Favorite LFS "CUSTOMER" STORIES ...

[Bogwoodbruce]

Yeah..."all". Its incredible how many fish people can stuff into a tiny bowl.

New story from yeasterday :

A woman comes inn to buy a syrian hamster. Big spender lady who buys the biggest rat cage, 3 stories..HUGE cage, lots of stories, could fit a big dog in there.
Big wood wheel to run and chew on, lots of toys, latters and so forth.
She pays and happily leaves.

A customer who had been waiting for her to finish comments after she leaves that the woman was really cruel to keep an animal in a cage. She goes on on how these PETA organisations really should do something about that and help make it illegal. Because animals should never ever be kept like that.

I just taddle along with her, not agreeing or disagreeing. After shes done ranting i ask her what i could help her with.

She wants a Betta Splendens...

to keep in 0-26G glass....

She wants go give it lots of space to swim about.

Some people really do my head in

 

[andyjs]

Ummmm... little quick with the idiot card there. Remember size is relative. To a fisherman, particularly a saltwater fisherman, a goldfish is tiny. Even the foot long "monsters" would hardly be bait for me. A big fish is measured in hundreds of pounds to most people.

I don't think I'd say most people think that a "big" fish is hundreds of pounds. Some sure, like fishermen, or a lot of people on here, but to a huge majority of the people I've met and talked to, they think a 10" fish is huge. We occasionally have people drop off unwanted fish to the store where I work and a large majority of the people come in are surprised by how "big" a 10" oscar is. I'd say it is sadly true that most people think of goldfish as small fish, because they are often sold at small sizes.

They are also traditionally kept in bowls, which to us (true fishkeepers) seems as antiquated as hand-crank telephones, but to many people coming into the store where I work after winning a carnival goldfish, it seems like it is still a common practice. As hard as we try to convince people to purchase some sort of actual tank for the fish, we still always sell out of fish bowls (which if I had any real say would never be sold in the store) county fair week. The normal reasoning people give for purchasing a bowl is that they "want to make sure the fish will make it" before committing much money to anything. To them, this probably makes sense. To any intelligent fishkeeper, this is astoudingly counter-intuitive. When trying to relate to people outside the hobby, you have to step back and think-while for us this ranges from a small hobby to basically a lifestyle, to many it is something that rarely, if ever, even crosses their minds.

That ended up developing a lot more than the response I originally planned....

 

[Death Pony]

I don't think I'd say most people think that a "big" fish is hundreds of pounds. Some sure, like fishermen, or a lot of people on here, but to a huge majority of the people I've met and talked to, they think a 10" fish is huge. We occasionally have people drop off unwanted fish to the store where I work and a large majority of the people come in are surprised by how "big" a 10" oscar is. I'd say it is sadly true that most people think of goldfish as small fish, because they are often sold at small sizes.

They are also traditionally kept in bowls, which to us (true fishkeepers) seems as antiquated as hand-crank telephones, but to many people coming into the store where I work after winning a carnival goldfish, it seems like it is still a common practice. As hard as we try to convince people to purchase some sort of actual tank for the fish, we still always sell out of fish bowls (which if I had any real say would never be sold in the store) county fair week. The normal reasoning people give for purchasing a bowl is that they "want to make sure the fish will make it" before committing much money to anything. To them, this probably makes sense. To any intelligent fishkeeper, this is astoudingly counter-intuitive. When trying to relate to people outside the hobby, you have to step back and think-while for us this ranges from a small hobby to basically a lifestyle, to many it is something that rarely, if ever, even crosses their minds.

That ended up developing a lot more than the response I originally planned....

There's actually an LPS close to where I go to school that sells goldfish, but none of them are under 5" and they're in what looks to be a lank of at leas 100 gallons.

 

[krzr3000]

I would have said a whale shark, i hear they are small as babies too.

 

[Eupterus]

I wish bowls would be labeled as not suitable for goldfish. I wish this common form of fish cruelty would stop. I was at the local lake and they had about six small goldfish in a bowl and one was dying right there and then. I tried to explain in simple terms that it wasn't meeting their needs. Other then that I thought of offering to take two of them. Thing is...I don't have rooms for more tanks so I didn't.


That person buying the .26 gal container for a betta splendens as plenty of room to swim in is hilarious. I wonder what their reaction will be when they discover the reality of what they require.

 

[deliv]

i just talked to a guy in one of the lfs i visit and he said a lady came in with 19 comet goldfish that are around 5 to 6 inches long ... she had called and was worried because she lost one of them and her water was turning bad ... she brought them in and he asked what she had them in ... she told him a 10 gallon tank

another guy brought in 2 huge pacus and a large catfish ... the pacus are at least 16 inches ... cool right ... except he brought them all in a 5 gallon bucket

 

[srikamaraja]

I used to work at Animal Kingdom in Brewster, NY... they would let you make descisions on whether or not to sell on a person-by-person basis. When I quit we had a thriving reef system and could keep discus... when I went back to check on them, they didn't even have any frags... so sad. That's what you get for changing my hours every week!

Right now I work Sundays at a store called PetSmart (used to be a franchise, now each one is independently owned and are not associated), I only take care of the fish, but my manager doesn't know anything about fish, and he orders crazy things and sells to anyone.

But on Sundays, people get quality advice.

"Brian this tank is green."
"Because it is still cycling."
"STILL? But I took the old filter off and put on a brand new one!"

".........."

My manager also put a hippo tang, yellow tang, two percula clowns and a long-tentacled anemone in a 30gal high.

He wondered what was wrong with it and why it crashed, I told him it was doomed from the start.

He brings in everything from the tank to put on the stores systems, and he had ALL of the media in his filter BACKWARDS. As in, the mechanical parts of the cartridges were facing the output, debris and detritus would get clogged in the carbon insert part and decay.

I thought Bio-wheel filters were fairly straightforward.

 

[Citrinellus]

I used to work at Animal Kingdom in Brewster, NY... they would let you make descisions on whether or not to sell on a person-by-person basis. When I quit we had a thriving reef system and could keep discus... when I went back to check on them, they didn't even have any frags... so sad. That's what you get for changing my hours every week!

Right now I work Sundays at a store called PetSmart (used to be a franchise, now each one is independently owned and are not associated), I only take care of the fish, but my manager doesn't know anything about fish, and he orders crazy things and sells to anyone.

But on Sundays, people get quality advice.

"Brian this tank is green."
"Because it is still cycling."
"STILL? But I took the old filter off and put on a brand new one!"

".........."

My manager also put a hippo tang, yellow tang, two percula clowns and a long-tentacled anemone in a 30gal high.

He wondered what was wrong with it and why it crashed, I told him it was doomed from the start.

He brings in everything from the tank to put on the stores systems, and he had ALL of the media in his filter BACKWARDS. As in, the mechanical parts of the cartridges were facing the output, debris and detritus would get clogged in the carbon insert part and decay.

I thought Bio-wheel filters were fairly straightforward.

It kills me how people become a manager w/out knowing even what their doing. You have to love what you do, and be good at it.

 

[Darkangelsfury]

I had a women come in the other day and she said: All of my fish have died and I was wondering if you could tell me what caused it? I said: Well let me ask you some questions. What size tank is it I say. She says that it's a 55 gal. Ok, how many fish were in it? 12 mollies and platties she says. How long was it up and running I say? A little over a year she says. How often did you preform regular maintenance on the tank I ask? She looks at me like a monkey doing a math problem. I say, you know, water changes and gravel vacking! She says, and I quote, OH, I never cleaned it! No cleaning in a little over a year, I say! Well thats what killed your fish!End of story!

 

[Citrinellus]

I had a women come in the other day and she said: All of my fish have died and I was wondering if you could tell me what caused it? I said: Well let me ask you some questions. What size tank is it I say. She says that it's a 55 gal. Ok, how many fish were in it? 12 mollies and platties she says. How long was it up and running I say? A little over a year she says. How often did you preform regular maintenance on the tank I ask? She looks at me like a monkey doing a math problem. I say, you know, water changes and gravel vacking! She says, and I quote, OH, I never cleaned it! No cleaning in a little over a year, I say! Well thats what killed your fish!End of story!

Well for the year they lived, they had a lot of room.