Dumb things you've overheard customers say at the LFS

Dory and Nemo is only bad when the kids start it up and the parents proceed to bring it to a whole new level, by calling every blue fish "Dory" and every clown "Nemo".

The other day a young couple came in, spent about 30 mins in the saltwater section before asking for help. They wanted "pretty" fish for their tank. After following them from tank to tank for another 20 mins telling them about each fish they pointed at I was asked, brace yourself..."How many of the Yellow Tangs can we put in our 10 gallon Tetra tank?" I quickly passed them onto another employee.

Me: "If you put Nemo in your goldfish bowl you'll kill him" this was to an adult.

Customer: I want a reef tank but I don't want to do a lot of water changes.
Me: The sharper image sells some really life like magnetic fish aquariums but you'll have to change the batteries regularly.
Customer: <dirty look>

I've come to embrace that dirty look, it gives me inner peace for about 5 minutes.

The worst customer by far though, is the "experienced" saltwater hobbyist who asks you questions even though they think they know the answers. They will grill you then proceed to argue with you about the information you just gave them until you show them in the numerous books in the store that they are in fact, utterly oblivious.

Another customer who I wish would spontaneously combust is that customer who you spend almost an hour with answering questions and telling them how to get their tank back on track so nothing should die so they can get more fish or whatever. They politely thank you and walk away. 5 mins later you see them talking to another employee asking the same exact questions trying to get them to tell them they can do whatever it is they want to do. I have taken to joining in when I see this happen just to see that uncomfortable look on the customer's face because they know I know what they're up to.

"But it's only going to grow to the size of the tank, right?" atleast 5 times day. I probably sound very bitter but if you had to rattle off the same information atleast 100 times a day, sometimes to the same people, you would understand my pain.

I could honestly write a book on just 1 day of customer encounters. The real victims here are the fish/ inverts.
 
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can things heard at the lfs encompass what the lfs staff have said to me? well i guess so.

me, after looking at his new display tank: " you know you shouldnt keep those clams under 4 no fluros."

lfs guy: " why not, you see that hole there in the top, there filter feeders, they only get there food from the water" .

i didnt bother to explain or educate him.
 
bboyin4lyf and others, this thread is to comment on things said by customers, there are at least 2 other threads about the dumb things LFS employees have said. Keep it on track or so help me I'll give every Dory and Nemo wanting customer your e-mail address so that you can explain to them how to do it. Hehehe
 
I know this thread is meant to be all in good fun and all but, this whole Nemo/Dory thing is ridiculous!!!!

I have a 29 gal. reef in the making, and if the only way I can get my two year old son to think its cool and teach him about reef keeping is to call perculas Nemo and Regal Tangs Dory then that's what I'm going to do! You guys should relax and take the opportunity to educate these people without being condescending!

I built and repaired pipeorgans for a living for about 4 years. I can't tell you how many times people asked "stupid" questions, since most have no idea how one works. They would have over a million dollars worth of organ behind a few visible pipes, and would always think that the enormous amount of sound pouring out of the chamber was coming from the two dozen pipes they could see. Knowing that people are not born with this kind of knowledge I would simply explain how the instrument worked.

If you guys can't do this........maybe you need a new job.


Again, I'm sorry for taking this too seriously. It's just that this site is a great place for new people in the hobby to come and learn. Finding a thread like this would most likely turn them away!!
 
OK I'LL GIVE YOU ONE.PHONE RINGS.I HAVE A 10GAL TANK AND HAVE TWO CAT FISH AND THERE GONE!!!!WHERE DID THEY GO??
ANSWER I HAVE NO IDEA BUT YOUR CHOICES ARE JUMPED OUT,SOMETHING HAS EATEN THEM,IN YOUR FILTER,OR UNDER A ROCK OR SOMETHING.REPLY NO IT'S NONE OF THOSE THERE JUST MISSING.ANSWER SORRY I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE,REPLY
I THOUGHT YOU WERE A FISH STORE YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING WHERE ARE YOU LOCATED AT? I'M NEVER COMEING THERE.
AFTER THEY HUNG UP I THOUGHT (I HOPE NOT)
 
i agree with you completely shogun.......besides, anyone who hasn't made some stupid' mistakes while keeping fish was incredibly lucky.........you get interested, then you get wise.
 
"My fishs are always dieing"
Me being noisy
"how big is your tank and what kind of fish do you have"
"I have a 40gal tank with 10 diff tangs and 5 other fishââ"šÂ¬Ã‚
Me looking confuse
ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œerr OKââ"šÂ¬Ã‚
 
Man ask the clerk when he should put the salt in (he is standing there with a clown in a bag and a box of IO salt)
 
While trading in some frags at my fav lfs....
Guy asks me what kind of coral I am trading in.I reply,Xenia.He says he wants to buy some,but hates the fact that none of his corals will stay "open" for any period of time.So,being nice I asked what he had in his tank other than corals.He told me he had a 90gal with,get this,30 fish in it.And,most of them were 10" or more in size!Including an Emperor tang and huge blue hippo.
 
sorry shogun :rolleyes: my bad. lol but it was pretty funny plus sad at the same time :)

ok how bout this one- not at a fish store but similar,

i ring up a lady bout an add for a 67g

went and had a look. the aquarium was the pitts. all corals were dying and shrunken. all fish were sickly looking.

the lady had " wait for it all you nemo fans" a combination of 30+ clown fish of all different varieties.

me: what corals have you kept previously?
lady with confused look on face: " many nemo homes"
me: whats a nemo home? "it hadnt dawned on me yet"
lady with serious look on face: " you obviously havent kept marine fish before"

i nearly cried with laughter. sorry bout the long post
 
i was at my lfs recently and their was a guy in there with his son and this is what i heard
customer:i want to buy some goldfish
attendant: ok, which ones?
customer: anyones, the last two lots we had my son tried to give them chocolate milk
 
I had a guy, when I was at the lfs, that was talking about all his fish kept dieing, and didn't know why, start talking to him about his set up, fish, etc... The guy did not have a clue. I told him to buy a good book (even showed him some) and said that he would save a lot of money by reading and researching.

he said " I'd rather learn by doing it myself and killing stuff than to read what someone else has done"
 
bboyin4lyf said:
sorry shogun :rolleyes: my bad. lol but it was pretty funny plus sad at the same time :)

ok how bout this one- not at a fish store but similar,

i ring up a lady bout an add for a 67g

went and had a look. the aquarium was the pitts. all corals were dying and shrunken. all fish were sickly looking.

the lady had " wait for it all you nemo fans" a combination of 30+ clown fish of all different varieties.

me: what corals have you kept previously?
lady with confused look on face: " many nemo homes"
me: whats a nemo home? "it hadnt dawned on me yet"
lady with serious look on face: " you obviously havent kept marine fish before"

i nearly cried with laughter. sorry bout the long post

oh my that is funny....i'm cryin right now....this a good thread, but that made me laugh .....i'm still drying tears.......thanks....i needed that...
 
saaad....

LFS Employee making small talk: "so my friends bet me that a choco star wasn't able to survive in a reef tank, so i put one in my 55 and it's survived for 3 days so far, ha ha"
me: blink blink "you serious?"
LFS: "yeah, made a few bucks"
me: "oh... aren't you afraid it'll eat your corals?"
LFS: looked at me like i was crazy....

i give up on these people. i hate to butt in and give my two cents because very seldom is good advice appreciated.
 
This wasn't in a store but just as relevant and stupid.
I was taking a marine bio class and we went on lots of field trips. One trip we took was to some tide pools. As we reached THE OCEAN! one girl looks at me and asks " is this salt water?" Remember that this is a marine bio student. We were halfway through the semester already.

Another time in that same class we were watching a film on tropical ecology. The film shows some scenes of a RAIN FOREST. Another girl asks the teacher " is it HUMID there?" WHAT!!!! Do you know what a RAIN forest is?
 
I worked in LFSs for years and I have a bunch of 'em. One that stands out was when a customer wanted to return a pleco(for you salt only people thats an algae eater). I asked her why and she said that it wasn't eating the algae in her tank. I asked her if it was eating at all and she said that it was. Get this. Her assumption was that we didn't train the pleco properly. I told her that we don't train the fish to eat algae. They just normaly do. She left still convinced that we were a bad store because we sell untrained algae eaters.
 
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