ATTN: LFS employees

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This story is second had from another co-worker. His full time job is technical support at a company that sells aquarium products. He gets a call from a lady that has been recently using their water conditioner in her pond and her dog has been drinking the water. So his first thought is "Oh crap her dog has died and she is going to blame it on the water conditioner." But he lets her finish the story. Apparently the dog had lost some hair around it's butt and after the dog had started drinking the pond water with the new water condition, the dog's butt hair started growing back. She thought it was important for them to know.
 
Do to the P

-Yeah, that gave me a really good laugh.

Or there was this one time that at the same place he had gotten a couple dwarf lionfish in. Beautiful little creatures and I wouldn't mind some but this guy and his wife were looking around. He watched as the owner was feeding some chromis to the lionfish as they looked somewhat thin. The wife then asks, so what do these little guys eat? ... he promptly said that they ate seaweed and tofu.... and they say that stupid questions don't exist.
 
I recently moved to a new city and have been hitting the area stores to figure out which ones I like the most. I walked into one store and introduced myself to one of the workers, mentioning that I had been president of my reef club in my previous city. We had a good 15 minute discussion on par levels, since I've been thinking about going to 20K lights. I asked him to bag up a fish for me...suddenly he gets all snotty and condescending...

LFS Guy: "That fish isn't reef safe."

Me: "Yes, I know. He's going into my FOWLR."

LFS Guy: "Oh. Well, you know you're not supposed to top off with tap water, right?"

Me: "Are you kidding me? If I can successfully carry on a conversation about par levels, you can be reasonably sure that I know not to top off with tap water!" (Edited for RC...the actual statement contained a few unsavory four letter words).

LFS Guy: Turns beet red and bags the dang fish without another word.

Seriously! I totally respect his concern for the livestock and he had good intentions. And I know I'm blond and female, but I HATE when people assume that I'm stupid!

I also have two close friends (a married couple) who own my favorite LFS where I used to live. The husband was very knowledgeable about corals, and the wife was incredibly knowledgeable about fish. I mean she could hold her own with all of the hobby experts. She had a full "fish hospital" set up in the back of the store and had saved countless fish from every affliction imaginable. But it never failed, there was always some jerk who would treat her like an idiot and insist on speaking with her husband. Of course, the husband would always tell them that he wasn't sure, and they needed to ask his wife!

Yes, 99.9% of customers are completely ignorant. However, some of us do have some knowledge, despite being female and having a certain hair color!
 
I feel for you TorryRx, but if they didn't ask and you didn't know, you might turn into one of the customers a LFS employee would post about on here when you brought back a dead fish and wanted a refund even though you topped off the tank with tap water.

Now that you've introduced yourself to them though, and if they are actually capable of doing so, hopefully you can have more meaningful conversations with them :lol:
 
of course, there are also alot of people (even on these forums) who top off with tapwater who know better, but for them it doesn't impact their success. weather this is because their tap water is actually acceptable is another matter.... but would you refuse somebody like this a refund?

because that would be a good argument for those folks to start using proper RO water :)
 
If I hadn't had an extensive conversation about par levels and 20K MH reef lighting immediately prior, I would totally understand the tap water question.

But isn't it safe to assume that someone who knows about par levels and lighting would know not to top off with tap water? You never know, I guess, but it would seem unlikely that someone would know about par levels but not about tap water.

Meh, whatever...that guy sure knows better now!
 
no I totally agree with you on that point.


just saying that some reefers are knowledgable that they SHOULD be using RO water but they do not. there was even a thread here recently with a bunch of tapwater tanks that actually looked really nice (I was shocked).

anyway, was just a question of curiosity, if an LFS would use that as a grounds not to give a refund, even if said reefer had been using tap water succesfully for some time. of course the reefers could always lie and say they used RO :)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14430325#post14430325 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Dante_JoseCuerv
No, he didn't sell her a dead fish. He sold her an adult domino damsel. Do the math *evil grin*

ROFL! :lol: At least her stocking problems will go away shortly. One adult fish in a ten gallon tank sounds perfect.

Domino damsels are pure evil.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14442437#post14442437 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
no I totally agree with you on that point.


just saying that some reefers are knowledgable that they SHOULD be using RO water but they do not. there was even a thread here recently with a bunch of tapwater tanks that actually looked really nice (I was shocked).

anyway, was just a question of curiosity, if an LFS would use that as a grounds not to give a refund, even if said reefer had been using tap water succesfully for some time. of course the reefers could always lie and say they used RO :)

Oooh...

Wait, seriously? Tap water in successful tanks? I'm totally shocked too! They must be in Colorado or somewhere where the tap water is much better than Florida. It's awful here...full of chlorine!

I can't imagine that an LFS would give a refund if they knew that, but it would probably be up to the individual store. I only know of two or three stores that give refunds at all, and one of them was out of business within a year. I have never even asked for a refund...I am fully aware that there is a risk with any fish I bring home.
 
RO/DI is not as popular in Australia. Not all of our water is perfect, and it sure can't hurt to filter, but some of just don't seem to have the level of issues found in the US.

Some of us in fact live in places where there is no water treatment at all. The water occasionally has a slight taste of freshwater fish, but is mostly clean, clear and soft like rainwater.
 
This totally just happened a few days ago

A customer storms in with a look of confidence written all over his face. My coworkers and I braced ourselves to ready-set-bag fish/corals because he had the expression of "I want this, that and this and hurry it up because I am double parked". When he finally reached the counter the question that he asked is exactly as follows:

"Do you guys sell shoes?"
 
Me neither ! We thought he was joking and when we laughed, his eyes seemed to temporarily bulge out from anger. Boy was he a character !
 
A husband and wife are walking around our former LFS and they stop by the starfish tank. The wife crouches down to stare at the few starfish that are on the front-facing glass... and looks confused.

Rob, the store owner, comes over as she straightens back up to ask him - "Where's its face?"

Rob: Its face?

Wife: You know, its face - like the starfish on Finding Nemo!

:D
 
Customer calls and another employee picks up the phone. He says when he plugs in his power strip it keeps tripping his GPS. The employee says "You mean GFI?" Guy says yeah that's what i meant. We determined he got water on his power strip and he prolly needed a new one.

About 30 minutes later he comes in and I get to help him. He asks for a new power strip and asks if getting one wet can cause it to trip his GFI. And I say yeah. Then he asks "So do you have any that you can get wet?"

No.

No we don't.

There's that whole water and electricity not mixing thing to get around.
 
Just found this thread! I no longer do, but I used to manage a LFS, and for the time I was there boy did I hear a few good ones.

My very first day...a lady was walking up and down the aisles, looking at the saltwater fish. I asked her if she needed any help, and she said no, she didn't have a tank but was just admiring while her kid was next door finishing his music lesson. She pauses at one of the tanks that had a few small Niger Triggers and goes wide-eyed. She hurriedly walks up to me and points at them and in a whisper says "What a pretty fish, but that's a really horrible name for them!"

It took me seriously five whole minutes to figure out what on Earth she was talking about. Then the lightbulb went on and my jaw hit the floor!

I also grew to hate the Biocubes in my time at the store. People began to equate them with "miracle tanks" that because it was this all inclusive system, it meant water would magically cycle and any and all fish, inverts, etc could live in them. Apparently, people think they function a lot like the Tardis from Dr. Who, and they have no problems stuffing Tangs, triggers and other completely inappropriate fish in them! I had one customer come into the store and ask me to bag up a real pretty little Desjardini Sailfin we had. I asked him how large his tank was, and he points to the 29ga Biocube we had set up on display and says "That Big" I pause and tell him that although the fish is little now, it will rapidly outgrow a tank of that size, but I'd be more than happy to show him some smaller, more nano-appropriate fish.

Well he gets miffed and tells me all his OTHER tangs are doing quite well in there! My stomach sinks as I ask "Other...tangs?" He then goes on to tell me he has a yellow tang, purple tang, one dori fish, a nemo fish and a damsel in his Biocube. I flat our refuse the sale of anything. He gets angry and says he wants another fish! Long story short I end up telling to take a left out of the parking lot, go a few miles to the other pet store down the street because he wasn't getting them from me!

Not fish store related, but I will never forget this one. Years ago for a summer job I worked on a lobster tour boat in Maine. We'd take turns giving the tours and working in the ticket booth. It was my turn in the booth and I was chatting with a nice lady that was waiting for the boat to come in. She tells me she had been there earlier in the summer, and this was her second time back.

Then she asks me if we had had a lot of rain that summer. I pause, puzzled and say "No more than usual, why?"

She points to the cove behind me and says "Well when I was here earlier in the summer, that cove was almost empty. Now it's completely full of water!"

I just smile and nod and said "Yeah, I guess we had a lot more rain than I thought!"
 
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