TheCrazyFishLady
Aquarium Advice Addict
Wow. I'm really sorry. That's just a horror story.
severum mama said:To play devil's advocate- Caveat emptor. Just sayin'.... you probably wouldn't go into RC airplanes, dog agility, model trains, antique collecting, etc. without some minimal research on your own, rather than going into it blindly trusting whatever a salesperson tells you. This hobby is the same way IMO. Some personal responsibility should be accepted by the impulse buyer, same as any other hobby.
Another myth surrounding schooling fish I have seen or heard a few times is that they do best in odd numbers. Somehow this fish count and decide how they will act based on even or odd counts.
Catfish eat poop. Really just think about it, does that even make sense? My friends dad told me he went a year without cleaning his tank since his massive Pleco "just eats the poop" the n we got into an argument over whether or not a fish "just grows to the size of it's tank" that's another I don't like. Really, who comes up with these?
It was some serious issues. I hate that the only lfs I have available are petco and petsmart. You have to do homework on the fish before you go there (and I certainly didn't know that before) at least now all my fish are happy!
They do that thing where they say schooling fish do best in groups of three, but honestly theyre supposed to be in groups of 5-6 minimum. Their signs are even wrong!
LyndaB said:When I first started keeping fish, we were at a store about an hour away picking up decor. I saw a black ghost knife and fell in lovvvvvvvvvvvve. I told the employee that I had a 30 gallon community tank, would this be a good addition. He says "oh yeah, these guys are great with other fish." So, made the purchase, drove the hour home cradling the bag, put the bag in the tank to begin acclimation and figured "what the heck, I think I'll do a little research on my new friend."
Of course, you know where I'm going here. Let's see now..... okay, it'll eat all the other fish, it grows to HUMONGOUS lengths, requires a tank about 5 times larger than what I have.... oh crap. Drove an hour back to the store. Was told "they don't do returns". Had them call both the store manager and this employee up front. I explain to both what my research showed versus what I'd been told. The manager stands there worthless while the employee says "oh, well that's one of the dwarf ghost knifes, he'll be fine."
After I whacked him upside the head with some driftwood, and explained that there was NO dwarf variety of this species, I got my money back and left the store.
Ever since then, no impulse purchases and I do loads of research.