BIGgourami;786651; said:
(no offence to anyone that works there but i bet your knowlede didn't come from job oreintation, you actually CARE about fish)
This made me laugh because its so true. I've been at petco for 6 yrs now. Petco has taught me nothing, but between me and one other fish hobbiest that works there, we were able to make sure the rest of the staff knew what they were doing. For a while we had an such an awsome staff i was actully proud to say I worked there. But now due to a new horrible store manager, all that staff has left, and of course they arnt bothering to train any of the new staff. I should be quitting next week, and my only misgiving about leaving is how horrible its going to be for the animals and the poor customers that have no clue what they are doing. Actully me and the other fish hobbiest are the only two in the whole store that even own fish now.. and i expect she will be quitting soon also.
1) never judge a store by its name. A petco, petsmart or private owned store is only as good as the employees that work at that specific location.
2) When someone offers to help you at any store, ask if they actully own fish, if they say no, ask for soemone that does
3) Know some basic knowledge, and ask the person that is helping you the questions you already know, if they cant give you proper answers, find someone else.
4) If your starting out, find one employee at one store that you trust, and always speak to the same person, Fish keeping is like rasing kids, everyone has their own idea how it should be done, and you will be competly confused by the differnt answers you will get from different people.
5) Double check everything they tell you with either books or online resources.
6) If you have a local fish club in your area, join that, you can get inexpensive fish and good advice
.... run a small filter on your main tank just so you have a cycled one to go on the QT.
QUARINTINE!
