Dutchz
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2012
- Messages
- 305
That's the way life is.
My two cents - be prepared for people who ask for your advice and then won't take it. You'll find yourself recommending a test kit, which they won't want to buy because its "expensive", and you'll then watch them spend twice as much on day glow decorations and such. They will think algae is the reason all their fish keep dying. Some will finally come in with water to test and be shocked that the ammonia and nitrites are through the roof because the water "looks fine". And then they will want to buy more fish to put in their tank anyway.
You will occasionally meet people who listen and really take your advice to heart, but an awful lot of the time you won't. Sad, but true.
Oh, I forgot to add a useful 'rule' for stocking fancy goldfish;
I like to use 30g for the first one, then 10g per subsequent (you can get away with something like 4 in a 55g). And always upsell filtration with them - the starter kit type of tanks don't have adequate filtration to deal with goldies, IMO.
As a food for them I would recommend Omega One goldfish flakes since (to my knowledge) Petsmart doesn't sell NLS. I would also recommend suggesting that when people feed their fancies, they pinch the food and dip it in to get it completely wet so the fish don't take in air with the flakes at the surface, since it can cause floating problems due to the unique bodies of our short, fat fish friends.
Fancies are perfectly fine on a sand substrate as well, which makes it very easy to clean (if the waste hasn't already broken down and been picked up by the filter). You can also encourage folks to keep plants with their fancies - they'll eat the tender stuff like Anacharis, but leave things like Watersprite and Crypts alone. The growth rates of various easy stem plants and mosses go off the charts when I put them in with my fancies. One thing a goldfish tank is never short on is fertilizer
Hope this is useful. When I'm inspecting the local Petsmart tanks I see a lot of people who seem to want goldfish.
I wish the employees at my petsmart talked a bit more i have never been asked a question or told about the fish I'm getting, also the tanks are a bit dirty all the time. Although last time I went some lady tried to questioned my fish purchase when I was checking out and I corrected her lol.
I know and I didn't say I hated them.
I just put petsmart in the title because I work there. I really meant just general information for people who are selling fish to the general public.... I've already learned so much from having fish myself and this forum, and now I'm learning a lot being on the sales floor as well. I still have a lot more to learn. I wish I could carry my phone on the floor that way I could get correct answer fast to things I'm not entirely sure on.... But I've already advised 7 people about this forum and aquadvisor
Its petsmart policy to float the bags for the acclimated. They then grab a 5g bucket and put a net on it and dump the fish im the net and discard the water and place fish in appropriate tank. Not by far the worst way of acclimation but still not the bestLOL went to our local petsmart today to look at the angels, came around the corner and both gals there looked around and laughingly joked there wasn't anyone for me to talk to today...so I watched the sad show of them putting in brand new stock into tanks after only floating the bags a bit..did come out with a little tiny black angel that had been there a week for a buck less than marked.