Do Not Always Trust Your Local Fish Store

[jraker]

screw the intro, ill get started right away. many LFS will try to tell you that you should buy a fish to cycle your tank. DONT DO IT. no matter how much you want that colorful little blue damsel, dont do it. fishless cycling is the best option for a reef tank, and you can often put in a raw shrimp to help the cycle.

most local fish stores only care about money. all this hobby is about money. suppliers dont care about fish, they care about how much money they make. dont always listen to your LFS, try reviewing it with some people with years of experience first. for example: once at my LFS there was someone trying to sell me a fairy wrasse of some sort (my tank is 36 gallons. fairy wrasse too small). the wrasse cost $100, which was completely overpriced, and they kept on trying to get me to buy it. i didnt, because i knew it would get too big, and it was a raw deal.

sometimes, employees will not have much knowledge. you just got out of college, you need a job. how about you work at the local fish store! it will be a great experience, and you will help countless people!! nope. when i was getting my first fish for my tank, i wanted to go with a green chromis (not the best choice, i know). someone at the LFS told me i should get a quarter of my total fish load, and tried to sell me 3 chromis. now, if you do the math, thats 12 fish in a 36 gallon tank. too much? heck yeah. i only have 4 fish and i am dealing with phosphates. the thing is, sometimes people will just want more money, as i said above. (i ended up getting 2 chromis, and there was only 1 left afterwords). another person tried to tell me that firefish and cardinalfish were difficult to take care of, and i should buy a $70 wrasse or a tang instead. always do your research, and dont impulse buy.

these were a few things that many beginners can fall for, and i see the mistakes being made all the time. if you have any other suggestions of how to avoid bad advice, just write it.

i hope this was somewhat helpful.

 

[wdyork]

I absolutely agree with you. However occasionally you will find that one good employee at that one good lfs who is actually looking out for your best interest. I love the fact that we live in a time that I can bring my phone with me into the store and pull up RC while I'm there to research anything I'm unsure of. I always hope that I'm going to walk in and find a crazy deal on a crazy cool fish I've never heard of, and between RC and LA find out it's a perfect match for my tank and I. Hasn't happened yet but maybe one day.

 

[MondoBongo]

Doveryai no proveryai.

that's a Russian proverb for "Trust, but verify"

 

[nuxx]

When I'm not sure about something, I'll either do a bunch of research and tend to go with solutions/advice that tends to be the most popular.

Through trial and error I then come up with what works best for me. i.e. I don't really like the tank transfer method, but the majority does. I just use Cupramine. I don't like taking down a tank every 2-3 days and feel for new fish it can be stressful to constantly move. Just me

 

[jraker]

I absolutely agree with you. However occasionally you will find that one good employee at that one good lfs who is actually looking out for your best interest.

yeah, so far i have encountered about 2 or 3 people like that. otherwise, i need to use my knowledge to figure stuff out.

the other thing is, some employees dont know what theyre doing. for example: once i asked someone for some otocinulus catfish for my planted tank, and he started catching small albino bristlenose plecos. not that he did anything wrong (i corrected him), some people just need to be educated

 

[ca1ore]

Don't know how long you have been in the hobby, but once one gets past the 'newbie' phase, it is not unusual to know more than many LFS employees (this is true in most endeavors, BTW). It is also not unusual to find that the LFS employees are just as likely as people here on RC to harbor hair-brained ideas about things, or to dispense advice that is out and out wrong. The best thing is to find a LFS (or multiple) that you like and trust them with your business. But even knowledgeable LFS employees may occasionally offer dubious advice (particularly on the subject of ich treatments, as example), so on those occasions you just have to decide for yourself what makes sense and what does not.

In terms of 'how to avoid bad advice', the answer is research, research, and more research ..... and a willingness to accept that some questions have a range of answers. Further, just because something goes wrong does not mean it was bad advice necessarily, it may have been bad implementation.

 

[stingeragent]

I think its best to aquire all the knowledge you need on here from the guys who have run tanks for years, and then go to the LFS . The majority can sure keep fish alive long enough for you to buy them, but keeping that same fish for 5-10 years is a different story. I actually like my LFS. It's a small mom/pop type of shop. They have like 6-7 employees and they have all been there for years. The owner is a marine biologist, and every employee has 4-5 tanks of there own at home. They have a single guy that runs the saltwater section, and that guy is a pro. I can walk to any single tank they have, point at a fish, snail, shrimp, etc, and ask him what it is, and he can fire it off in seconds without even thinking about it. I've kept fish for a while, so i never had to ask them about "how do I cycle my new tank", so I'm not sure what the response to that might be ( they are a business and their business is selling fish, so I know sometimes corners have to be cut, but still). That situation with my LFS is probably the exception though and not the rule. Just don't go to petco and ask them about setting up your saltwater tank.

 

[jraker]

there is one lfs by me that is more of a bulk place, and has a few other stores. then there is another that specializes in saltwater, and they are awesome. all the employees know their stuff

 

[stingeragent]

Most chain stores are always going to be low on knowledge unless you get a person that actually participates in the hobby, and also happens to be looking for a job in that dept. They will have there mandatory training powerpoints, or some online training crap you have to go through over a couple days, but after that it's to the wind. They have a basic rudimentary knowledge if they actually pay attention to the 2 days worth of training, but not much past that.

 

[hotelbravo]

while I do agree with some of the stuff that you are saying I have to disagree with the generalized statement that makes it sound like all of them are bad. I have been going to my lfs and actually over the past year have been volunteering there on my off time to earn store credit. we do ask many questions and help customers even if we don't make any sales. we ask questions if their tank will not suffice for the fish they want we turn them down and explain why. we list fish that will be suitable for their tank. in addition we do not sell them fish until after we are positive their tank has cycled. we test water for free all the tests and monitor each persons progress through the cycle.

the point im trying to make is there are plenty of good ones around. please do not put the cross hairs on every store.

 

[Sk8r]

A GOOD reef shop is a treasure. Support them. And be a little understanding that the teen who has an after-school job netting fish is NOT going to be a good source of info...ask the owner, maybe, but experience counts. What we have on RC is a good wide-front knowledge base. I've been at this for decades, and I've run FOWLRs and reefs, little tanks, big tanks, and know something about corals. SOmebody else has the same experience aimed at zoas. Or triggers. WHich I've never had. Somebody else is expert on angelfish, or whatever. Here, if you post a sane query and read through until you get at least one poster who really can make sense to you, you're better off than asking any single source who may work there, but may not know how it all works.

Even after years in this hobby, we still learn---we ask each other, even those of us with decades behind us---hey, got this chemistry going on, what gives? And an actual chemist comes back with an answer that, yes, makes sense.

So use this place wisely.

Support your local store where you possibly can, because this is where you can get a big lot of salt---today, as opposed to several days on. OR where you can look over a range of pumps. They matter. Preserve them.

 

[jraker]

while I do agree with some of the stuff that you are saying I have to disagree with the generalized statement that makes it sound like all of them are bad. I have been going to my lfs and actually over the past year have been volunteering there on my off time to earn store credit. we do ask many questions and help customers even if we don't make any sales. we ask questions if their tank will not suffice for the fish they want we turn them down and explain why. we list fish that will be suitable for their tank. in addition we do not sell them fish until after we are positive their tank has cycled. we test water for free all the tests and monitor each persons progress through the cycle.

the point im trying to make is there are plenty of good ones around. please do not put the cross hairs on every store.

sorry , i was not trying to make a generalized statement about chain stores. many are good, but some are not.