I feel you!!!! I hate pet stores, they are sooooo bad.
I worked at a very popular fish store (gag me with a spoon) and one day a very sad lady came in and asked me "Why did my pleco die, it was a new tank. Was it because there was no algae?" Before I could answer her, the little dude (reptile specialist) that sold her the tank two days previous (and the pleco) came up and proceeded to explain to her how algae kills plecos!!!!!!and her pleco, had died from eating algae (BTW he kept calling algae , allergy- which is common and allmost cute , but means you should not have any fish, if your not able to understand A*L*G*A*E) For the record all of my plecos are eating algae off the glass right now, after they just had dinner, (shrimp pellets,flakes and algae wafers)....
Before I could even begin to explain the nitrate cycle , I wanted to tell her plecos need more food than just algae, but before I could start to explain the reptile specialist got an attitude and said" You think you know everything but your wrong." All of the sudden , the lady didnt know who to trust.
I was shocked they let me be aquatic specialist, and take care of all those fish in the first place, but now the cashier/reptile guy is misleading this poor lady, who just wants to keep some dang fish alive.
Also if a fish looked like it was struggling even a little i was supposed to kill it.
We wouldnt want a little girl to see nemo an dory gasping for air and dying,
I think they (children) should know the truth, I think they should see that that fish is struggling because of what we did, and then explain how to avoid it.
You would be suprised at all the people who told me of a dying fish and after someone complains you have to KILL that fish!!!!They would act like its my fault, and snobby ladies would be like " excuse me but ive been here for 30 minutes , isnt there someone else working this department,, "No ma'am just lil ol' me!" trying to explain the nitrate cycle to groups of people , while this lady is filing a complaint about me because I didnt drop the net and cater to her every need so she wouldnt miss her hair appointment!!!
urgh... I barely even understand the nitrate cycle, I was under alot of stress when I told the manager "I think I need some training, that is why I got this job,,,, for the training"
She replied "can you catch a fish??? Well your trained then!"
hmmmmmm so does this mean im certified aquatic specialist because im an expert with the net????? I could go on forever.... Im a small little girl in reality , and this one big giant dude allmost punched me one day because I went for the wrong tank when he asked for a "sucker fish" which we had one in the tank I was reaching in anyway, but he assumed they were only in the tank he was thinking of.. I got in trouble because I made him mad,
Well he made me sad.. Did he get "talked to" NO... but he deserved to get beat up just then..
. There was another tank with 3, 6" silver aros in it, and they were looking pretty crowded. Poor lil fishies, I wish I had a bigger tank to get that knife out of there, and I know people say don't buy from bady fish stores, because then you are just adding to them being bad, but he was so sad looking 
at the pet store, just thought I would share this...
