A testing experiment

[Zagz]

Today I am going to go to as many lfs's as I can. Both to see what they stock and to find out who has knowledge and who will sell me anything just for the sake of making a sale. I need to have a couple of lfs's that can be trusted. (To whatever extent any store can be trusted, they are after all in business to make money.) It should prove to be an interesting day and I will also find out what kind of variety of fish are available around here. Unfortunately we are not a huge city, so there are a lot of limitations in products & fish!

 

[Jchillin]

Sounds like a worthy experiment Zagz! I'm sure you're gonna run into a place that will sell you "common" pleco's for a 10 gal (although I really hope not).

 

[Toirtis]

Unfortunately we are not a huge city, so there are a lot of limitations in products & fish!

Dog River has a pet shop?

I have done the identical thing here in Calgary.....go in, ask questions that are not no-brainers, but important stuff that they should know...play dumb, see what you get. I can't do it anymore except very occasionally with a brand-new employee, as everyone here knows me by sight.

 

[talloulou]

In many stores you have to consider each individual worker, some may know alot and some may know very little. Some workers will admit they know little and some will B.S. you. This is extremely common in places like petsmart and petco.

 

[afishoutofh2o]

Good idea! Something I may try in Ottawa. Personally I wish I had been served by a knowledgeable clerk on my first dip into fish-keeping. A lot of heartache could have been prevented

Let us know the results of your test.

Toirtis - What kind of questions do you ask to test out the lfs employees?

talloulou - You are quite right. There can be a lot of variation between employees.

 

[Toirtis]

Toirtis - What kind of questions do you ask to test out the lfs employees?

Usually questions about starting a tank, how filters work, various Qs about common fish species, feeding, etc.....some employees are so very obviously making up things as they go along I want to strangle them.

 

[BrianNY]

Well Zagz that's a noble experiment. If they're mom and pop shops, try and quiz the owners instead of some under payed employee. I'm curious what you learn.

 

[Zagz]

I found one mom & pop shop that the owners are very knowledgeable, it is a family owned business and only family works there! So that is definitely one of the tops on my list! Another local and smaller lfs was knowledgeable but their tanks were filled with brown algae and quite dirty looking and their plants were all bunched up in one 55 gal. They also didn't sell any frozen or live fish food. The larger chains, the staff knew absolutely nothing about the fish they were selling. They had a larger selection but some were mis-labelled and in one of them they all had open top aquariums that were run off one system. So god help any fish diseases would go through the whole system. I plan on continuing my search. So far my findings are that the smaller fish stores usually have more knowledge, the larger fish stores, more selection and almost zero knowledge. The larger chain stores offer more warranty but of course, they have to compensate for frequently bad advice.

 

[Zagz]

I forgot to mention, at the lfs that had all it's aquariums without tops, they had a tank of ADF's there too. Now I have ADF's and they are jumpers! I wonder how many these lose to this?