Ropefish in a 10g!!!

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kdklovesfish

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Messages
249
Location
North Texas
Today I was at my LFS and saw an employee (one who I know for sure has aquariums at home) sell a 10 inch long Ropefish to a little girl who said she was new at aquariums and only has a 10g. He didn't even try to explain to her or her mom that it was WAY to big for a 10g or any other needs that it has. I felt so helpless because I buy lots of fish there (to the point that they know my name and we show each other photos of our tanks) and there was no way for me to say anything to this poor girl. Yeah Ropefish are cool, but they get over two feet!!! Has anyone else been in that situation and what did you do?
 
Yup! I'v follow people out of a store because I felt so bad and they were sooo excited to get new fishes. I just calmly told them that I had over heard. Then told them what I knew to be correct. They still left with the fish but I felt better knowing I had done the right thing.
 
I only had this happen once and I actually saw a manager and brought it to her attention. She actually did intervine and I saw her talking to the employee after they left without the fish in question.
 
Has happened to me a couple times. Once I saw a mom and dad with their young child picking out dozens of fish to put in their tank that was in the cart. I tried to politely tell them that it would be best to set the tank up and then slowly add fish over time when the employee that was helping them walked away for a moment. I don't think it did any good since the mother said, that they were fine, they have another tank.

Another time I overheard an employee tell a customer that was buying a betta that the worst thing people do with bettas is get too fancy, because all they need is a bowl. They don't need a tank with filters and heaters. I wasn't too polite with that lady.
 
I'm still a little upset with myself for not saying anything. If I didn't know the LFS guy then I would have done something. I mean this guy is who I've gotten lots of advice from, who am I to tell him what to sell. I've had other LFS workers steer me wrong, but not him. (I always go home and double check LFS info now.)
 
Just be thankful it wasn't an Oscar, Pacu, or Arowana. Rope fish are flexible so better off then having a large thick bodied fish suffer but still stuff like that makes me mad.
 
At the moment it does follow the inch per gallon rule, so i'm not really sure why you're worried. :)
 
I always give info when I'm at a LFS, I can't help it. Last time it was a woman with a 10" common pleco, several platys and swordtails in a ten gallon, she was there buying a betta and asked the store worker what would be a good schooling fish for her tank and the worker recomended she get 6-7 black skirt tetras. Was so ridiculous I had to talk to her, had to explain about bioload, space requirements, and growth stunting. I felt sad for her fish, she said they obviously can't be stunted because her pleco was so big and she just assumed that all these fish that she was buying only had a 6 month life span anyway
 
Ive never done it with fish but i used to do it all the time with the reptiles. Id be there looking around and someone would be all set to buy a bearded dragon with a 10-20g tank a bag of sand a piece of wood and a basking bulb of worse yet, a uth. And id explain the uvb bulb, the size issues with tge tanks, etc. But you know i never turned anyone off, in my experience they still got the pet, and were happy to know they were doing it right.
 
You can look up his threads, it's probably not nice to be talking about him like this, not constructive
 
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