In responce to the other thread Tales from the LFS
, I have decided to add my point of view as a petshop emloyee. I'm sure there are other people out there like me who can add their own tales.
In the past few monthes i have had a guy come up to me to ask how long the plastic around the foams in his fiter take to dissolve as he had his for 3 monthes and it still there. Somehow he had assumed it would dissolve in the tank like the little detergent packages you can get for your dishwasher.
I had another guy complaining how his fish were dying and his tank was gone green even though he had a top of the range filter ( Eheim 2060) on a 3 foot tank with only 6 or 7 fish. He even had a UV light system on it. After nearly 15 minutes of going through everything i could think of - He did proper water changes, proper light levels, not too much food etc. It turns out he only turned on the filter for 2 or 3 hours daily because he liked the sound of moving water but wanted to save money on electricity. he also wasn't using the UVC as a friend who breeds fish ( goldfish in his pond ) said that they cause algae :-?
There was also the guy who kept guppies in a unheated tank in the front room so assumed they would also live in his pond and then complained that they had died so it must be our fault. We live in Ireland, its not noted for our sunny weather.
The lady who wanted some new fish for her tank, i asked what she had- angelfish and neons but she warned she wanted no cichlids as she knew they were trouble and she knew a lot about fish. So of course i told her that an angelfish is a cichlid to which she told me ' I know you are new here but you really should try to learn more about fish '. I really felt like selling her the krib pair she was admiring :wink: but instead handed her a book titled Cichlids and told her the page number for angelfish.
The mother and daughter who complained there tank was full of algae , turned out they were living the light on 24/7. I explained the problem -too much light- and what to do -no lights for a week , if they could cover the glass totally it would help and then only 8 or 10 hours of light a day and the rest dark. Two weeks later they are back complaining tank was still green. Turns out they were turning on the light from midnight to 8am and the tank was in a bright room. They really couldn't understand why i was laughing and why my boss was laughing.
The last one is my favourite as they were such an angry pair and acting like know-it-alls. First they thought it was our fault as there was 2 different types of light bulb on the tank. Sunlite and Daylite and they had read online that you shouldn't mix bulbs. I pointed out that you could also find articles online saying Elvis was alive. They hide from me now and sneak in to get food and stuff without talking to me. That was my first and only time i openly laughed at someone for being stupid but i just had to.
In the past few monthes i have had a guy come up to me to ask how long the plastic around the foams in his fiter take to dissolve as he had his for 3 monthes and it still there. Somehow he had assumed it would dissolve in the tank like the little detergent packages you can get for your dishwasher.
I had another guy complaining how his fish were dying and his tank was gone green even though he had a top of the range filter ( Eheim 2060) on a 3 foot tank with only 6 or 7 fish. He even had a UV light system on it. After nearly 15 minutes of going through everything i could think of - He did proper water changes, proper light levels, not too much food etc. It turns out he only turned on the filter for 2 or 3 hours daily because he liked the sound of moving water but wanted to save money on electricity. he also wasn't using the UVC as a friend who breeds fish ( goldfish in his pond ) said that they cause algae :-?
There was also the guy who kept guppies in a unheated tank in the front room so assumed they would also live in his pond and then complained that they had died so it must be our fault. We live in Ireland, its not noted for our sunny weather.
The lady who wanted some new fish for her tank, i asked what she had- angelfish and neons but she warned she wanted no cichlids as she knew they were trouble and she knew a lot about fish. So of course i told her that an angelfish is a cichlid to which she told me ' I know you are new here but you really should try to learn more about fish '. I really felt like selling her the krib pair she was admiring :wink: but instead handed her a book titled Cichlids and told her the page number for angelfish.
The mother and daughter who complained there tank was full of algae , turned out they were living the light on 24/7. I explained the problem -too much light- and what to do -no lights for a week , if they could cover the glass totally it would help and then only 8 or 10 hours of light a day and the rest dark. Two weeks later they are back complaining tank was still green. Turns out they were turning on the light from midnight to 8am and the tank was in a bright room. They really couldn't understand why i was laughing and why my boss was laughing.
The last one is my favourite as they were such an angry pair and acting like know-it-alls. First they thought it was our fault as there was 2 different types of light bulb on the tank. Sunlite and Daylite and they had read online that you shouldn't mix bulbs. I pointed out that you could also find articles online saying Elvis was alive. They hide from me now and sneak in to get food and stuff without talking to me. That was my first and only time i openly laughed at someone for being stupid but i just had to.