Worst Fish Advice Ever

discus4everGrl

Superstar Fish
May 24, 2005
1,055
0
0
47
Chesapeake, Va
#1
OK I thought it would be funny (now, not then) to post the worst ever fish advice you have ever recieved and what happened. I'll go first -

Two years ago we got a huge hurricane. The electric went out for 7 days! After about the 3rd day I packed up my daughter and drove north to Delaware to stay with my mom. My husband stayed behind to "take care of the fish". He got concerned that fish weren't getting any oxygen, soooo....he went to petsmart and asked the fish guy if he had any battery operated airpumps. Of course they didn't but the guy told my husband to put "a little" hydrogen peroxide in the tank. My husband proceeded to add a 2 LITTER BOTTLE to the tank! All the fish, (55gallons worth) went belly up in a matter of minutes! Maybe that's why we're getting divorced now. *celebrate
 

depthC

Superstar Fish
Feb 24, 2003
1,417
0
0
WI
#3
I cant say it was bad advice but maybe bad execution. A whole 2 liters? Damn, anyone in their right mind wouldnt do that ... well lol maybe that is why you are getting divorced :p

H202 can supply oxygen to your tank, i believe. But i cant say for sure because i cant recall from where i read about it. But it breaks down into oxygen and water so it should be safe just not in large amounts.

Andrew
 

Kuroshio

Large Fish
Jan 29, 2005
182
0
0
washington
Visit site
#4
ok I know i mentioned this before but can't resist..
(Petsmart professional) advised me to "scrub" out bleach in a fish tank with a lot of soapy water, because bleach can stick to the sides of the glass for like months!! (I never knew!!) of course he was more interested in telling me about his GTO...lol. Fortunately I don't have a hubby to follow such advice :)

and then there's that one member that keeps telling everyone to use ammolock......
 

FroggyFox

Forum Manager
Moderator
May 16, 2003
8,589
10
38
42
Colorado
#5
Kuroshio I hope you went back and told that petsmart person that simple dechlorinator deactivates bleach....lol wow...I can't believe people sometimes.

I can't say I have ever had anyone give me any outlandish advice...at least none that come to mind at the moment.
 

Lotus

Ultimate Fish
Moderator
Aug 26, 2003
15,115
13
38
Southern California
home.earthlink.net
#8
I've heard more stories than gotten advice, for example:

-- "The reason the water level in your tank is going down is because the fish are drinking the water"
-- The lady who thought fish were expensive because she replaced them every two weeks, because they all died in that time (I guess she kept this up for at least a few months)
-- The lady who thought that hand feeding meant taking the fish out of the water, holding it in her hand, and stuffing food in its mouth

... and of course I always hate the boxes for the tank kits that show a 5g tank with 7 or 8 goldfish in it :mad:

In general, I don't ask questions in an LFS I don't know, or if I don't know the staff. I just don't want to hear the stupid things they're going to say.
 

supapoopa

Large Fish
Mar 28, 2005
126
0
0
Bay Area, CA
#9
Lotus said:
... and of course I always hate the boxes for the tank kits that show a 5g tank with 7 or 8 goldfish in it :mad:
When worked in a fish dept i would hate it when the customer brought up the pic with a bazillion fish in it and why they couldn't do the same. :rolleyes: Then they would give you the funny look because they just spent $$$ on a tiny little 3 gal tank that they thought they could stuff full of mollies and baby bala sharks. They would think you were wrong with only recommending some guppies or a betta.

The eclipse system boxes come to mind...



their 3 gal... *thumbsdow





Worst story I've heard is someone telling a customer looking at a arowana, that they would could go with neon tetras. *thumbsdow *laughingc
 

Last edited:
#10
i dont really listen to any of my lfs's advice except for one of them cause its an old fish store so they have some experienced people there that worked there for like 10 years and stuff but otherwise i dont like the rest cause they always seem to try to rip me off. Like one time when i was asking one of the guys at my lfs if they sold any cheaper phosphate test kits cause i was looking at a $15 one and they didn't have the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals phosphate test kit in stock and the lfs guy told me that the pharmaceutical one was $40 and how the phosphate tests kits didnt come cheap when i was just at home looking at the price of it on bigalsonline ($5.49).... after that i never ask the guys at the lfs for anything unless i need them to get some fish for me... oh and the next week when i went to the lfs i saw the pharmaceutical kit and it was like $7... not realy fish advice but its a fish related experience at my lfs :)
 

FishGeek

Elite Fish
May 13, 2005
4,294
5
0
37
South Carolina
#11
I think that the worst thing that I have been told before was that you dont count catfish and shrimp and snails as part of your tank. In other words they have no effect or very very little on your bioload. I was told this when I was still a newbe and I believed it till I came on here.
 

shimmercat

Medium Fish
Jun 8, 2005
63
0
0
41
Southern Maryland
#14
I started working at Petsmart and was put in the fish department without ever having had a tank, so I don't doubt that I've given some bad advice! But I almost always try to ask someone with more knowledge than me, so at least I tried. And now I've got my own little tank and have been reading up on it so much, I feel like I can at least explain how to cycle now. XD

But what amazes me is how often people come in looking for me to SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS. Or they completely ignore what I say! On Saturday, this guy came in with a dead goldfish. He talked for a little bit to the other guy in the department (Bryan), and then started looking at the tanks. A few minutes later, he flagged me down and asked me for a specific goldfish, and I got it for him.

Then Bryan called me over, and told me that that guy had already returned two fish when he returned that goldfish, and that Bryan had tested his water and it was completely toxic. He had refused to get a new fish for the guy until he cleaned up his tank. The guy obviously just ignored him completely. :c I sentenced a poor goldfish to death. I couldn't have known better, but still.

Other times, people will come in and say "What size filter do I need for my tank?" My obvious question is "How big is your tank?" 3/4s of the time they have no idea. I have to walk them over to the tank section and hope that they can pick it out. ^^;;

Or I will tell them that they shouldn't buy the fish at the same time as the tank, and they will insist anyway. Or I would recommend a filtered tank (we actually have a nice 2 1/2 gallon kit that would be great for a betta or single goldfish) over a bowl, and they think that I'm just upselling.

If the person asks about a fish or a machine that I don't know about, I ALWAYS suggest that they research it online. I've even recommended MFT a few times. I doubt they listen, though!

People think that fish are something they can just dump in a cup of water and they will do fine. How wrong they are!
 

#15
Reminds me of another walmart visit two days ago... I was admiring (or actually, pitying) their fish section... This lady was standing there waiting for some help. She flags down a worker who didn't work at that section and the workers says "This isnt my section, look for the guy in the aisle". (By the way, imagine this in a non-English speaking accent, humor me k) The lady couldn't fine anyone, so she goes back to the worker lady. She sighs as she goes to the fish section to help her. She picks up the plastic container thingy, dumps water in there from a goldfish tank, sets it down, and says "What fish you want?" The lady says "I want this one balloon molly and a sailfin molly". The lady stands there confused as ever, and says "Which fish you want?". (lol) The lady POINTS out the fish to her. She asks if she knew if these fish would get along with her goldfish. The lady answers "Yes, fish like all fish". (didn't speak English remember that...) She walks over there, flips up the lid and I SWEAR starts diggin in that fish tank like a hungry kid eatin popcorn. She literally would SWOOP in there with the net and attacked all the fish. (of course, STILL missing the fish she's trying to get) Oh my god, I can't explain it. It was just so horrible it was kind of funny. Cruelty = horrible. How absolutely stupid she was = funny. Anyway, about 5 swoops later, I see a poor fishy FLY up and hit the light, and she goes "oops, ay ay ay".... I swear, I don't think this lady had ever seen a fish before. Did I mention she was using the smallest net possible? Of course, the lady gets so mad she says "ya know what, nevermind" and leaves. This is the millionth time I've seen inexperienced/careless walmart workers (i'm not saying all of them, just some) be so cruel to fish. I'm not blaming the workers AT ALL. I'm blaming Wal-Mart for putting them there. This lady of course wasn't in that section, but still, she coulda called someone else if she knew she had no idea what she was doing.
 

#16
i know excatly how you feel. it seems like every time i want to get a certain fish from walmart (like my otos) no one is there to help so i finally find someone from another department and she grabs this little net and goes like really quickly swishing around and squished one oto... then i was like nevermind i want the other one so she finally gets me some and when she gets them she puts them in the bag and i find a dead one so she makes all these dissaproval noises and stuff then we left. Another time a guy was there and i was gonna get an angel fish from walmart (i know its not the best place but they have the best color and fin i wanted) sooooo this guy gets this net and i point at one of the angels and he gets it for me then i point to the other and like half the tank had plants for sale so what he does is gets the net and starts to mix all the water around so the angel will swim to the front and when i say mix he literally got the net and turned it around the tank and there was a little tornado going on in the tank and i all this poo starts flying everywhere and the plants come out of the rockwool and the pot and i'm like OMG.... but i still got it and i'm glad i saved the 2 angels from any more terrorizing :)