Big Chain Pet Store Employee, Venting
- Thread starter CPryor
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Rant about one of the chain stores nearby: This was maybe 6 months ago now, I was looking around at the local stores for ideas on my community tank I was setting up. Went to one of the big pet stores close to my house and got really frustrated with the staff there. Walked around looking through their tanks and they all were absolutely disgusting. Algae growing out of control. There was at least one dead fish in almost every tank. And there betta display just pissed me off. Close to half the bettas were dead. While I'm just getting more and more upset, every single employee that was working was in the middle of the store, organizing large bins of stuffed toys. So after seeing the bettas, I went to them and said someone needs to go take care of the fish department. All I got was an Ok from one of them and they all turned back to organizing the toys and gossiping. I said "So... you all should go do some real work." and left. Haven't been back to that store since.
On a brighter note though, that pet store opened up a new location sometime last summer about 20min away. Finally checked it out because my wife wanted to see and I'm happy that she forced me there. Manager said hi as soon as I stepped into the fish area (wife went off to look at cat stuff) and we chatted for close to half hour. Tanks there were spotless and fish looked healthy and were very active. Granted, deaths do still happen, but he was on top of it and removed them as soon as one is spotted. The manager at that store actually cares about the fish and takes pride in his work and knows the fish. I stop in every chance I get when I'm out that way.
So yea... there's my rant and kudos.
On a brighter note though, that pet store opened up a new location sometime last summer about 20min away. Finally checked it out because my wife wanted to see and I'm happy that she forced me there. Manager said hi as soon as I stepped into the fish area (wife went off to look at cat stuff) and we chatted for close to half hour. Tanks there were spotless and fish looked healthy and were very active. Granted, deaths do still happen, but he was on top of it and removed them as soon as one is spotted. The manager at that store actually cares about the fish and takes pride in his work and knows the fish. I stop in every chance I get when I'm out that way.
So yea... there's my rant and kudos.
Kittykat364
Aquarium Advice Freak
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Don't think they do. The fish department manager at the new one used to be the manager at the bad store but got moved about 5 years ago he said. I wasn't living in the area at the time he was there so didn't know how good it was. Just know that the store close to me has been getting worse every time I went and that last visit was the last straw for me.
Mecha Ghidrah
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Wish I had you to stop me from purchasing 2 Crayfish at the local fish store. They were cool and helped clean the bottom but they attacked my bottom dwellers and other fish. I researched but nothing prepared me for those monsters. Needless to say I replaced them with two adorable cories.
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CPryor
Aquarium Advice Activist
Thats such a good point: with the Big Box stores, you really have to check out each location for yourself and see what's going on; each location has a different "culture" within it.
On our slow days, we do extra cleaning and maintenance tasks on our habitats - our dept. manager is really fantastic about keeping a list of extra duties to do. There's hardly ever a true "slow day" where I would consider stepping out of the dept. ....not that I don't want to help keep the rest of the store clean and organized, but I was hired primarily to protect the health and safety of the animals.
We have customers who drive past other, closer chains (even our sister stores) to come to us.....if that doesn't tell us we're on the right track, I don't know what does!
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CPryor
Aquarium Advice Activist
0_0 Yikes! We don't actually carry crayfish - but they do "hitch a ride" once in a great while with the shipments of feeder goldfish. We keep one as a pet, and he's very popular. We had another come in about two weeks ago, and adopted him out - I heard my coworker warn them about their feeding habits and the person assured us he would be in a planted tank alone. Wish we could have warned you too
0_0 Yikes! We don't actually carry crayfish - but they do "hitch a ride" once in a great while with the shipments of feeder goldfish. We keep one as a pet, and he's very popular. We had another come in about two weeks ago, and adopted him out - I heard my coworker warn them about their feeding habits and the person assured us he would be in a planted tank alone. Wish we could have warned you too
Lol that customer is still in for a suprise! Crayfish DESTROY plants. That planted tank is about to be a fooating plant exhibit lol
That's great! Our local "big box store" has the best fish department people! Those fish are loved. Judy won't let just anyone buy a fish without getting the customers story, experience, provides education, and just does right by her animals. She has 11 tanks in her home, and a few of the others in that department refer to themselves as her apprentices, and are total fish nerds too
They are not there to upsell. They are there to be fish advocates and true caretakers. I go to the same chain down the highway? Complete nightmare.Sent from my EVO using Aquarium Advice mobile app
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CPryor
Aquarium Advice Activist
Dagnabbit....really? I hateeeeee retroactively learning things
We...keep ours in with live plants? Do we have an oddball?Dagnabbit....really? I hateeeeee retroactively learning things
Maybe. Or maybe you have a differnet species or tough plants. I kept one with thick stemmy plants and it was fine but in a well aquascaped setup with delicate plants I wouldnt try it lol
Mecha Ghidrah
Aquarium Advice Newbie
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0_0 Yikes! We don't actually carry crayfish - but they do "hitch a ride" once in a great while with the shipments of feeder goldfish. We keep one as a pet, and he's very popular. We had another come in about two weeks ago, and adopted him out - I heard my coworker warn them about their feeding habits and the person assured us he would be in a planted tank alone. Wish we could have warned you too
They really are quite vicious and while it may amusing to watch them try and fail at catching your fish once and awhile when I got a Cory cat to help clean up since lazy bum wasn't doing his job and the next night after turning on the lights to find the poor little guy in his jaws I really felt bad. It also helped but into perspective that my other fish were probably terrified. I miss their oddballness (the cat loved them) but I am glad their reign of terror ended.
And just a warning incase you did not know Crayfish do not care what gender another crayfish is they will try kill it. I know this first hand from my crayfish keeping experience and a family friend who keeps two in a 55 gal (and taught me how to sex crayfish). The more dominant one will pretty much keep the other one forced to hiding in a decoration.
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CPryor
Aquarium Advice Activist
So...ROLE PLAY!
Last night we had a guy bring us a trash bag full of dead fish. He said he bought a fish from us three weeks back and our fish must have been sick, because every single one of his fish in his established 100gal.+ tank died. He wanted us to credit him the value of every single fish.
But...the fish showed no signs of sickness. Just...dead fish. His water test was fine.
In my opinion (which I kept to myself, of course) I think he was just trying to bully us.....I think he should admit fault for not quarantining his fish, at the least - even if it WAS our fish -it's possible. We run though at least twice every day to scan for sick fish and quarantine them ourselves. As far as I know, no pet store does better than that.....does any store quarantine their fish BEFORE putting them on display? I think it's just as likely he had an unsuitable tank mate, or forgot to dechrorinate and brought us in a sample of water from after he realized his mistake, or something else.
Any thoughts, fish addicts? If you ran a fish store, what would you do in this situation? Also, feel free to chastise me for my opinion...i'm open!
Last night we had a guy bring us a trash bag full of dead fish. He said he bought a fish from us three weeks back and our fish must have been sick, because every single one of his fish in his established 100gal.+ tank died. He wanted us to credit him the value of every single fish.
But...the fish showed no signs of sickness. Just...dead fish. His water test was fine.
In my opinion (which I kept to myself, of course) I think he was just trying to bully us.....I think he should admit fault for not quarantining his fish, at the least - even if it WAS our fish -it's possible. We run though at least twice every day to scan for sick fish and quarantine them ourselves. As far as I know, no pet store does better than that.....does any store quarantine their fish BEFORE putting them on display? I think it's just as likely he had an unsuitable tank mate, or forgot to dechrorinate and brought us in a sample of water from after he realized his mistake, or something else.
Any thoughts, fish addicts? If you ran a fish store, what would you do in this situation? Also, feel free to chastise me for my opinion...i'm open!
When I worked at my lfs we had a guy bring in two dead cichlids claiming he had got them from our store and that they were sick when we sold them. I'd never seen them before and turns out they were from another pet store. So it's definitely possible he was trying to bully your store. Some ppl are just jerks
Luananeko
Aquarium Advice Addict
Yeah... Crediting him for the fish you sold him is totally reasonable, but all his fish that you didn't sell him? Nice try.
It's totally common for fish to be carriers where they carry a parasite and are immune to it and show no signs themselves but can pass it on to a tank. Even the best care at a LFS won't catch everything. It's up to the buyer to do a round of QT with parasite treatments prior to adding it to a tank. If you don't do that, you're responsible for the risks to your tank.
It's totally common for fish to be carriers where they carry a parasite and are immune to it and show no signs themselves but can pass it on to a tank. Even the best care at a LFS won't catch everything. It's up to the buyer to do a round of QT with parasite treatments prior to adding it to a tank. If you don't do that, you're responsible for the risks to your tank.
So I have read that pet stores/fish stores feed fish at night because transport on full bellies can cause extra stress. No more than two days later I'm at a local big box and an employee is blasting bloodworms into a saltwater tank to catch some fish (pretty white and black stripped ones). My fiancé asks him why he is feeding them, he replies that it is the only way to catch them. The tank did appear to have an awkward hood/entry point and there were a lot of hiding places in the rock in the tank. Still unsure how I feel about the whole situation, idk if he was just not willing to catch them with skill or if the store really just set Him up for failure with a bad setup or false info maybe.....
This makes no sense to me. A nicely fed fat fish is probably the less stressed they can be.
I can't recall the source of this comment. I just remember reading it. I can see how a nicely fed fish would be happy. But also I could see transport on a full belly being stressful, I don't like to do much when I'm full
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