*****

[bach]

Rant starts here:
I went to the local ***** here in TX. I was impresed by the selection of SF they had/have. I am away from home so I went back 2 days later BC I missed my tank and wanted to see some fish. The fish look terrible, things I have never seen. A coral beauty almost white, clowns with eyes bugging out of the head. Water circulation was non happening in many of the tanks. Dead Jaw fish, and 2 scooters starving to death (I have commited that crime myself, despite a $30 order of pods). Just sad to see.
I know we all do our best to provide happy environments/homes for our critters, but dang it is hard to look at.
Thinking I may just volunteer at the store and try to help the 16 year old they most likely have in charge of "aquatics" learn.

 

[aztec reef]

that's nothing new, we all know that ***** sucks! when it comes to caring for saltwaterfish. but they do have some cheap good stuff sometimes.

 

[bach]

My local ***** in MD is pretty good. The young girl they have has her own tank, so I guess that is a blessing and I am a bit spoiled. They have hooked me up on some sales.
When the guy is selling me Nemo and says "you know this is a salt water fish right?" Then gives me $3.00 off because I look at him like I am not a soccer mom, well just feels better.

 

[pcollins]

bought two from them myself....sixline wrasse for only $17 but damsels killed him. shame. other fish orange anthias=never moved!!! croke

 

[ophiura]

These threads come up all to often.
And invariably, someone complains about quality, but goes on to praise the price on other items.
IF YOU HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THE CARE OF ANIMALS AT *****, OR ANY OTHER STORE, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM. YOU ARE SIMPLY MAKING THE STORE PROFITABLE.
What has come out of the innumerable previous ***** bash threads? If you do not like their animal care. Then do not shop there for anything!
I have seen equally terribly tanks and fish at LFS' locally.
But the size of ***** makes it a particularly easy, and satisfying, target

 

[seattle]

My ***** is probley the best one,they have saltwaterfish fantics and have perfect water quailty,They had the healthiest Coral Beauty on earth for $15! He lives in my fish tank still,and and my Sixline-Wrasse as well,as for shark-reef,2 clownfish and everything else died,The I only went to the ***** once and they had really healthy fish,and were quartining them properly!

 

[sharkbait9]

:thinking: hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm should i jump in on this thread :thinking:
All I will say is I work p/t for this fish nightmare of a company and every person who wants saltwater I just point them to this board and say read, read and read some more.
I work their to help my wallet and the poor fish that get a death sentence.
I could go on and on about this place and the nausea I feel when I see their “fish specialist” treat a stack system with cyno with a bottle of maracyn.
I have explained till I’m blue in the face about what’s going on in the tanks and ***** can not care less, trust me I have sent emails with links and facts and I’m told it doesn’t matter “this is how we do things”
It does no one no good to say anything to others but writing ***** and state your distain for their care and pangram’s could open their eyes if enough people sent emails.
On the other hand people will say how they hate it but have great prices

.

 

[sharkbait9]

Originally Posted by Seattle
My ***** is probley the best one,they have saltwaterfish fantics and have perfect water quailty,They had the healthiest Coral Beauty on earth for $15! He lives in my fish tank still,and and my Sixline-Wrasse as well,as for shark-reef,2 clownfish and everything else died,The I only went to the ***** once and they had really healthy fish,and were quartining them properly!

How ***** policy is that no fish gets a qt. place all fish in tanks and treat if necessary.
***** also doesn’t allow drip acclimation either. Claiming it take up to much room in the fish depart and stress the fish
Hence the reason I don’t work on Thursday when the order comes in.

 

[murph]

its easy to criticise but the bottom line is any LFS can be having problems with there holding tanks at any given time despite there best efforts and are often not glaringly apparent as was described with this *****. The constant influx of new arrivals pretty much guarantees this. The keeping of sw fish as a hobby has grown significantly over the years, a good thing. A bad result is the volume of specimens being handled at the whole sale and retail level has made it impossible to guarantee the health of anything.
We as hobbyist need to except this and understand that the purchase of sw specimens is a big gamble and QT new purchases and assume that treatment is going to be necessary in most cases to assure that the fish has recovered from the shipping process, is feeding normally and is disease free prior to going into main displays where the problems compound themselves greatly.
I hate to advise any "spend more money" advice for those new to the hobby but these days two tank set ups are pretty much mandatory. One small FO system kept cycled at all times for QT and treatment of new arrivals and that impulse buy that can come at any time, then the display.
With that said ***** prices are usually sinificantly lower than mom and pop prices. Simply arrange to pick up the specimen the day it arrives at the store and your odds are just as good as any where else. you will also then have full control of any necessary treatment for the fish in question. I.E. copper exposure, hypo etc. and most importantly QT procedure.
IMO no matter where you buy the purchase of a well adjusted disease free specimen that is on its feed and has not seen potentialy problimatic doses of copper or other meds is a fifty fifty proposition at best these days.

 

[mamasky712]

I'm going to open myself up to flames but I work at a *****. I've been there for a year and a half and I love my job. I hear lots of horror stories about ***** and I can say, overall, my store is not like that.
Most of the people that are in the aquatics area have tanks of their own. The three main people that are working with the fish, have saltwater tanks.
We research fish that we're not sure about, we ask lots of questions before we sell any fish (fresh or salt), and if we're not comfortable with a sale, we refuse.
We do get in sick fish sometimes, I'm sure ***** is not the only store to get sick fish. Some stores do have QT tanks, others don't. My store doesn't carry live rock, corals, anenomes, and only a very small amount of inverts. We're careful about which med we use but our hands are sometimes tied because of ***** policy.
Honestly, I've seen worse at some of my other local stores.
I guess ***** has a bad rep because it's a "big box" store. Maybe not every store has trained people it's the individual stores responsibility to hire knowledgable people or train new associates properly.
It drives me nuts to keep seeing all of these anti-***** threads when I know there are tons of other lfs that are as bad, if not worse.
Oh, and my store does drip acclimate everything.
That is all, flame away.

 

[symon]

No Flame here, Although my local ***** is decent, it's not great by any means! But i know the kid that runs the aquatics section, he has his own Saltwater tank and does care! But i also know he goes to the other LFS's to buy his stuff, Why i ask him, well because a large majority of the critters that come in are already sick, and there is just no way for him to take care of them all. I have told the manager there needs to be some kind of QT system in place , he understands but can do nothing! ***** Policy!
So there is only one thing to do , STOP BUYING from them , make it so not profitable for them they just stop carrying Saltwater fish!

 

[murph]

it probably already is not profitable for them and is considered a loss lead to get people into the stores to buy the dry goods that are marked up a hundred percent or more. This is also why they refuse to spend more money in regards to QT systems.
Many LFS loss lead or sell at cost fish and or tanks in order to sell all the other items associated with the hobby at a significant profit, so i doubt this consumer "sturtegery" will have any effect at all.

 

[seattle]

Originally Posted by sharkbait9
How ***** policy is that no fish gets a qt. place all fish in tanks and treat if necessary.
***** also doesn’t allow drip acclimation either. Claiming it take up to much room in the fish depart and stress the fish
Hence the reason I don’t work on Thursday when the order comes in.

MY ***** broke the rules! :scared: The reason is probley cause Gig Harbor is a city with alot of scenic views and wealthy people.Alot of them have saltwater fishtanks and that is the nearest "lfs" Of course the real lfs are about just as far away from here to Gig Harbor *****.
Not one of there fish were sick and they had tons of saltwater fish there.They had absoulutley no symptoms which is weird. Mine drip accumilates and has coral,and on and off has live rock and inverts.

 

[bach]

OK I did not mean to bash *****, as I said the one near my home is pretty good. And I did not realize this was a reoccuring thread, guess I did not think about it too much. I just felt bad about the fish I saw, my LFS's and ***** apparently do a great job. I will still shop at the one near home and I now understand that the growth of the hobby has positive and negative results. Sorry to bring up such a volitile issue.

 

[sharkbait9]

Originally Posted by bach
OK I did not mean to bash *****, as I said the one near my home is pretty good. And I did not realize this was a reoccuring thread, guess I did not think about it too much. I just felt bad about the fish I saw, my LFS's and ***** apparently do a great job. I will still shop at the one near home and I now understand that the growth of the hobby has positive and negative results. Sorry to bring up such a volitile issue.
Its not your fault and i'm glad your ***** breaks the rule its only in the animals well being.
***** is hit or miss every where. This will always be a volatile topic, but should not be banned. Love it or hate it voice your opinion. Let other keepers now of good petcos and brutalize the bad.
***** will never go away but at least with the experience of others WE CAN slow the selling of fish in bad stores.
It seems with all this communication technology we have at our finger tips a lot of people forgot to use it and say “hey this “X store” sux but this “X” store is good. The ones that do voice their opinion are chastised for saying something, the truth is truth and if it bothers “ you” skip over the thread.
It like what’s going on in the world, we don’t need the government or big brother to oversee and block what may offend some. If you don’t like skip over it or move on or change the channel. Take responsibility for your own actions and your self and don’t expect a mod or the government to do it for you.
Anyway, like I said work for this company part time mainly to challenge my self to see if I can make a difference in a store and keep me real busy.
From what I can see, pretty much every store in the Monmouth county NJ area is bad and that’s a shame.
We order our fish from ORA and tropical marine wholesalers. When I personally go to TMW they have nice healthy fish/coral and a awesome selection, that’s how I get my super nice coral and fish.
When they get to the Eatontown store they float for a couple of minutes and get dumped into the tanks.
Sure they have policy’s that are written but the way its done is another. If the managers of the store are fish keeping ignorant then those fish are in trouble. I got yelled at because I turned the lights off and dripped an order that came in. Those fish and inverts looked real nice and health after they acclimated themselves.
I got yelled at for doing a hypo treatments on a stack after our fish specialist dropped fish in the stack with ick, after the hypo treatment and the fish were better I had to explain the hypo treatment even further but was told don’t do that its against policy, I still do.
Any way the ***** I work at is a Pisces store or flagship store (Eatontown NJ) as they like to call it.
The reason ***** has a lot of problems they have is they hire people for eight dollars an hour that have never owned a tank, give them a test and if that person passes the test they become a fish specialist, (full time employees of course). All the while I’m a fish tech and dance circles around the fish specialist and get yelled at because real reefers walk see I’m not working and leave. The fish specialist feeling got hurt because he’s the fish specialist t and they should be asking him the questions. (See my point)
I now have pretty much taken over the stacks and maintain them as much as I can with out the idiot reversing what I do.
My over all answer keep posting what one’s suck and what one’s are good. Let others learn from our mistakes.
This is a subject i can never ignore, first hand working experiance is better then a shoppers experiance.

 

[sharkbait9]

Originally Posted by ophiura
These threads come up all to often.
And invariably, someone complains about quality, but goes on to praise the price on other items.
IF YOU HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THE CARE OF ANIMALS AT *****, OR ANY OTHER STORE, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM. YOU ARE SIMPLY MAKING THE STORE PROFITABLE.
What has come out of the innumerable previous ***** bash threads? If you do not like their animal care. Then do not shop there for anything!
I have seen equally terribly tanks and fish at LFS' locally.
But the size of ***** makes it a particularly easy, and satisfying, target

Your right……look at me for an example, I hate tropicquarium in ocean twp NJ they suck and lie like dogs to make a buck ……………………but mom and pop shops tend to rely on word of mouth and the experiences of others.
If mom and pop shops suck words gets around and they go under, right? Well big business don’t need to worry, why? Cause they sell other products. BUT if the fish sales slow down and they do, trust me on that they do then that particular store can not order fish, strictly enforced ***** policy. Percentage of sales dictate allowance on fish orders.
So word of mouth and a forum to post the good, bad and the ugly is a good thing.
Check out Tropicquariums new sign (not my pic but it fit when i talk about trop)

 

[jrthomas40]

i work at my local ***** as well and the guy that was there before me knows nothing and is horrible so they bring me in because i have some knowledge because i keep a tank but they dont want to give me the hours so that i can fix some of the problems they are having...needless to say i am quiting for several reasons...if i cant/not allowed to do the job properly then i cant stay then the other "specialist" are asses that think they know it all and can talk to people anyway they want then when someone fires back they cant take it and wants to tell the manager

 

[sharkbait9]

Originally Posted by jrthomas40
i work at my local ***** as well and the guy that was there before me knows nothing and is horrible so they bring me in because i have some knowledge because i keep a tank but they dont want to give me the hours so that i can fix some of the problems they are having...needless to say i am quiting for several reasons...if i cant/not allowed to do the job properly then i cant stay then the other "specialist" are asses that think they know it all and can talk to people anyway they want then when someone fires back they cant take it and wants to tell the manager

 

[jrthomas40]

oh yeah i will say that the Regional specialist guy tells me why there is no QT, what the goal for all aquatics dept. are, then tells me that the store i work at suffers a 120% loss from the aquatics department alone

 

[murph]

IMO there is a pretty much tried and true method of bring down holding tank losses and disease problems for any lfs. The primary problem is parasites (ich). Infected fish are then venerable to secondary infections. Result is large holding tank losses and poor presentation of product. Sick and dead fish
Remove any porous materials from the holding tanks. Rock, gavel etc.
Maintain a constant copper level of .20 or 2 chelated. Test every day and maintain constant level
Hold all new arrivals for three days to allow any adult parasites to drop off.
If it is necessary to provide cover for certain species use PVC.
It really is as simple as that and its only when you ignore the simple answers that your problems become complex. I have seen this method bring down holding tank losses to ten percent and is by no means an expensive method. Should pay for itself if it reduces losses.
Excuses for not doing this.... copper causes internal damage; short term carefully monitored copper exposure should not present a problem with the exception a few species not including tangs or angels. Commercial curators copper and usually add formalin to the equation also when it comes to new arrivals
We are worried some one will introduce copper into there reef systems; simply provide explicate instructions for acclimation procedures. The fish sold on this web site are evidently held in copper judging from the instructions to acclimate inverts and fish in separate containers.
We are worried copper will end up in our invert holding tanks; certainly a possibility but not the consumers problem. Put systems on opposite sides of store. it is unlikely your slave wadge employee will carry a bucket of copper treated water that far. Chain the copper bottle to the fish only holding tanks.