Rms f-

[t11t5]

I was in the area so I stopped at RMS. I give them a F- grade. Almost every saltwater fish in stock had one eye bulging out, the tanks were a mess, and all the coral looked terrible. I think this place needs shut down.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Pretty bold statement. Last time I was in there everything looked fine. Maybe you caught them on a bad day..

I've bought plenty fish from them and are healthy as an ox!

 

[Big E]

Local fish stores that want to stay in business don't have bad days. Stocking fish from crappy sources & not maintaining their systems in inexcusable.

 

[Tonycip]

Which RMS? I think there's more then 1. I sometimes go to the one on the west side Engle rd. I haven't seen there fish in worst shape then anywhere else and have bought fish from there with out a problem. Although I've seen there tanks with algae and cryno problems. Last time I was there they had a few nice fox face's 3" or so for I think under 30.00, I bought sea hears from there when no one else had any.
I'll give them a "C" average with room for improvement. My 2 cents.:fish1:

 

[Lynnmw1208]

I took my in-laws to the one in Middleburg and they made the comment "how do these guys stay in business". They in no way know what it is to take care of a tank or what is right and wrong, yet they noticed how dirty and sickly everything was. I haven't been back there in probably 3-4 months. Their dry goods are outrageously priced too. I mean $80 for reef crystals in a bucket?!

 

[cmador]

The one on the east side closed a few years ago.

 

[Melchior]

Their freshwater side is well kept and the fish are priced reasonably. The dry goods are pretty expensive, but they have a good selection that isn't really available anywhere else in the same quantity. I really just get the feeling that whoever is running the saltwater side has a lot of other things to do as well, plus maybe their supplier isn't the best for SW livestock. Most of the staff have been pretty helpful, so I have no complaints with that.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Local fish stores that want to stay in business don't have bad days. Stocking fish from crappy sources & not maintaining their systems in inexcusable.

I was kidding when I said you may have caught them on a bad day. There's no way every fish in a shipment is going to be healthy. Fish go through a great deal of stress during transit and can come in bad shape. That's life. Every fish store I've been through I could point out a few unhealthy fish.

 

[captnslapy]

I quit going there a few years ago because of the extremely poor quality of saltwater live stock. And the supplies are really high priced. I am really surprised that they stay open.

 

[doctorgori]

I was kidding when I said you may have caught them on a bad day. There's no way every fish in a shipment is going to be healthy. Fish go through a great deal of stress during transit and can come in bad shape. That's life. Every fish store I've been through I could point out a few unhealthy fish.

....I'd be hesitant to make it any harder for any Cleveland area LFS to do biz (given the rate they have folded)
but to be 100% honest: the OP may have been a lil succinct but was indeed accurate (yes about at least 4 fish had popeye, I saw that myself)

...the Saltwter section did look in need of addressing, and has for a while...
...lets hope they get on it and get back up to speed....

 

[mgraf]

Its the same with Petco. Everyone complains about how poor the saltwater livestock is but, somehow they continue to keep selling it! Someone must be buying it. Personally, I would rather have one LFS, an hour away with good livestock than five of them 15 min. away with poor quality. It is hard to compare tank quality from the LFS to our home setups IMO. I look at the time I put into my DT and if every LFS put that time into each tank, every fish would be over 100.00. The problem with the LFS is that if you want to dispise something, take something you love and make a business out of it. After a while, the things that are a labor of love (water changes, algae removal, filter cleaning, etc) become just plain ol work. Most small local pet stores have a hard enough time keeping the doors open as it is, not very many would be able to keep there tanks hobbiest quality for the few bucks they make on it. You can thank Petco, Pet supplies plus, and other large chains as well as there consumers for this. The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a "cheap" price is forgotten. If you cut out the money a LFS has to charge on drygoods by going elsewhere to save some money, how can you expect them to compete and make money on livestock alone. Thats why so many LFS that sell saltwater don't make it, especially saltwater alone.

 

[doctorgori]

Its the same with Petco. Everyone complains about how poor the saltwater livestock is but, somehow they continue to keep selling it! Someone must be buying it. Personally, I would rather have one LFS, an hour away with good livestock than five of them 15 min. away with poor quality. It is hard to compare tank quality from the LFS to our home setups IMO. I look at the time I put into my DT and if every LFS put that time into each tank, every fish would be over 100.00. The problem with the LFS is that if you want to dispise something, take something you love and make a business out of it. After a while, the things that are a labor of love (water changes, algae removal, filter cleaning, etc) become just plain ol work. Most small local pet stores have a hard enough time keeping the doors open as it is, not very many would be able to keep there tanks hobbiest quality for the few bucks they make on it. You can thank Petco, Pet supplies plus, and other large chains as well as there consumers for this. The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a "cheap" price is forgotten. If you cut out the money a LFS has to charge on drygoods by going elsewhere to save some money, how can you expect them to compete and make money on livestock alone. Thats why so many LFS that sell saltwater don't make it, especially saltwater alone.

^^^^ yup, exactly: thier business model of a LFS is a dinosaur, soon to be extinct...I can get next day or 2nd day from Premium Aquatics of Big Als for any dry good: greater selection and even a lower price with shipping included.....

F&S simply [profanity] on selling livestock mail order....

...and for beyond Bread and butter species there is Aquabid for freshwater and frag swaps for SW.....

these LFS simply have no margins to pay xtra employees to keep up the tanks...

 

[Big E]

There's no way every fish in a shipment is going to be healthy. Fish go through a great deal of stress during transit and can come in bad shape. That's life. Every fish store I've been through I could point out a few unhealthy fish.

Quality stores don't sell unhealthy looking fish or leave them on display. They try to treat them in a back rooom area. If there's no saving the fish it should be removed promptly from the display area.

 

[Melchior]

^^^^ yup, exactly: thier business model of a LFS is a dinosaur, soon to be extinct...I can get next day or 2nd day from Premium Aquatics of Big Als for any dry good: greater selection and even a lower price with shipping included.....

F&S simply kick aZZ on selling livestock mail order....

...and for beyond Bread and butter species there is Aquabid for freshwater and frag swaps for SW.....

these LFS simply have no margins to pay xtra employees to keep up the tanks...

Sending a guy over to scrape the diatoms off the glass every other day would do wonders, though.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Quality stores don't sell unhealthy looking fish or leave them on display. They try to treat them in a back rooom area. If there's no saving the fish it should be removed promptly from the display area.

Good point. I never knew they had a back room for treatment. If so, it would definitely be a good idea. Do other fish stores like salty's and aquatic tech have these?

 

[Melchior]

From what I've seen both of them treat them in the display, but label them as NFS until they get better. I know that salty had an emperor tang with ich that they were treating for quite a while.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

From what I've seen both of them treat them in the display, but label them as NFS until they get better. I know that salty had an emperor tang with ich that they were treating for quite a while.

that's what I figured. They both do a good job with treating their fish.

 

[CleveYank]

What a wonderful thread this is.

Of the many stores that get a lot of traffic this is one of the stores that was nice enough to allow our club to have the 1st of our meet and greet sessions in October. Where we can setup a table in their store and run a laptop with photos of club member's tanks and setups. Ya know and have a few members there to recruit and inform anyone that happened to be in the store.

The public relations and the nice aspect no matter the allegations of their store's tanks was to be a great benefit to the fish club who's name is on the header of this forum.

I guess if RMS kills the project on us and tells us to not show up I will at least understand that once again a non-member has been given the chance to post their unsubstantiated "information" that lead to the negative impact upon our little fish club.

I've come to expect nothing less when it comes to some "information" posted in this forum...unfortunately.

And no matter how true or false the information may or may not be? It would have been nice to be able to contact RMS west and inquire before a working relationship that one of the club officers personally went to great trouble to build is now been publicly put in jeopardy. In the very hands on and diligent manner in which this board rolls we would have given the matter attention if we were actually given the chance to do so before it took on life in such a negative and damaging public post such as this thread. Since like so many of the hobbyist out there we care (C-Sea BOD) about the conditions of livestock both in stores and in someone's tanks at home. To reiterate it would have been nice to make a friendly inquiry rather than see it handled with a public smearing post without our humble hosts to be given the opportunity to defend themselves.

Ahhhh Man...Good Stuff.

I'm sure Owen the club VP appreciates his hard work being tinkered with from voices and postings from afar. I know I do.

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

Quality stores don't sell unhealthy looking fish or leave them on display. They try to treat them in a back rooom area. If there's no saving the fish it should be removed promptly from the display area.

In regards to the fish at RMS if a fish has pop eye I don't think anyone's going to purchase, so it wouldn't need to be taken out. Do you think they could have possibly came in that way or moreover with water quality issues?

 

[dc]

What a wonderful thread this is.

Of the many stores that get a lot of traffic this is one of the stores that was nice enough to allow our club to have the 1st of our meet and greet sessions in October. Where we can setup a table in their store and run a laptop with photos of club member's tanks and setups. Ya know and have a few members there to recruit and inform anyone that happened to be in the store.

The public relations and the nice aspect no matter the allegations of their store's tanks was to be a great benefit to the fish club who's name is on the header of this forum.

I guess if RMS kills the project on us and tells us to not show up I will at least understand that once again a non-member has been given the chance to post their unsubstantiated "information" that lead to the negative impact upon our little fish club.

I've come to expect nothing less when it comes to some "information" posted in this forum...unfortunately.

And no matter how true or false the information may or may not be? It would have been nice to be able to contact RMS west and inquire before a working relationship that one of the club officers personally went to great trouble to build is now been publicly put in jeopardy. In the very hands on and diligent manner in which this board rolls we would have given the matter attention if we were actually given the chance to do so before it took on life in such a negative and damaging public post such as this thread. Since like so many of the hobbyist out there we care (C-Sea BOD) about the conditions of livestock both in stores and in someone's tanks at home. To reiterate it would have been nice to make a friendly inquiry rather than see it handled with a public smearing post without our humble hosts to be given the opportunity to defend themselves.

Ahhhh Man...Good Stuff.

I'm sure Owen the club VP appreciates his hard work being tinkered with from voices and postings from afar. I know I do.

Is that chip getting heavy?

You keep slamming us, but I can't see where your attitude is really great for the club.

So would you have us delete any post that doesn't fit in with your opinion? It's getting old and I'm sorry if not everyone is happy with the place.