Favorite LFS "CUSTOMER" STORIES ...

[Sab_Fan]

my gosh i was at petco the other day and me and my friend were bored so he decided to "test" the fish guy

so he goes "Excuse me, how big do oscars get?"

the employee responds with "about this big" and makes a gesture with his hands showing about 5 inches

so i ask him "about four or five inches then huh? how fast do they grow"

"yeah they should grow around four inches or so in a year"


"...
how big of a tank do you reccomend"

"well, with or without fish?"

"*tries to hide laughter* without"

"weyull a tein gallon wuh be good, ya know deez fish needuh mingle, ya know, and ya know, if you put em in a big tank, deyll stay in da corner and cuhhz dey downt mingle, theyll get depression and die, ya know, fish get depression too ya know" he referred to this as like aqualovingnessmingling or something

i just laughed my ass off and walked away
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I'm not a big fan of "testing" the employees at fish stores, I know most them are just trying to get through their day . . . but I was fairly impressed with they way you captured the phonetics of an authentic Loo-zee-anna accent . . .

 

[_Jessica_]

I had a woman come in the other day screaming and yelling that someone sold her a betta and a "cornfish" and the cornfish killed the betta. Then, the platies she bought when she returned the dead betta, died and now the goldfish in there have ragged fins and are laying on the bottom. All of this deducted from her 10 minute long speech in incomprehensible southern accent (I lived in FL for 6 years...and I couldn't even figure out half of what she was saying).

As it turns out, the "cornfish" was an African Cichlid (yellow lab). No one remembers any fish returns that day. Then, we were trying to figure out what was up with the goldfish...I explained to her about ammonia, only to have her yell at me saying she must have gotten it from our tanks. I ask her what size her filter is, and her tank, and she makes the imaginary box with her hands and says I've never had to use any fancy fitration...I must have gotten that ammonium from your fish! There was no pleasing her.

Oh, and a family the other day came in and bought a bowl, 6 goldfish, a betta, three platies, a bala shark, and two cherry barbs. There was absolutely no reasoning with them...insisted they did not need a filter. I told them I couldn't guarantee the fish and they were fine with that...poor dead fish now .

 

[Darth Scohin]

^Your LFS cant deny a fish Sale?^-that sucks

Had a guy that gets feeders for his silver Aro and noticed we were out of feeders (because they Carnival folks had to feed their "turtles") and I felt bad because we've been out for days

 

[B.Ho]

I hate it when people come in, buy a tank, filter, heater etc. to set up their tank. Then they want to buy like 15+ fish because their on sale for a dollar. I tell them they have to let their tank cycle first and what not. Then they tell me they've been doing this for years and insist that the fish will be fine. And then they come in 2 days later wanted to exchange or get a refund on their dead fish

 

[Darth Scohin]

Dont you love the Ive had tanks long time

I honestly dont care if you've had tanks since the Goldfish bowl was invented it doesn't make you an expert if you've done it wrong for thousands of years.....

Had a customer whos child was looking to get her first tank in her fish book she had it sad that plants were BAD for your tank....I was quite perplexed

 

[Ghost9001]

I just started work in my lfs about 6 weeks ago, absolutely fish in clifton, nj. Anyway today this guy came in, I saw him browsing through our tanks and asked if he needed help. He said he was looking to buy some of our figure 8 puffers, I said alright how long has the tank been set up? He said oh I set up the bowl last night. I said your bowl? He said yeah you know like a goldfish bowl. I proceeded to tell him that the bowl wasnt big enough and how he would need heating, filtration, how the were aggressive, how they were brackish fish, how they are very sensitive to water parameters, etc. He cut me off and said "Kid, I dont need a science lesson, I'm just here to buy a fish for my son." I then told him that if he needed a fish for a bowl that a betta could be kept in one. He then told me about how it was his son's birthday and he wanted a puffer. I couldn't refuse a sale, so I said ok let me go get a net and a container but, we dont have any guarantee on live animals, and I'm warning you this fish is most likely going to die. He said ok whatever my son will probably be bored with it after a day or two, ill just flush it when it dies.

Some people just never want to listen. Its really annoying.

 

[aidenb]

some of the stories here are pretty sad, i work at a petland (a canadian one, which is completely different than the americans ones, the ones up here are run way different than th US ones) and we are obligated to refuse the sale of any animal, from neon tetras to our macaw if we feel that they are not going to a good home. the previous post reminds me of when i had a guy yell at me and then my manager because i refused to sell him a pirhana and a figure 8 puffer for his 10 gallon, i'm happy to say the customer left empty handed

 

[Ghost9001]

Oh yeah another one that happened today was this guy had a new 30g tank, and he wanted 5 of our 2-3" piranhas. I told him that he should get his tank cycled fish and that red bellies can hit a foot in length. He said that he had kept piranhas before and that he knew what he was doing and that he was getting a larger tank in the future. I asked him if he was going to get a larger tank within the next 6 months, he said no why? I said because theyre going to need at least a 75 gallon by then. He said yeah ill get to it whenever they get too big. I said that piranhas were bad for cycling a tank because of the amount of waste they produce and that they werent the hardiest fish when it came to ammonia and nitrite. I regretfully had to sell them to him.

 

[ceeej31]

this thread is getting depressing, so hopefully this story will lighten it up a bit.
recently i had a woman come in and ask to buy a baby clown knife, i told her how big they got and asked her how big her tank was and was pleasantly surprised when she told me it was a 125g and the knife was going to be the only fish in the tank, not ideal but far better than some kids ten gallon, she then told me that her family had six tanks and that they had just lost their old clown knife after having it for 7 years . I was more than happy to go get the fish for her. after i handed her the fish she went over to our tank decor section to pick out a new cave for the knife. as i was helping other customers i heard her talking in a baby voice to the fish, which while a little odd was a good indication that the fish was going to a great home

 

[cynster]

Wow these are pretty funny! However, I've been there before. Well.. not feeding a fish chicken in a bathtub there, but definitely changing 100% of the water there and wondering why my fish died :/

What I don't get is the rude people demanding fish or rude about refusing fish. There are probably plenty of people out there that have no idea what they are going to get and both the customer and the sales person should be patient with each other. The first question should always be "What setup do you have" and the second "how long do you want your fish to live?" I think most people would be surprised that some fish can live 15+ years. I think it'd be helpful for the sales rep to say "you know, with a __ gallon tank (that we happen to have over here) it'll live ___ years, rather than 3 months." I think some customers and sales reps can both be rude when they don't get what they want (customer with dream fish and sales rep with capable customer).

My story is when I was buying some firemouths, the sales rep couldn't tell them apart from some similar fish that shared the tank and 3+ times she got the wrong fish where I'd gaze up at the bowl, then shake my head hehe but to be fair they were similar