tanks.. it was terrible.
On the bright side, they no longer order 20 bettas at a time, to avoid them dying on the shelves. They stick with ten per order.

 

[DannyBoy17]

Only 10? Certain betta freaks I know will clean that out in a matter of days...

DB