I don't think the lfs shouldn't take any of the blame really. Its up to the customer to know something and not to impulse buy. Especially when dealing with living creatures. Also, CUSTOMERS LIE! Its jsut that plain and simple. Here's a true story that happened to me.
My girlfriend and I went out to look for a Txas cichlid. We saw that a Petsmart carried them, but they were all sold out. There was a couple there that wanted ot buy a needle gar. Well they wanted ot put it in a 10 gallon tnak with a feeder comet, a tiger barb, a sailfin pleco pleco (they pointed to one in the tanks and said one of those), and some other uncompatible fish. The guy said, the tank was WAY to small. They needed at least a 55 gallon for itself and they like to be in groups. They are hard, near impossible to convert to anyhting other than live fish. So everything in their tank wuld probably wind up dead. Nextly he said, since they like to be in groups the tanks should be around 75 gallons. So the coupel went off pissed wanting to see the manager complaining that he wouldn't sell them the fish. Tthe manager said, no your tnak isn't capable of properly houseing it. I jsut sat and listened to it as I was glad the eployee and management both refused to sell the fish... This store has my vote to go to again
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So off they went to another lfs. Well since they were out of Texas, we decided to go to Petco down the road to see if by chance they had some. Since they are so close, usually what one carries the other does as well... competition is great sometimes
. Well the coupel was in there. Asking to buy a neede gar. Well magically their 10 gallon tank became a 55 gallon with 2 other needle gars and they were upgradeign the tank to a 75 in the next month. Luckly, the Petco didn't have any, otherwise I would've stepped i and said, listen, these people just came form petsmart, they don't have that tank.
It jsut is 1 example of many that I've see nwhere a customer lied out of their asses about what they had. So even if a customer seemed to know, everyone lies. It's just that simple. What's the next step, going ot the customers' houes to see if they really have that setup?
I would've thought myself, if they are willign to pay that much for a fish, the question about what are you feeding it, is common amongst even experienced hobbists to ask.
In the end, it jsut plain comes down to the responsibility of the consumer to be truthful. I know when I want a new fish I do osme research on here, or I would ask the guy at the lfs if it would go in my tank and if it will fit for life. I tel lthem every detail of my tank, because even one thing off, can just mess up the life of the fish.
If someone bought a dog, cat, bird, reptile or amphibean and mistreated it, we don't blame the shop it came from, we blame the custoemr that bought it without knowing about it. So hy should fish be different. If we make mistakes we need to stop pointing the finger and hone up to it.
Also, any person can tell the difference between a SW and FW fish. Even before I got involved in fishkeeping I knew and any 6 year old that has seen Finding Nemo can do the same. They are just too different in size, shape and color, and their tank setups in the lfs are too dfferent to confuse it. To me, that's the lamest thing I've ever heard. People who can't tell the difference shouldn't be keeping fish IMO.