Speaking of 'freshwater morays'...

[WyldFya]

i work at a petsmart and i understand the frustration with that kind of stuff. but do understand, we could separate goldfish and tropicals with a concrete wall ten feet thick and people are still going to get to the other side to mix fish. i routinely refuse people fish (which i am allowed to do) when i know they are keeping them in a tank too small or with unsuitable tank mates, but understand they will just come back when im not working or go to another store that doesnt ask questions about their tank.

so its not entirely on the store. believe me, i could tell someone 'this is a saltwater fish and will DIE in your tank' and if they could get it themselves, they would.

i get people constantly going 'oh thats ok, ill take him anyways' and that is when you know its out of your control because theyre idiots.

Keep in mind dumb customers, will learn. In my experience people are more willing to listen to the store, rather than hit and miss. Although there are people out there exactly like you describe. But LFSs that don't do anything about it are the ones hurting the fish more than anything else. Because no customer can just make a judgement about the fish, if the LFS doesn't tell them anything themselves. Here we can share knowledge, but that doesn't help the guy down the street that doesn't have internet, or books. The responsibility to educate people about fish does fall on the stores themsleves.

 

[WyldFya]

i love it i got dumb lfs stores all over my fav of all is walmart that guy there is a real moron he told but the other store up the street that guy will tell you the fw morays can live for life in a 10 or 20 gallon i dont remember wich one

Well if you look at it, they can live in there for "their entire life", but that doesn't mean they can live in the tank for their full life expectancy. A lot of fish stores are out to make a profit, not help people stay interested in the hobby. A FW moray that lives in a 20 even for life may only live to be 1 year old, that is still his life, but not his full life. Pretty sad, but enevitable.

 

[wild caught]

if anyone ever would want an eel for a freshwater setup, id just tell em to get a reed fish. if they thought there were freshwater morays, they probly wouldnt be able to tell the differnce anyway.

 

[RadleyMiller]

i work at a petsmart and i understand the frustration with that kind of stuff. but do understand, we could separate goldfish and tropicals with a concrete wall ten feet thick and people are still going to get to the other side to mix fish. i routinely refuse people fish (which i am allowed to do) when i know they are keeping them in a tank too small or with unsuitable tank mates, but understand they will just come back when im not working or go to another store that doesnt ask questions about their tank.

so its not entirely on the store. believe me, i could tell someone 'this is a saltwater fish and will DIE in your tank' and if they could get it themselves, they would.

i get people constantly going 'oh thats ok, ill take him anyways' and that is when you know its out of your control because theyre idiots.

yea, freeNINETY9 is totally right. even though big places like petsmart get a bad rap about having stupid people that don't know anything about fish, it isn't always true. Some people are just born stupid and sell stuff just because they wanna say they did. i've worked with them and it drives me nuts. some of us know a lot about what we are talking about but can only work so many hours a week and like I read on another post, you can't help the stubborn. Also, people get really offened when you correct them, especially people that are older than you. Someone that sold a fan tail and 4 comets to a person with a five gallon fish tank. Hmm, never heard of the 1 fish per gallon rule. Maybe some of you other MFKers can tell me about them. I've only joined a week ago and I have alredy got several customers that are my regulars that are going to join. I love this site and its nice to have a place where we can share the love and all. So whether it is a LFS or a petsmart, there are going to be dumb people, there are going to be people that just want to make a sale, but there are also people that care about you and your fish. People that will tell you the truth; people that have refused on many occasions to sell fish to people that won't take care of them.